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Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Google (made near-infinite knowledge reachable), Chrome/Chromium, GMail, YouTube, Android (powers billions of handsets), Google Maps

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Google (made near-infinite knowledge reachable), Chrome/Chromium, GMail, YouTube, Android (powers billions of handsets), Google Maps … If you credit Musk directly for all the aforementioned things, why not them? And yes, Google bought some of those properties, but so did Musk. What’s the difference? Marketing? (I don’t actually think Larry and Sergey “most benefitted humanity” or deserve a bunch of humanitarian awards, but I’m curious why they’re not credited with Google’s achievements in the way Musk is with his companies.)

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nancyhn 3y ago
That's a good answer, although it's arguable their best contribution was in the prior century with search and page rank, whereas this century has been dominated with contributions to the ad space.
- bentlegen 3y ago
  PageRank was developed in 1998. I assure you Google did not immediately come out and crush search. Altavista, Yahoo, and Lycos might have all been bigger properties during 1999.
cjbgkagh 3y ago
I think there is a ‘but for’ aspect, without google it’s reasonable to expect the some other search engine could have evolved into the same thing. Given the scope and scale of the investment required to get Tesla and SpaceX to a viable state it seem that only a somewhat crazy person could would even attempt that. It’s difficult to find an optimum level of crazy, and is often difficult to distinguish between crazy and stupid. That said, I do think Elon would be even more successful if he was a bit less crazy and a bit less stupid.
- bentlegen 3y ago
  By that logic, why couldn’t someone have done the same with electric cars and rockets? Were we never going to go into space again? Did the Nissan Leaf not already exist?
  - cjbgkagh 3y ago
    As I mentioned; they lacked the scale and scope required to be successful.
    - bentlegen 3y ago
      I disagree and here’s an example I would use. In the 20+ years Google has dominated search, who has come along and iterated a “better” version? Bing? Is the capital and scope required not approachable, as you suggest? Similarly, since Tesla helped demonstrate a valid market for electric cars, how many automakers have released competitive (and to some, better) EVs? If the capital requirements and scope were too large, where did Rivian and Polestar and numerous other upstarts come from? I won’t disagree re: SpaceX.
      - cjbgkagh 3y ago
        That is first movers advantage that gives rise to a network effect which acts as a powerful moat for a natural monopoly. Another search company could have been google without the need of a crazy person. Which is to say a google like company was probability inevitable, if not google then something like it.
        bentlegen 3y ago
        Google was not the first search engine, nor the 6th.
        cjbgkagh 3y ago
        They were the first movers on a particular and very effective way of doing search.

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nancyhn 3y ago

That's a good answer, although it's arguable their best contribution was in the prior century with search and page rank, whereas this century has been dominated with contributions to the ad space.

bentlegen 3y ago
PageRank was developed in 1998. I assure you Google did not immediately come out and crush search. Altavista, Yahoo, and Lycos might have all been bigger properties during 1999.

cjbgkagh 3y ago

I think there is a ‘but for’ aspect, without google it’s reasonable to expect the some other search engine could have evolved into the same thing. Given the scope and scale of the investment required to get Tesla and SpaceX to a viable state it seem that only a somewhat crazy person could would even attempt that. It’s difficult to find an optimum level of crazy, and is often difficult to distinguish between crazy and stupid. That said, I do think Elon would be even more successful if he was a bit less crazy and a bit less stupid.

bentlegen 3y ago
By that logic, why couldn’t someone have done the same with electric cars and rockets? Were we never going to go into space again? Did the Nissan Leaf not already exist?
- cjbgkagh 3y ago
  As I mentioned; they lacked the scale and scope required to be successful.
  - bentlegen 3y ago
    I disagree and here’s an example I would use. In the 20+ years Google has dominated search, who has come along and iterated a “better” version? Bing? Is the capital and scope required not approachable, as you suggest? Similarly, since Tesla helped demonstrate a valid market for electric cars, how many automakers have released competitive (and to some, better) EVs? If the capital requirements and scope were too large, where did Rivian and Polestar and numerous other upstarts come from? I won’t disagree re: SpaceX.
    - cjbgkagh 3y ago
      That is first movers advantage that gives rise to a network effect which acts as a powerful moat for a natural monopoly. Another search company could have been google without the need of a crazy person. Which is to say a google like company was probability inevitable, if not google then something like it.
      - bentlegen 3y ago
        Google was not the first search engine, nor the 6th.
        cjbgkagh 3y ago
        They were the first movers on a particular and very effective way of doing search.