Google Founder Sergey Brin Has a Secret Disaster Relief Squad
Global Support and Development is made up of ex-military men and Brin’s former bodyguards. But their mission isn’t warfare.
When Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas last September, the small island of Abaco was among the hardest hit. Dorian stalled over the island for two days, unleashing some of the strongest winds ever recorded in the Caribbean.....MUCH MORE
Shortly after the storm died down, and long before Bahamian government aid arrived, an American disaster assistance response team arrived onboard a high-speed super-yacht. Access crews set to work clearing roads with chainsaws, so that survivors could find their way to the team’s medical staff. Their doctors and paramedics ultimately helped triage or treat nearly one in 10 of the island’s population.
The team’s marine specialists used sonar systems to survey the sea floor for hazards, while aviation experts set up an air traffic control system at Abaco’s damaged airport. The operation allowed over 1100 civilian and military aid flights to land, and many evacuees to escape. The team claims to have even provided detailed satellite images of the devastation to Bahamian authorities.
But Abaco’s islanders did not have the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders to thank for these rapid interventions. Some of the first responders were employed by Global Support and Development (GSD), a secretive disaster charity that The Daily Beast has learned was founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Nearly half of GSD’s employees have military backgrounds, and the force is being run by Brin’s former bodyguards.
For the past five years, GSD has been quietly using high-tech systems to rapidly deliver humanitarian assistance during high-profile disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. These range from drones and super-yachts to a gigantic new airship that the outfit apparently hopes will make it easier to get aid supplies into disaster zones.
And just as Google famously treats—or, pre-COVID-19 lockdown, treated—employees to catered lunches, free gyms, and on-site massages, some of GSD’s humanitarian workers have enjoyed strawberry ice cream and freshly laundered clothes on board a super-yacht during disaster deployments.
GSD is emblematic of a trend among Silicon Valley billionaires, who increasingly see philanthropy as just another industry they feel uniquely placed to disrupt with new techniques and technologies. Whether it is Elon Musk’s attempt to rescue Thai schoolchildren with a high-tech submersible, or Brin’s co-founder Larry Page organizing flu vaccinations in the Bay Area, tech billionaires are here to do good—whether we like it or not.
The idea for GSD was born in March 2015, when Cyclone Pam pounded Vanuatu, leaving many communities without homes, water, or power. Brin owns an $80 million, 15-cabin super-yacht called the Dragonfly that had been sailing near the island chain, without him on board, when the cyclone struck.
“Having spent the past few years cruising these beautiful areas, we have made many friends and developed relationships with the local communities,” the Dragonfly’s captain, Mike Gregory, said in a video made shortly afterward. “It was a horrible feeling knowing that the people of Vanuatu were suffering, and we felt compelled to assist.”
Gregory says he contacted the yacht’s owner (Brin), who in turn talked to Grant Dawson, an ex-U.S. Navy lieutenant and for many years an employee of Brin’s family office. Dawson, now GSD’s CEO, gave a speech at the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health in Maryland last year in which he detailed the charity’s operations. He did not identify Brin as GSD’s patron, but a filing with regulators in California shows that Brin was the charity’s sole donor in 2018, the latest year for which public records are available....
