Craig Silverstein, Google’s first employee, leaves for Khan Academy

Craig Silverstein, the first person to join Google after founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is moving on. A newsletter published yesterday mentioned that the developer was leaving Google to take a job at educational video provider Khan Academy, and Google has confirmed his departure to AllThingsD. Silverstein, who had extensive search engine experience before joining Google, was hired by Brin and Page early in the company’s life, helping to develop its nascent page ranking capabilities. By the time Google filed an IPO in 2004, he was serving as the technology director.

Despite his importance, Silverstein stayed largely behind the scenes during his time at Google. Now that he’s departed, however, he’s become part of the company’s founding myth. To AllThingsD, for example, he’s the embodiment of “Good Google,” the part of the company that revels in changing the world through new technology. Amusingly, even the first result on Google for Silverstein harks back to the company’s early days: it’s Silverstein’s home page from his time at Stanford, bearing a list of publications coauthored with Sergey Brin.