The faces of Silicon Valley

A who’s-who of the West coast’s destination for innovators in technology.

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Larry Page

Larry Page co-founded Google in 1998. Page met fellow Google co-founder Sergey Brin at Stanford in 1995. The two started collaborating on a search engine called BackRub. The service operated on Stanford's servers for more than a year before it started taking up too much of the university's bandwidth. BackRub eventually became Google.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin co-founded Google in 1998. At the time, he and Larry Page had four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet search engine could change the world.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Eric Schmidt

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt joined the company in 2001 and has helped build the search engine into one of the most popular Web sites on the Internet.

Dita Alangkara / AP

Shantanu Narayen

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen first joined the company in 1998 and helped Adobe acquire Omniture in 2009 and Macromedia in 2005. Before joining Adobe, Narayen was the co-founder of Pictra, which specialized early on in photo file sharing over the Internet.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Steve Jobs

Apple CEO Steve Jobs co-founded the company in 1978 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. He was ousted from the company in a power struggle in 1985, but returned by 1997. Following his return, Apple shares immediately started to climb.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Tim Cook

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, first joined the firm in 1998. He previously worked for Compaq and IBM.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Bill Gates

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to start Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen. He left his post as CEO in 2008 and now devotes his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jose Luis Magana / AP

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook. Zuckerberg launched the social networking platform in his Harvard dorm room in 2004. It has since become the most popular social networking Web site in the world. The film "The Social Network" is based on Zuckerberg’s early days creating Facebook.

Matthew Staver / Bloomberg

Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook. Sandberg, one of the few high-profile women in Silicon Valley, left her job as a Google vice president in 2008 to join the social media company.

Peter Foley / Bloomberg

Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake became a major investor in the struggling social network platform MySpace after News Corp. sold the majority of MySpace in June for $35 million. Timberlake, who starred in the film "The Social Network" is said to have an office there now.

Patrik Stollarz / AFP/Getty Images

Mark Hurd and Safra Catz

Oracle co-presidents Mark Hurd, left, and Safra Catz at Oracle World in San Francisco in 2010. Catz first joined the company in 1999 and has been named Fortune Magazine's 11th most powerful businesswoman in 2010. Hurd is the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Larry Ellison

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison founded the company in 1977. According to CNN Money, Ellison was the highest-paid CEO in 2010, earning over $84.5 million.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Ashton Kutcher

Actor Ashton Kutcher is a well-established figure in Silicon Valley social media circles. Kutcher invested in the geo-location social networking application Foursquare and the popular iPad application Flipboard. He is said to have recently invested in Airbnb, a Web site that allows travelers to seek out renters with spare rooms. He has also reportedly invested in the highly secretive project "Amen," which is widely rumored to be a social networking venture.

Brendan McDermid / Reuters

Ann Livermore

Ann Livermore has been Hewlett-Packard’s executive vice president of services since 2004. She has been with the company for more than two decades.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga teamed up with Google's Eric Schmidt to invest in Backplane, a social media Web site that will launch in late August for fans of sports and pop culture. The venture has raised $1 million in funding, according to a July 26 Reuter's report.

Simin Wang / AFP/Getty Images

Pete Cashmore

In 2005, Pete Cashmore founded Mashable, a social media and digital news Web site, as a blog to track the latest trends in technology. He was named among the "TIME 100" by Time magazine in 2010.

Charles Sykes / AP

Padmasree Warrior

Padmasree Warrior is the chief technology officer at Cisco. She has been with the company since 2007. Prior to Cisco, Warrior was the chief technology officer for Motorola.

/ PR Newswire

Jack Dorsey

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey also founded Square, an app for iPhones and Androids that lets users swipe credit cards from their smart phones. Dorsey moderated the first presidential Twitter town hall in July at the White House.

Mark Lennihan / AP

Bono

U2 band frontman Bono (left) is an investor in Elevation Partners, a fund that invests in different media properties and ideas. The publication 24/7 Wall Street named him the "worst investor in America," for Elevation Ventures's holdings in Palm, Forbes and Move.com.

George Pimentel / Getty Images

Evan Williams

Former Twitter co-founder and onetime CEO Evan Williams also co-founded Pyra Labs, which created Blogger, a popular blog platform obtained by Google in 2003. Williams served as the CEO of Twitter from 2008-2010 after helping found the company in 2006.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Carol Bartz

Carol Bartz became Yahoo's CEO in 2009. The company struggled as it worked to compete with popular Web sites Google and Facebook. On Tuesday, September 6 Yahoo announced that Bartz would no longer serve as the company's CEO. IN a message to staff Bartz wrote, "I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board."

Paul Sakuma / AP

Rep. Anna Eshoo

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) represents Silicon Valley and recently won a tech leadership post in the House, serving as the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk

PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, left, poses with founder Elon Musk. Thiel sold the online payment service to the online auction site eBay in 2002. He now invests in other companies, including Facebook.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Featured Photo Galleries

PARIS, FRANCE - MAY 29: Serena Williams of USA stretches to plays a forehand in her women's singles first round match between Serena Williams of USA and Virginie Razzano of France during day three of the French Open at Roland Garros on May 29, 2012 in Paris, France. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

French Open results: Serena Williams loses, Maria Sharapova cruises

The American tennis star lost in the first round of a Grand Slam event.

Winnie Pajcic, 9, holds on to a railing as she leans back in the wind during a visit to Stockton Park in Ortega, Fla., in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Beryl on Monday May 28, 2012. Beryl came ashore early Monday near Jacksonville Beach with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Florida Times-Union, Kelly Jordan)

Tropical storm Beryl, Flugtag, Rolling Thunder, Memorial Day and more in the day in photos

Tropical storm Beryl, Flugtag, Rolling Thunder, Memorial Day and more.

Camels rest at a watering hole outside the town of Aleg May 25, 2012. REUTERS/Joe Penney (MAURITANIA - Tags: ANIMALS SOCIETY)

Camels, tigers, turtles, a giant stag beetle and more in animal views

Camels, tigers, turtles, a giant stag beetle and more.

ANNAPOLIS, MD- MAY 29: Graduates cheer as the Blue Angels fly over during the 100th anniversary of the United States Naval Academy Graduation and Commissioning Ceremonies in Annapolis, Maryland, on Tuesday, May 29, 2012. U.S Sec. of Defense Leon Edward Panetta gave the graduation address. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

U.S. Naval Academy graduation

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave the commencement address at the ceremony.

LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 26: Singer/actress Jennifer Lopez (C) performs with dancers during the Q'Viva! The Chosen Live show at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on May 26, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Lil Jon, Eddie Van Halen, Mariah Carey and other celebrities.

Doc Watson, bluegrass and folk legend, dies at 89

The blind singer and guitarist was a Grammy winner, known for his flat-picking style of guitar playing.

Henry, a calf, sustained a head wound and required stitches after being slashed over the weekend.

Farm animals attacked in Fairfax

A calf, two goats and a chicken were slashed over the weekend at Frying Pan Farm Park in Herndon.

COVINGTON, LA - MAY 14: Brother Emmanuel Labrise of St. Joseph's Abbey prepares a casket for lining on May 15, 2012 in Covington, Louisiana. Louisiana law forbids those who are not licensed funeral directors from selling caskets. And since Hurricane Katrina leveled the timberlands that once provided the main source of funding for the abbey, the monks have attempted to make a living by building and selling simple cypress caskets. The monks won their first round last year, and have a hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in June. (Photo by Sean Gardner/For the Washington Post)

Louisiana monks fight for the right to sell coffins

Federal court case pits a group of monks against the funeral home industry.

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