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The greatest investment David Cowan never made was sitting in a garage he was actively trying to avoid.
A college friend had rented her garage to two Stanford students building a new search engine. She repeatedly tried to introduce them. Cowan was not interested.
Bessemer Venture Partners – where Cowan is a partner – now recounts the moment on its own website. Faced with another pair of students carrying another internet idea, Cowan asked how he could leave the house “without going anywhere near your garage.”
The students were Larry Page and Sergey Brin; the search engine was Google.
