11 ms·

Larry and Sergey: A Valediction

119 points by smacktoward 7y ago

h2odragon 7y ago
> The white-robed wizards of Silicon Valley now ply the black arts of algorithmic witchcraft for power and money. They wanted most of all to be Gandalf, but they became Saruman. I don't actually recall anyone proclaiming the messiah-ness of these guys and the inevitable social justice juggernaut of Google back then. It was a better search engine. they (justly) got rich off it. If the author had more hope of what "the Internet will mean to Mankind" back then and is dissapointed in what he's got now, perhaps he shoulda jumped in then or even now, and fix it.
- corporateslave5 7y ago
  Yeah I think this is romanticizing it. These guys never really were out in the public bragging about themselves or how they’re helping humanity. Mostly they’ve been pretty behind the scenes
  - jambrosia 7y ago
    Bullshit.
- Denzel 7y ago
  Google pushed the narrative that they were more than just a “better search engine”. Specifically when they proclaimed to be the stewards of organizing the world’s information with a clear dictation from the top of “don’t be evil”. I’m on mobile, so I don’t have the time to collect a full timeline for you. But I’d suggest you look closer at their organizational history and messaging. There’s a reason people are feeling jaded, and it’s not because they misinterpreted Google’s mission and vision.
- simonsarris 7y ago
  They were extremely lofty early on. Motto aside, remember Google.org? > October 12, 2005 > SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. is financing its promise to make the world a better place with an initial commitment of nearly $1 billion to a philanthropic arm devoted to causes that mesh with the online search engine leader's crusade. > The altruistic effort, formally disclosed yesterday under the umbrella of Google.org, follows through on a pledge that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company made last year as it prepared its ballyhooed initial public offering of stock. http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/12/google_commits_1_billion_to_charity/ http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/...
- jambrosia 7y ago
  https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/ https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/ "Of the Google triumvirate, Schmidt makes sure the company stays on course financially and strategically; Page keeps busy in the R&D lab, cranking out new features; and the 29-year-old Brin, in his role as Google's conscience and head policymaker, spends his days gripping the moral tiller - and in so doing, imposes his worldview on everyone else."
  - kick 7y ago
    It's amazing that they thought Sergey Brin of all people to be moral. If that cheater was Google's conscience, no wonder Google's at where it's at.
fhehhdg 7y ago
> Larry and Sergey may well have been the last truly happy human beings on the planet. I really don't get this kind of writing. The millennial angst that suffuses all my social circles is just bizarre. Is this guy also a millennial or is he just trying to emulate one?
- kev009 7y ago
  Hyperbole. The distilled version of the post is things have changed since these two wrote their paper, not necessarily for the better, and these two paradoxically opt out of the future they created because they have the luxury and wealth to do so. Hyperbole is a literary tool to get you to think for yourself and relate it to your knowledge and experiences to agree or disagree. So, by nature of your attention to read it and then take a further action to respond, the writer was successful.
  - ghfhg 7y ago
    Thanks. That does make sense.
- warent 7y ago
  I don't think it's intended to be taken literally. They're just illustrating a kind of lifestyle that doesn't genuinely exist anymore--now we're just memes within memes shrouded by emoji spam.
  - larnmar 7y ago
    If you honestly feel that way, you should probably take a break from the internet for a while. The real physical world is still out there, and it’s still fantastic. You don’t need to go cold turkey internet, but it’s probably a good idea to reduce your exposure.
    - warent 7y ago
      You seem to be misinterpreting the comment. I wasn't making a desperate cry for help on HN so that someone would provide me with random unsolicited advice which is somewhat obvious and unhelpful. The comment was just sharing an interpretation of what the author is saying, and it refers to the cynical way in which the newest upcoming generation relates to the internet and technology. I don't personally feel that way about life, but I do think much of social media has been reduced to that. I think it's important we don't accidentally buy into the temptation of playing the role of an armchair internet psychologist for strangers with whom we have little to no context. If someone seriously needs help, anyone who isn't a professional is likely to just cause more harm than good, and if they don't need help then the discussion just ends up getting derailed.
ripvanwinkle 7y ago
Never thought pictures of business /technology leaders could evoke pure kid like joy.
jpeg_hero 7y ago
> Page has even managed to keep the names of his two kids secret Dakota and Skyler Now you know.
kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
It's funny how much public perception is tied to the media pulse of a company. If you read comments on online boards today, you'd think Google was one of the worst companies out there. And yet, I think it is safe to say that Google basically defined the post-dot-com-bubble era, in a good way. So many things that comprise 'company culture' today and that have been emulated (whether willingly or out of pressure to stay competitive to other companies in the hiring market) by tech and non-tech companies around the world were pioneered by Google. Anyone who has actually worked in other industries will attest how much a breath of fresh air Google brought to corporate life. It's a separate matter how some of it is coming back to bite them now that they have hired too many people who are more interested in activism than doing their job. So many of Larry's and Sergey's ideas were truly about organizing the world's information. That vision statement wasn't just words. It affected how Google and Googlers thought of things. My favorite example is Google Books. Is it an obvious ad-funnel? I doubt it. Or Google Street Maps, for that matter. And yet it has provided so much value to the world. It's almost never a good idea to make gods out of people. But it is at the same time a terrible idea to make absolute demons out of them. And I think we stray too much into the latter territory just because it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things A potent element of Silicon Valley’s filter bubble is casting complaints against highly profitable, breathtakingly damaging behaviour as trivial.
  - alexpetralia 7y ago
    This comment seems to be perfectly emblematic of demonizing a target, rather than even attempting to take a more balanced approach (such as original comment). Does the next comment then deify Google, until the next one demonizes them yet again? That's the problem with binary criticism.
    - jdck1326 7y ago
lazyjones 7y ago
The author has a lot of imagination and a grudge... What if Sergey and Larry were just engineers at heart and simply never craved for the attention they got after their success? AFAICT they always kept a low profile. They got talked into posing for silly PR pictures a few times, so what? As if that was unusual for tech founders.
x__x 7y ago
Probably a life of guilt for opening doors and handing over all their data to big brother. Sooner or later this will all be public knowledge. Will this tarnish their legacy?
patcon 7y ago
I refuse to love Google, but I do have love in my heart for Sergey and Larry. imho, the foundations of the corporate ecology that we've built seems to favour the creation of large companies with quite dehumanizing values at their core. The fact that Google has grown to such size and existed at all (even as imperfect form), that is a triumph of these two citizens. They've built a metropolis out of plutonium, and miraculously we live good lives in it, largely without illness ;)
- mattkevan 7y ago
  We’re living good lives in their metropolis of plutonium because we’re not yet fully aware of the consequences. Rather like how a hundred years ago people happily put radium in toothpaste and soap. Nothing better than a healthy glow to your morning routine - until the consequences arrive. What will be the result of building the sort of global, hyper-targeted surveillance and propaganda machines spearheaded by google and Facebook, and will our descendants think we’re as dangerously naive as we do about those who made radioactive chocolate?
  - drdeadringer 7y ago
    I suggest you increase your chocolate rations from 25 grams to 20 grams, radioactivity or not.
  - patcon 7y ago
    I do appreciate what you're saying here, so thank you. Don't get me wrong, I resist Google with all my might, and have actively organized against Sidewalk Labs in my city, and other projects from them. But I look at Amazon's Bezos and count myself relatively lucky to be living on a timeline where the magic beans that became Google ended up in the hands of someone quite UNLIKE him. Sinking money into moonshots (though sometimes misguided) and a diversity of experiments; that is much better than Bezos' unartful "growth above all else" mentality.
dibujaron 7y ago
This is a very well written article, what a fun read! "as bubbly as the water" haha
jedberg 7y ago
> Page has even managed to keep the names of his two kids secret That's an impressive feat in this day an age. I mean, birth certificates are public record. I'm surprised no one has looked it up and leaked it. Good for him for working hard to keep it a secret, so they can reveal themselves when/if they choose. Ps. If you know his kid's names, please don't out them here.
- sdan 7y ago
  Fairly sure he'd change the last names or something to conceal who they are. Otherwise, they'd eventually be recognized.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Yeah but legally his name would have to be on the birth certificate.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    Name changes would be public record, so there's no real way of getting around it.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  Interestingly, there was a comment that purported to out two names here, but it's been deleted. Darn my wonky short-term memory, but one was definitely Skyler. From Google's Take Action (https://www.google.com/takeaction/ https://www.google.com/takeaction/) page: "Information empowers people. We need to protect the free flow of information and help make sure the Internet is available to everyone, everywhere."
- repsilat 7y ago
  A tangentially related fact: on the personal website of the Australian science fiction author Greg Egan, it says > There are no photos of me on the web. https://www.gregegan.net/ https://www.gregegan.net/ Also: http://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm http://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm
  - 7y ago
lacker 7y ago
I know this is an almost insane digression, but I found it quite interesting that the author theorized the net worth of King Lear. Lear must have been worth a billion or two, in today’s dollars. Far more, I would say! The way I see it, if you converted the wealth of medieval monarchs, relative to the world they lived in, into modern day terms, they would be the richest people alive. Lear was the king of Britain in an era where the king was an absolute ruler, and nominally owned the entire country. How much is Britain worth? Nowadays the GDP of the UK is over 2 trillion dollars a year. https://www.google.com/search?q=britain+gdp https://www.google.com/search?q=britain+gdp GDP isn't a great match to the wealth of an absolute monarch, but government spending in the UK is about a trillion dollars a year. How much of that is an obligation, and how much could be extracted to count as personal wealth? I estimate about half of it, for an income the modern equivalent of 500 billion dollars. In terms of net worth, that income stream would be worth a present value maybe $5 trillion. So, obviously this is just a back-of-the-envelope calculation of something that doesn't make all that much sense, but in relative terms I would argue those medieval absolute monarchs were far richer than any modern rich person. In absolute terms, of course, it's a much different story.
- antognini 7y ago
  Medieval monarchs weren't really the absolute rulers they're often perceived to be. A medieval monarch was heavily constrained by the nobility. It wasn't really until the late 1600s and 1700s with monarchs like Louis XIV and Catherine the Great that the monarchy grew sufficiently powerful to start to exercise some real control over the nobility.
  - dilyevsky 7y ago
    Ivan the Terrible was purging aristocrats in 1500s
  - leoc 7y ago
    Elizabeth I cadged from the English nobility for items of clothing and jewellery.
- skybrian 7y ago
chewxy 7y ago
Nick misrepresents the original paper. Nick writes: > they introduced Google to the world, they warned that if the search engine were ever to leave the “academic realm” and become a business, it would inevitably be corrupted. It would become “a black art” and “be advertising oriented.” This is verbatim from the original paper: > Aside from tremendous growth, the Web has also become increasingly commercial over time. In 1993, 1.5% of Web servers were on .com domains. This number grew to over 60% in 1997. At the same time, search engines have migrated from the academic domain to the commercial. Up until now most search engine development has gone on at companies with little publication of technical details. This causes search engine technology to remain largely a black art and to be advertising oriented (see Appendix A in the full version). With Google, we have a strong goal to push more development and understanding into the academic realm. The meaning is not even close to what Nick suggests!
- rrss 7y ago
  I don't agree. When that paper was written, "Google" referred to an academic research project, not a company. Page and Brin indicate that because other search engines were developed at corporations, they were "largely a black art" and advertising oriented. Since Google has become a company, and is no longer a research project in the academic realm, it has become a black art and advertising oriented, just as Page and Brin said happened to search engines developed at corporations.
  - extempore 7y ago
    The phrase “black art” in the paper refers to a technical challenge which only experts can tame, via methods which aren’t widely known. It has zero to do with ‘black arts” in the sense of witchcraft. The blog post drifts between these meanings, possibly with poetic intention.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      Perhaps the use of "black art" rather than "technical challenge which only experts can tame" in the paper implies poetic intention on their own part?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Invictus0 7y ago
What does unspiderable mean in this essay?
- gniv 7y ago
  In this context, a spider is a web crawler.
  - Invictus0 7y ago
    Ahh, makes sense. Thank you!
dbuder 7y ago
None of the good stuff counts for anything if in the end they walk away leaving society to wrestle with the high handed faceless abomination they have created.
zuhayeer 7y ago
"When, in 1965, an interviewer from Cahiers du Cinema pointed out to Jean-Luc Godard that “there is a good deal of blood” in his movie Pierrot le Fou, Godard replied, “Not blood, red.” What the cinema did to blood, the internet has done to happiness. It turned it into an image that is repeated endlessly on screens but no longer refers to anything real." Damn
bsanr2 7y ago
Sergey Brin attended my high school. I found out through Wikipedia, in college, in 2009. To my knowledge, he has never mentioned, visited, or donated to it, personally or through Google/Alphabet. We were not a rich private prep or anything like that, just a majority-minority community school that benefited from a school-within-a-school-type magnet program and proximity to several research institutions (particularly NASA Goddard); outside support would have been more than welcome. Brin was certainly phenomenally intelligent from the get-go (as related by the teachers who remembered him), so it's questionable how great or negligible Roosevelt's influence on him was. Still, I take a lot away, inasmuch as his character is concerned, from his regard for us. One would think that singular and eminent success such as his would consider the role of every community he passed through in the shaping of his fortunes. For comparison, Martin Lawrence at least got his teacher a car (RIP Froggie).
- randomsearch 7y ago
  I hated my high school but loved my university. If I ever have cash, I will happily donate to the uni. Maybe his experience was the same.
  - munin 7y ago
    Not to worry, he also doesn't donate to his university.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    My sense is that this may be the case, but I have trouble understanding it if the school's culture during his time was anything like it was during mine (that is, accepting of diversity not only in backgrounds, but also in aptitudes, with niches for high intellectual and physical achievers, normal kids, and even, perhaps especially, those who would have been marginalized elsewhere.) That said, I think what I'm advocating for approaches a sort of noblesse oblige, in that Brin has been SO successful that any deviation from his existing path might have lead to much less success, obliging consideration of every step along the way; and in that even a marginal actor in his life would be worth giving back to, from the point of view of the actor, commensurate to their involvement. ERHS is a school that could benefit hugely from a modest grant, or periodic appearance (if not personal, perhaps from a Google rep), which would presumably be a incredibly small sacrifice on his part. But most who went their didn't even know he had. It just seems weird.
Mugwort 7y ago
Google started out as a tech company and then later became a part of the US Deep State (Prism program). I think any good the company was doing will be long overshadowed by this unfortunate relationship. Eric Schmidt bears the greatest responsibility for moving Google in this direction. The revelations of Julian Assange basically demolished the myth of "Don't be evil". Google was revealed as a company that in fact did much evil. Seeing Julian slowly die in prison on false rape charges while Google profited immensely helping destroy whatever was left of our digital rights and privacy certainly didn't help the company's image. I wanted to like Google. I liked Google from the beginning and then the ugly reality chipped away at their reputation until if found myself making awkward excuses for Google and doing all sorts of self deceptions and mental contortions to rationalize what they were doing. Then it became too much. I realized a good company can go bad and that's exactly what they did. Why? Who knows but size and unprecedented success have something to do with it. I don't think you can ignore the Behemoth factor but still, they are responsible for their conduct. I wouldn't want to be either of these men and I can't imagine anybody who loves technology and things that hackers care about like digital freedom and privacy continuing to hold Google if high esteem. Google has become a force for evil. It's an unpleasant truth.
- MikeKusold 7y ago
  In response to Prism, they immediately started encrypting all internal traffic. They were not willing participants and were likely furious to discover they were infiltrated.
markthien 7y ago
I am pretty sure that there is less than 1% of the world population, who was user of Google, hate Google and complaining that Google track them and steals their information or data. Without Google, the world may not be this advanced today. Billions of people get the info they want from Google for free. Those losers after using Google for years and then spread hatred on Google. What a super hypocrite. Google, just like us, got bill to pay!

119 points by smacktoward 7y ago

> The white-robed wizards of Silicon Valley now ply the black arts of algorithmic witchcraft for power and money. They wanted most of all to be Gandalf, but they became Saruman. I don't actually recall anyone proclaiming the messiah-ness of these guys and the inevitable social justice juggernaut of Google back then. It was a better search engine. they (justly) got rich off it. If the author had more hope of what "the Internet will mean to Mankind" back then and is dissapointed in what he's got now, perhaps he shoulda jumped in then or even now, and fix it.

corporateslave5 7y ago
Yeah I think this is romanticizing it. These guys never really were out in the public bragging about themselves or how they’re helping humanity. Mostly they’ve been pretty behind the scenes
- jambrosia 7y ago
  Bullshit.
Denzel 7y ago
Google pushed the narrative that they were more than just a “better search engine”. Specifically when they proclaimed to be the stewards of organizing the world’s information with a clear dictation from the top of “don’t be evil”. I’m on mobile, so I don’t have the time to collect a full timeline for you. But I’d suggest you look closer at their organizational history and messaging. There’s a reason people are feeling jaded, and it’s not because they misinterpreted Google’s mission and vision.
simonsarris 7y ago
They were extremely lofty early on. Motto aside, remember Google.org? > October 12, 2005 > SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. is financing its promise to make the world a better place with an initial commitment of nearly $1 billion to a philanthropic arm devoted to causes that mesh with the online search engine leader's crusade. > The altruistic effort, formally disclosed yesterday under the umbrella of Google.org, follows through on a pledge that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company made last year as it prepared its ballyhooed initial public offering of stock. http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/12/google_commits_1_billion_to_charity/ http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/...
jambrosia 7y ago
https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/ https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/ "Of the Google triumvirate, Schmidt makes sure the company stays on course financially and strategically; Page keeps busy in the R&D lab, cranking out new features; and the 29-year-old Brin, in his role as Google's conscience and head policymaker, spends his days gripping the moral tiller - and in so doing, imposes his worldview on everyone else."
- kick 7y ago
  It's amazing that they thought Sergey Brin of all people to be moral. If that cheater was Google's conscience, no wonder Google's at where it's at.

fhehhdg 7y ago

> Larry and Sergey may well have been the last truly happy human beings on the planet. I really don't get this kind of writing. The millennial angst that suffuses all my social circles is just bizarre. Is this guy also a millennial or is he just trying to emulate one?

kev009 7y ago
Hyperbole. The distilled version of the post is things have changed since these two wrote their paper, not necessarily for the better, and these two paradoxically opt out of the future they created because they have the luxury and wealth to do so. Hyperbole is a literary tool to get you to think for yourself and relate it to your knowledge and experiences to agree or disagree. So, by nature of your attention to read it and then take a further action to respond, the writer was successful.
- ghfhg 7y ago
  Thanks. That does make sense.
warent 7y ago
I don't think it's intended to be taken literally. They're just illustrating a kind of lifestyle that doesn't genuinely exist anymore--now we're just memes within memes shrouded by emoji spam.
- larnmar 7y ago
  If you honestly feel that way, you should probably take a break from the internet for a while. The real physical world is still out there, and it’s still fantastic. You don’t need to go cold turkey internet, but it’s probably a good idea to reduce your exposure.
  - warent 7y ago
    You seem to be misinterpreting the comment. I wasn't making a desperate cry for help on HN so that someone would provide me with random unsolicited advice which is somewhat obvious and unhelpful. The comment was just sharing an interpretation of what the author is saying, and it refers to the cynical way in which the newest upcoming generation relates to the internet and technology. I don't personally feel that way about life, but I do think much of social media has been reduced to that. I think it's important we don't accidentally buy into the temptation of playing the role of an armchair internet psychologist for strangers with whom we have little to no context. If someone seriously needs help, anyone who isn't a professional is likely to just cause more harm than good, and if they don't need help then the discussion just ends up getting derailed.

ripvanwinkle 7y ago

Never thought pictures of business /technology leaders could evoke pure kid like joy.

jpeg_hero 7y ago

> Page has even managed to keep the names of his two kids secret Dakota and Skyler Now you know.

kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago

It's funny how much public perception is tied to the media pulse of a company. If you read comments on online boards today, you'd think Google was one of the worst companies out there. And yet, I think it is safe to say that Google basically defined the post-dot-com-bubble era, in a good way. So many things that comprise 'company culture' today and that have been emulated (whether willingly or out of pressure to stay competitive to other companies in the hiring market) by tech and non-tech companies around the world were pioneered by Google. Anyone who has actually worked in other industries will attest how much a breath of fresh air Google brought to corporate life. It's a separate matter how some of it is coming back to bite them now that they have hired too many people who are more interested in activism than doing their job. So many of Larry's and Sergey's ideas were truly about organizing the world's information. That vision statement wasn't just words. It affected how Google and Googlers thought of things. My favorite example is Google Books. Is it an obvious ad-funnel? I doubt it. Or Google Street Maps, for that matter. And yet it has provided so much value to the world. It's almost never a good idea to make gods out of people. But it is at the same time a terrible idea to make absolute demons out of them. And I think we stray too much into the latter territory just because it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things A potent element of Silicon Valley’s filter bubble is casting complaints against highly profitable, breathtakingly damaging behaviour as trivial.
- alexpetralia 7y ago
  This comment seems to be perfectly emblematic of demonizing a target, rather than even attempting to take a more balanced approach (such as original comment). Does the next comment then deify Google, until the next one demonizes them yet again? That's the problem with binary criticism.
  - jdck1326 7y ago

lazyjones 7y ago

The author has a lot of imagination and a grudge... What if Sergey and Larry were just engineers at heart and simply never craved for the attention they got after their success? AFAICT they always kept a low profile. They got talked into posing for silly PR pictures a few times, so what? As if that was unusual for tech founders.

x__x 7y ago

Probably a life of guilt for opening doors and handing over all their data to big brother. Sooner or later this will all be public knowledge. Will this tarnish their legacy?

patcon 7y ago

I refuse to love Google, but I do have love in my heart for Sergey and Larry. imho, the foundations of the corporate ecology that we've built seems to favour the creation of large companies with quite dehumanizing values at their core. The fact that Google has grown to such size and existed at all (even as imperfect form), that is a triumph of these two citizens. They've built a metropolis out of plutonium, and miraculously we live good lives in it, largely without illness ;)

mattkevan 7y ago
We’re living good lives in their metropolis of plutonium because we’re not yet fully aware of the consequences. Rather like how a hundred years ago people happily put radium in toothpaste and soap. Nothing better than a healthy glow to your morning routine - until the consequences arrive. What will be the result of building the sort of global, hyper-targeted surveillance and propaganda machines spearheaded by google and Facebook, and will our descendants think we’re as dangerously naive as we do about those who made radioactive chocolate?
- drdeadringer 7y ago
  I suggest you increase your chocolate rations from 25 grams to 20 grams, radioactivity or not.
- patcon 7y ago
  I do appreciate what you're saying here, so thank you. Don't get me wrong, I resist Google with all my might, and have actively organized against Sidewalk Labs in my city, and other projects from them. But I look at Amazon's Bezos and count myself relatively lucky to be living on a timeline where the magic beans that became Google ended up in the hands of someone quite UNLIKE him. Sinking money into moonshots (though sometimes misguided) and a diversity of experiments; that is much better than Bezos' unartful "growth above all else" mentality.

dibujaron 7y ago

This is a very well written article, what a fun read! "as bubbly as the water" haha

jedberg 7y ago

> Page has even managed to keep the names of his two kids secret That's an impressive feat in this day an age. I mean, birth certificates are public record. I'm surprised no one has looked it up and leaked it. Good for him for working hard to keep it a secret, so they can reveal themselves when/if they choose. Ps. If you know his kid's names, please don't out them here.

sdan 7y ago
Fairly sure he'd change the last names or something to conceal who they are. Otherwise, they'd eventually be recognized.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Yeah but legally his name would have to be on the birth certificate.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Name changes would be public record, so there's no real way of getting around it.
bsanr2 7y ago
Interestingly, there was a comment that purported to out two names here, but it's been deleted. Darn my wonky short-term memory, but one was definitely Skyler. From Google's Take Action (https://www.google.com/takeaction/ https://www.google.com/takeaction/) page: "Information empowers people. We need to protect the free flow of information and help make sure the Internet is available to everyone, everywhere."
repsilat 7y ago
A tangentially related fact: on the personal website of the Australian science fiction author Greg Egan, it says > There are no photos of me on the web. https://www.gregegan.net/ https://www.gregegan.net/ Also: http://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm http://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm
- 7y ago

lacker 7y ago

I know this is an almost insane digression, but I found it quite interesting that the author theorized the net worth of King Lear. Lear must have been worth a billion or two, in today’s dollars. Far more, I would say! The way I see it, if you converted the wealth of medieval monarchs, relative to the world they lived in, into modern day terms, they would be the richest people alive. Lear was the king of Britain in an era where the king was an absolute ruler, and nominally owned the entire country. How much is Britain worth? Nowadays the GDP of the UK is over 2 trillion dollars a year. https://www.google.com/search?q=britain+gdp https://www.google.com/search?q=britain+gdp GDP isn't a great match to the wealth of an absolute monarch, but government spending in the UK is about a trillion dollars a year. How much of that is an obligation, and how much could be extracted to count as personal wealth? I estimate about half of it, for an income the modern equivalent of 500 billion dollars. In terms of net worth, that income stream would be worth a present value maybe $5 trillion. So, obviously this is just a back-of-the-envelope calculation of something that doesn't make all that much sense, but in relative terms I would argue those medieval absolute monarchs were far richer than any modern rich person. In absolute terms, of course, it's a much different story.

antognini 7y ago
Medieval monarchs weren't really the absolute rulers they're often perceived to be. A medieval monarch was heavily constrained by the nobility. It wasn't really until the late 1600s and 1700s with monarchs like Louis XIV and Catherine the Great that the monarchy grew sufficiently powerful to start to exercise some real control over the nobility.
- dilyevsky 7y ago
  Ivan the Terrible was purging aristocrats in 1500s
- leoc 7y ago
  Elizabeth I cadged from the English nobility for items of clothing and jewellery.
skybrian 7y ago

chewxy 7y ago

Nick misrepresents the original paper. Nick writes: > they introduced Google to the world, they warned that if the search engine were ever to leave the “academic realm” and become a business, it would inevitably be corrupted. It would become “a black art” and “be advertising oriented.” This is verbatim from the original paper: > Aside from tremendous growth, the Web has also become increasingly commercial over time. In 1993, 1.5% of Web servers were on .com domains. This number grew to over 60% in 1997. At the same time, search engines have migrated from the academic domain to the commercial. Up until now most search engine development has gone on at companies with little publication of technical details. This causes search engine technology to remain largely a black art and to be advertising oriented (see Appendix A in the full version). With Google, we have a strong goal to push more development and understanding into the academic realm. The meaning is not even close to what Nick suggests!

rrss 7y ago
I don't agree. When that paper was written, "Google" referred to an academic research project, not a company. Page and Brin indicate that because other search engines were developed at corporations, they were "largely a black art" and advertising oriented. Since Google has become a company, and is no longer a research project in the academic realm, it has become a black art and advertising oriented, just as Page and Brin said happened to search engines developed at corporations.
- extempore 7y ago
  The phrase “black art” in the paper refers to a technical challenge which only experts can tame, via methods which aren’t widely known. It has zero to do with ‘black arts” in the sense of witchcraft. The blog post drifts between these meanings, possibly with poetic intention.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    Perhaps the use of "black art" rather than "technical challenge which only experts can tame" in the paper implies poetic intention on their own part?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Invictus0 7y ago

What does unspiderable mean in this essay?

gniv 7y ago
In this context, a spider is a web crawler.
- Invictus0 7y ago
  Ahh, makes sense. Thank you!

dbuder 7y ago

None of the good stuff counts for anything if in the end they walk away leaving society to wrestle with the high handed faceless abomination they have created.

zuhayeer 7y ago

"When, in 1965, an interviewer from Cahiers du Cinema pointed out to Jean-Luc Godard that “there is a good deal of blood” in his movie Pierrot le Fou, Godard replied, “Not blood, red.” What the cinema did to blood, the internet has done to happiness. It turned it into an image that is repeated endlessly on screens but no longer refers to anything real." Damn

bsanr2 7y ago

Sergey Brin attended my high school. I found out through Wikipedia, in college, in 2009. To my knowledge, he has never mentioned, visited, or donated to it, personally or through Google/Alphabet. We were not a rich private prep or anything like that, just a majority-minority community school that benefited from a school-within-a-school-type magnet program and proximity to several research institutions (particularly NASA Goddard); outside support would have been more than welcome. Brin was certainly phenomenally intelligent from the get-go (as related by the teachers who remembered him), so it's questionable how great or negligible Roosevelt's influence on him was. Still, I take a lot away, inasmuch as his character is concerned, from his regard for us. One would think that singular and eminent success such as his would consider the role of every community he passed through in the shaping of his fortunes. For comparison, Martin Lawrence at least got his teacher a car (RIP Froggie).

randomsearch 7y ago
I hated my high school but loved my university. If I ever have cash, I will happily donate to the uni. Maybe his experience was the same.
- munin 7y ago
  Not to worry, he also doesn't donate to his university.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  My sense is that this may be the case, but I have trouble understanding it if the school's culture during his time was anything like it was during mine (that is, accepting of diversity not only in backgrounds, but also in aptitudes, with niches for high intellectual and physical achievers, normal kids, and even, perhaps especially, those who would have been marginalized elsewhere.) That said, I think what I'm advocating for approaches a sort of noblesse oblige, in that Brin has been SO successful that any deviation from his existing path might have lead to much less success, obliging consideration of every step along the way; and in that even a marginal actor in his life would be worth giving back to, from the point of view of the actor, commensurate to their involvement. ERHS is a school that could benefit hugely from a modest grant, or periodic appearance (if not personal, perhaps from a Google rep), which would presumably be a incredibly small sacrifice on his part. But most who went their didn't even know he had. It just seems weird.

Mugwort 7y ago

Google started out as a tech company and then later became a part of the US Deep State (Prism program). I think any good the company was doing will be long overshadowed by this unfortunate relationship. Eric Schmidt bears the greatest responsibility for moving Google in this direction. The revelations of Julian Assange basically demolished the myth of "Don't be evil". Google was revealed as a company that in fact did much evil. Seeing Julian slowly die in prison on false rape charges while Google profited immensely helping destroy whatever was left of our digital rights and privacy certainly didn't help the company's image. I wanted to like Google. I liked Google from the beginning and then the ugly reality chipped away at their reputation until if found myself making awkward excuses for Google and doing all sorts of self deceptions and mental contortions to rationalize what they were doing. Then it became too much. I realized a good company can go bad and that's exactly what they did. Why? Who knows but size and unprecedented success have something to do with it. I don't think you can ignore the Behemoth factor but still, they are responsible for their conduct. I wouldn't want to be either of these men and I can't imagine anybody who loves technology and things that hackers care about like digital freedom and privacy continuing to hold Google if high esteem. Google has become a force for evil. It's an unpleasant truth.

MikeKusold 7y ago
In response to Prism, they immediately started encrypting all internal traffic. They were not willing participants and were likely furious to discover they were infiltrated.

markthien 7y ago

I am pretty sure that there is less than 1% of the world population, who was user of Google, hate Google and complaining that Google track them and steals their information or data. Without Google, the world may not be this advanced today. Billions of people get the info they want from Google for free. Those losers after using Google for years and then spread hatred on Google. What a super hypocrite. Google, just like us, got bill to pay!