The brain behind Orkut.

The brain behind Orkut.

Orkut Büyükkökten is a software engineer originally from Turkey who developed the social networking service called Orkut while working at Google. He developed Orkut as an independent project while working at Google, the outgrowth of a company policy whereby engineers can spend 20% of their time working on personal interests.
Orkut is an old Turkish word that means "city of happiness, pleasure, joy, luck,".
Originally from the Turkish city of Konya, Büyükkökten obtained a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Information Science from Bilkent University in Ankara, and earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. His research at Stanford focused on search and efficient PDA usage.