Arkady Volozh

Arkady Yurievich Volozh (born 11 February 1964) is a Russian billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, computer scientist, and philanthropist, best known as the founder and CEO of Yandex. Yandex is a technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning; it is one of Europe's largest Internet companies, operating Russia's most popular search engine. Volozh co-founded several IT enterprises and in his early days, and pioneered the development of search with new technology advancements and search software companies.

Arkady Volozh
Born (1964-02-11) 11 February 1964
Atyrau, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union (now Kazakhstan)
CitizenshipRussian, Maltese[1]
Alma materGubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forPrincipal founder of Yandex
Net worthUS$2.6 billion (December 2020)[2]
Spouse(s)Married
Children3

Early life

He attended Republican School of Physics and Mathematics in Almaty, Kazakhstan,[3] and then studied applied mathematics at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, graduating in 1986.[2]

Career

Volozh is a serial entrepreneur with a background in computer science. After working at a state pipeline research institute, he started a small business importing personal computers from Austria. He went on to co-found several IT enterprises besides Yandex, including a Russian provider of wireless networking technology InfiNet Wireless, and CompTek International, one of the largest distributors of network and telecommunications equipment in Russia.[4]

Volozh co-founded CompTek in 1989. He also started working on search in 1989, which led to him establishing Arkadia Company in 1990. The company was developing search software. In 1993, Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich developed a search engine for "non-structured information with Russian morphology".[5]

Arkady co-founded Yandex in 1997, later leaving his position as CEO of CompTek International to become the CEO of Yandex in 2000.[6]

As part of a larger effort to spread machine learning, Volozh and the Yandex team established the Yandex School of Data Analysis in 2007, offering a free master's level program in data science. The program has grown to include six branches, online courses, and other learning programs through multiple partnerships. In 2018, the school opened a branch in Tel Aviv to launch a one-year career advancement program in machine learning.[7][8]

Personal life

Volozh is married, has three children and lives in Moscow. As of December 2020, he is worth an estimated US$2.6 billion.[9]

In early 2016 Volozh purchased Maltese citizenship even though he has no ties to Malta. Since Malta is in the European Union this automatically qualifies Volozh as a citizen of the European Union.

References
  1. "Основатель "Яндекса" купил гражданство Мальты". Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  2. "Forbes profile: Arkady Volozh". Forbes. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  3. "Миллиарды "Яндекса". В процессе поиска". www.forbes.ru. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  4. "Arkady Volozh". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  5. Andy Atkins-Krüger, Search Engine Land. Yandex: Not Copying But Searching For Google's Underbelly. Retrieved 2011-04-30.
  6. Management team Archived 5 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Yandex corporate site. Retrieved 2011-04-30.
  7. "The IT behemoth that you might have never heard of".
  8. "Yandex Partners With Tel Aviv University to Launch AI Study Program, Scholarships".
  9. "Arkady Volozh - Forbes List of Billionaires 2020". Forbes. Retrieved 1 December 2020.

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