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Leg up from dad. He even got work experience in the actual department in which his father worked...which surely wouldn't happen today. ...but this is kind of a

Leg up from dad. He even got work experience in the actual department in which his father worked...which surely wouldn't happen today. ...but this is kind of a Google thing. Page was the same (and somehow still didn't know how to code Backrub despite having a BSc and MSc in comp sci and the link idea came from Robin Li...made quite a career out of claiming the genius of other people as your own).

wslh 7y ago
I am sure he is a business genius, there is no doubt about this and there is not doubt the Google search engine was the best solution at the time they launched.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  The one thing that, I think, we can be totally certain of is that neither Larry or Sergey are business geniuses. I can't actually think of more inept business leaders...even in that rarefied category of utter incompetence that is the dual share class crew, they look pretty bad (worse than Zuck even). Page, in particular, seems to have a real talent for finding creative ways to light big piles of cash (other people's obv) on fire. Yes, Brin seems genuinely intelligent and the work he, presumably, did on Pagerank obviously had tremendous business value. Everything that I have read about Page suggests that the only distinct idea he has ever had is that he is a genius (the story about the monorail at Michigan struck me as the grandiose, self-important delusions of a privileged infant...that he tried to do this as an adult, and then again when he was in his thirties is...just sad).
  - wslh 7y ago
    You are confusing about being a genius in a specialized field like computer science that has stricter ways of measurement to being a genius in business which is mainly defined by throughput, even if the heavy lifting is done by 99.999% of their employees. It is obvious that you need to also be lucky, but you need to be more than lucky to sustain a business for decades. Adding here the Microsoft case, where Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer bought the DOS from Tim Paterson but they built a sustainable business since the 70s while hundreds of competitors died. So, it was not just one hit.
  - thrwaway3479 7y ago
    >The one thing that, I think, we can be totally certain of is that neither Larry or Sergey are business geniuses. Which is why they were successful. When they first had to monetize Google, they didn't want to fill it with the large intrusive banner ads popular at the time. They put small unobtrusive text ads instead, since they didn't want to suffer the experience. I think it is safe to say that if they were what you call a "business genius", Google would have been filled to the brim with flashy ads, netting them tens of thousands of dollars early on, and leaving them as company worth thousands. It's a good thing they were steered by higher motives than business sense.
  - dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago
    I’d love to be the kind of business ignoramus that can create Google.
peteretep 7y ago
Many millions of people have this level of privilege worldwide, but very few have founded Google-sized companies. Acknowledging the distorting effect of privilege is important, but this seems like you’re throwing out the baby with the bath water here.
- mehrdada 7y ago
  You kind of prove the parent's point though. Given a large enough sample size of all the people with privilege, it is conceivable to imagine that Google-sized success would happen to someone in that group at random, and other explanations could be simply overfitting to the data. (Not saying this matches my personal worldview, but just analyzing the commentary)
  - peteretep 7y ago
    > Given a large enough sample size of all the people with privilege, it is conceivable to imagine that Google-sized success would happen to someone in that group at random, and other explanations could be simply overfitting to the data. This is true of all groups, though, so doesn't give us any information.
    - ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
      Enough information to hero worship, apparently.
- zerr 7y ago
  Not everyone wants to found a company though - you can just enjoy your privileged high quality of life.
  - peteretep 7y ago
    > His father is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. I mean, he still needed to get a job
hyperpallium 7y ago
Can you elaborate on (1). Larry not knowing how to code Backrub (sounds like you don't just mean that at first you don't know how to code something that has never been done before). (2) Larry claiming other's ideas as his, particularly "the link idea".
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Robin Li (who founded Baidu) created link-based search ranking (and patented it in 1996, two years before the famous papers). Scott Hassan (a Stanford research assistant) coded Backrub. Page took a run at it but it didn't work. And it had actually been done several times before (again, it just sounds like you have no idea you are just assuming these guys were geniuses...several mining applications already existed, the largest came from DEC).
  - hyperpallium 7y ago
    backrub/pagerank is a specific kind of link-based search ranking. Link-based ranking was well-know before e.g. citation count. Was Robin Li's the same kind? What were the "several times" backrub had been implemented before? A "mining application" is a very general concept, and does not imply a specific algorithm. I was not assuming but requesting information; and not "again" but once. FWIW I'm intrigued by the school of thought that Google's success was largely due to just giving people what they want. Instead of crowded portals, just search, fast search, and search that's relevant. When I tested it at the time, I found competing search pretty similar for relevance. But google was faster.
    - hyperpallium 7y ago
      Too late to edit, but I'd forgotten paid-placement was a thing in search results before google. Can you believe it? Of course, adwords has similarities (and copied from overture/goto), but don't masquerade as search results (though becoming less distinguishable over time...).
mjfl 7y ago
you are what is called in some circles "a hater".
strikelaserclaw 7y ago
Other than steve jobs, pretty much 95% founders these days come from upper middle class with professional parents (doctors, engineers, professors, lawyers etc...)

wslh 7y ago

I am sure he is a business genius, there is no doubt about this and there is not doubt the Google search engine was the best solution at the time they launched.

hogFeast 7y ago
The one thing that, I think, we can be totally certain of is that neither Larry or Sergey are business geniuses. I can't actually think of more inept business leaders...even in that rarefied category of utter incompetence that is the dual share class crew, they look pretty bad (worse than Zuck even). Page, in particular, seems to have a real talent for finding creative ways to light big piles of cash (other people's obv) on fire. Yes, Brin seems genuinely intelligent and the work he, presumably, did on Pagerank obviously had tremendous business value. Everything that I have read about Page suggests that the only distinct idea he has ever had is that he is a genius (the story about the monorail at Michigan struck me as the grandiose, self-important delusions of a privileged infant...that he tried to do this as an adult, and then again when he was in his thirties is...just sad).
- wslh 7y ago
  You are confusing about being a genius in a specialized field like computer science that has stricter ways of measurement to being a genius in business which is mainly defined by throughput, even if the heavy lifting is done by 99.999% of their employees. It is obvious that you need to also be lucky, but you need to be more than lucky to sustain a business for decades. Adding here the Microsoft case, where Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer bought the DOS from Tim Paterson but they built a sustainable business since the 70s while hundreds of competitors died. So, it was not just one hit.
- thrwaway3479 7y ago
  >The one thing that, I think, we can be totally certain of is that neither Larry or Sergey are business geniuses. Which is why they were successful. When they first had to monetize Google, they didn't want to fill it with the large intrusive banner ads popular at the time. They put small unobtrusive text ads instead, since they didn't want to suffer the experience. I think it is safe to say that if they were what you call a "business genius", Google would have been filled to the brim with flashy ads, netting them tens of thousands of dollars early on, and leaving them as company worth thousands. It's a good thing they were steered by higher motives than business sense.
- dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago
  I’d love to be the kind of business ignoramus that can create Google.

peteretep 7y ago

Many millions of people have this level of privilege worldwide, but very few have founded Google-sized companies. Acknowledging the distorting effect of privilege is important, but this seems like you’re throwing out the baby with the bath water here.

mehrdada 7y ago
You kind of prove the parent's point though. Given a large enough sample size of all the people with privilege, it is conceivable to imagine that Google-sized success would happen to someone in that group at random, and other explanations could be simply overfitting to the data. (Not saying this matches my personal worldview, but just analyzing the commentary)
- peteretep 7y ago
  > Given a large enough sample size of all the people with privilege, it is conceivable to imagine that Google-sized success would happen to someone in that group at random, and other explanations could be simply overfitting to the data. This is true of all groups, though, so doesn't give us any information.
  - ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
    Enough information to hero worship, apparently.
zerr 7y ago
Not everyone wants to found a company though - you can just enjoy your privileged high quality of life.
- peteretep 7y ago
  > His father is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. I mean, he still needed to get a job

hyperpallium 7y ago

Can you elaborate on (1). Larry not knowing how to code Backrub (sounds like you don't just mean that at first you don't know how to code something that has never been done before). (2) Larry claiming other's ideas as his, particularly "the link idea".

hogFeast 7y ago
Robin Li (who founded Baidu) created link-based search ranking (and patented it in 1996, two years before the famous papers). Scott Hassan (a Stanford research assistant) coded Backrub. Page took a run at it but it didn't work. And it had actually been done several times before (again, it just sounds like you have no idea you are just assuming these guys were geniuses...several mining applications already existed, the largest came from DEC).
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  backrub/pagerank is a specific kind of link-based search ranking. Link-based ranking was well-know before e.g. citation count. Was Robin Li's the same kind? What were the "several times" backrub had been implemented before? A "mining application" is a very general concept, and does not imply a specific algorithm. I was not assuming but requesting information; and not "again" but once. FWIW I'm intrigued by the school of thought that Google's success was largely due to just giving people what they want. Instead of crowded portals, just search, fast search, and search that's relevant. When I tested it at the time, I found competing search pretty similar for relevance. But google was faster.
  - hyperpallium 7y ago
    Too late to edit, but I'd forgotten paid-placement was a thing in search results before google. Can you believe it? Of course, adwords has similarities (and copied from overture/goto), but don't masquerade as search results (though becoming less distinguishable over time...).

mjfl 7y ago

you are what is called in some circles "a hater".

strikelaserclaw 7y ago

Other than steve jobs, pretty much 95% founders these days come from upper middle class with professional parents (doctors, engineers, professors, lawyers etc...)