Epstein Secrets

in the "Gooveau Riche" era. Sergey Brin and Larry Page guard their privacy so closely that little is known about where they live other than it's in Palo Alto, and the most impressive cars they own are Priuses. When Brin and Page met with the Stanford grad students who started YouTube to negotiate the deal

et. But a report in the March issue of Vanity Fair, on newsstands this week, unmasks Epstein's mystery image. Epstein wasn't exactly the top gun at Bear Steams, as he claims - and left the firm amid a swirl of rumors and an • SEC violation, the article said. His mentor in high finance was Steve Hoffenberg,

Commonsense Knowledge," Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Acquiring (and Using) Linguistic (and World) Knowledge for information Access, Palo Alto, CA, March 2002, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (2002). (24.) M. Minsky, The Society of Mind, Simon & Schuster, New York (1985).

ose personal friends with people with whom he went to high school and, to this day, maintains close business contacts with his former colleagues at Bear Steams. Those who know Mr. Epstein well describe him admittedly as quirky but certainly not immoral; and overall as kind, generous and warm-hearted. They

Commonsense Knowledge," Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Acquiring (and Using) Linguistic (and World) Knowledge for Information Access, Palo Alto, CA, March 2002, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (2002). (24.) M. Minsky, The Society of Mind, Simon & Schuster, New York (1985).

d his successes without the personal guidance and support of others. These key people first identified the promise in Mr. Epstein and brought him to Bear Steams and Company, Inc. There, starting in 1976 at the age of 23 as a floor trader's junior assistant, he became in 1980 a limited partner. Among the ver