10 ms·

Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology

158 points by charlie_vill 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wmeredith 12y ago
"A brainiac who works in the lab walks into Page’s office one day wielding his latest world-changing invention—a time machine. As the scientist reaches for the power cord to begin a demo, Page fires off a dismissive question: “Why do you need to plug it in?” It’s a tall tale that is repeated affectionately by the whizzes inside the futuristic lab because it captures the urgency and aspiration of their boss to move technology forward." Is this really repeated affectionately? (If at all.) That sounds like a bug, not a feature.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  It sounds like the typical strategy of just asking for something more when it's presented to you, to get more results. It's easier to ask than to make.
  - corysama 12y ago
    The joke was probably intended as a jab at unreasonable managers, but joke-Page did catch an important engineering flaw: After you use the wall-socket-powered time machine to travel through time, there is likely to not be a wall socket at your destination...
    - Ygg2 12y ago
      Depends on what principles the machine works. Realistically, it transfers information several milliseconds from future into present. Socket present. Unrealistically, it can only travel couple of years into the future/past. Socket present. Unbelievably realistically, it can travel hundreds or decades of years into the future/past. ???
      - Igglyboo 12y ago
        Extremely realistically, it transfers information from the present to the future in realtime.
  - mkm416 12y ago
    The joke is that it's a time machine. Someone brings a working one of those to office and I wouldn't care if it's powered by a butter churn.
    - bronson 12y ago
      You'll care if it's powered by something with a little more kick, like plutonium.
      - daniel-cussen 12y ago
        I think it being a time machine trumps its being powered by plutonium: go to future for cure to cancer, come back, and just like that, the plutonium is irrelevant.
    - trhway 12y ago
      the joke is why you're still depending on some manager's opinion, bringing it to his office (for what? for demo? for approval?) when you have invented time machine.
      - waterlesscloud 12y ago
        Just go back and in time and invent Google yourself, then you're the boss when you walk in with the time machine!
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
But while the company still earns the majority of its revenue from advertising, during his tenure Page has helped to diversify the business. Notably, YouTube is expected to generate nearly $6 billion in revenue this year Maybe I am being pedantic but aren't revenues from Youtube also based on advertising? To the broader point though, why aren't more investors also putting money toward these "moonshots?" Is it because they don't have the liquidity to do it? Do they cost too much for the risk? If that were true then the Google's investments would be widely panned rather than held up as "making the right bets" as this article mentions. It seems like these "singularity" technologies are the types of things that valley investors would be all over.
- melling 12y ago
  That probably should have said 'search advertising'. YouTube is a different type of advertising. Google needs to plan for a day when search advertising comes under attack from the next big thing. Maybe traditional search fades away, etc.
  - threeseed 12y ago
    The next "big thing" was supposed to be Siri, Cortana etc which are built into the OS and don't interact with Google. And there has been curious examples of Apple crawling web sites.
    - melling 12y ago
      Yes, I find "Hey Siri, search Google for..." to be quite useful.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    The interesting thing is that neither YouTube nor Google search have much user lock-in. YouTube has content producer lock-in, which is tremendously helpful. And it may be that there's just no room for improvement massive enough to pull people away, that video delivery is close enough to its peak to not leave any room for real competition. But if content was elsewhere, YouTube revenue would vanish very quickly indeed. Search, on the other hand, still has massive room for improvement. Someone, somewhere will eventually do it. And there's nothing that would keep users on Google search when they do. It's not like Facebook where's there's a huge network effect. Once there's a notably better search option, it wins very very quickly.
kurtle 12y ago
Disney is a classic example of a company that made huge leaps and transformed itself from a single revenue stream to a very diverse one. Can you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films? Or how what they said when he unveiled the original vision of EPCOT as a real city with a theme park bolted on. I don't have a strong opinion in Google doing their moonshots but it's happened before.
- gregpilling 12y ago
  A few? Walt got to Hollywood in 1923 and Disneyland opened in 1955. Perhaps more than a few. I would think the board would be fine with it, like Google's board seems to be fine with what Page is doing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney
- grecy 12y ago
  > * you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films?* I read an article on Walt once that covered this.. he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work. That was how he knew he was on to something - the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.
  - afro88 12y ago
    > he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work. > the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work. Those are interesting reasons for being certain it will work. The combination of all the people you cherish the most telling you it's a bad idea and the fact that no one had tried it before. I mean, sure, I understand the romance of it and these reasons giving someone the drive to try it and succeed. But making you certain it's going to work? That I don't understand.
chuckcode 12y ago
It would be great to see google diversify their business model as well as their technology so they weren't getting most of their profit from advertising.
- amaks 12y ago
  It does -- there are products for enterprises, hardware, Google Play ecosystem, Internet access (fiber, loon), operating systems, investments into health research and robotics, self-driving cars, house energy and safety products (Nest). Not enough?
  - millstone 12y ago
    Enterprise (with Google Docs), and maybe Chromecast, are the two arguably profitable non-advertising products. The other product areas are surely in the red. Google is trying to diversify, but they haven't been successful at turning a profit on non-advertising products, at least not yet.
    - amaks 12y ago
      How can you possibly know (unless you're a member of Google leadership team)?
      - ghaff 12y ago
        Because they're a public company and are therefore required by the SEC to provide a certain level of disclosure about the sources of their revenue.
        amaks 12y ago
        I understand that, but it's not what I meant. I meant is how he knew that other products such as Play store are not profitable? I don't think Google breaks down the profit reports to this level of granularity, so it might be just reported as an ad revenue/profits.
- 12y ago
goshx 12y ago
Musk wants to colonize and live in Mars and Page is the most ambitious CEO of the universe?
- duaneb 12y ago
  Let's talk when Musk achieves one of his goals :P And no, I don't think musk is more ambitious than page; they are just headed different places.
  - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
    Seriously I would consider Musk an Co have achieved several of their goals. Each one being the step on the way to a bigger goal.
    - duaneb 12y ago
      Maybe, but so has Page—a self-driving car, a box where you can basically ask a question, the first major piece of wearable electronics after the watch—this aren't trivial. And yet, it doesn't impress me much more than Musk's existing achievements have—they're both in edison territory at the moment—brilliant businessmen—not Gutenberg, world-changing level yet.
      - Igglyboo 12y ago
        Agreed, Google does a ton of things extremely well but the world would be more or less the same with subpar search or subpar youtube from some other company. If they can realize the self driving car or get everyone wearing glass then they've changed the world.
      - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
        Tesla is on the forefront of getting the car industry to accept something they said couldn't be done. Battery powered cars. This will change the world, or maybe be required step for us to not wreck it.
  - 12y ago
jxjdjr 12y ago
Seriously end the hero worship.
jayvanguard 12y ago
Fluff piece.
- psbp 12y ago
  I've seen a lot of these about Page recently. I wonder if we're going to see a more aggressive shakeup.
comrade1 12y ago
I'm glad that Google has enough money to take on risky projects. So much of what they do fails - they essentially only have advertising. But to be honest nothing in that article seemed that world-changing or interesting. Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection. But nanoparticles for drug deliver is interesting but they've been doing something similar with bio-engineered antibodies since the early 2000s. (in fact, if you're rich enough you can get a tailored cancer treatment with antibodies specific to your own specific cancer - this has been around for awhile) I've long hoped that self-aware AI would come out of Google, but perhaps not. In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary.
- rattray 12y ago
  You may be giving up too soon here. None of the fruits of Google X's labors have hit mainstream production yet. You'll be able to judge them once they have.
  - jacobkranz 12y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Google Glass come out of X?
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      Is Glass considered mainstream yet? I thought it was still for developers mainly.
      - adventured 12y ago
        As a product, it's not even a beta yet realistically. It's nowhere near being a fully launched product. Maybe in three to five years.
- richsinn 12y ago
  Are you kidding me? Not "interesting" ideas? > Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection. Using antibodies and tailored cancer treatment is still a reactive treatment. As the article states, the Google X Labs is aiming for "constant monitoring" of your body with these nanoparticles - hence creating a "proactive" ability to constantly monitor your body of potential issues. If achievable, that's pretty remarkable. > In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary. Both Page and Musk are visionaries. The logic you use to criticize Page's "mundane" ideas can be equally applied to Musk - serious attempts at modern electric cars have been around since the 90s [1][2], and space travel has been around since the 60s. Your logic would dictate that Musk is merely extending the work in those fields. Your criticism of Page's "moon shot" ideas not being world-changing/interesting greatly misses the point. Page and Musk have different areas of strengths, but I don't think you can call one of them a "true visionary" compared to the other. They've already both proven to be incredibly prescient on more than occasion. As for self-aware AI, we're a long ways away from that. Neither Page nor Musk nor anyone else is remotely close to self-aware AI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
ChuckMcM 12y ago
"As Google’s core business continues to thrive, Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology" I am one of the folks who doesn't believe that Search Advertising is "continuing to thrive", rather I think if you look at the steady erosion of CPC and the growing cost of paid distribution you will see that Google's search advertising business is dying (or at least no longer organically growing). Google can pump those tires with additional inventory, cutting off partners to keep more of the revenue, and buying more traffic, but the bottom line is that if you just ran the business as usual search advertising revenues would be flat to down over the last 8 quarters. In that context their only choice is to find another Golden Goose quickly before the momentum flips. That said, I've been saying this for several years and they keep pumping and boosting the top line revenue. So it is entirely possible they consider this the normal evolution of their business. Maybe its just advertisers who are pickier or want a better return on their advertising dollar. I don't know, but I do know search advertising is losing profit margin faster than the market is growing.
hyp0 12y ago
Looks like Xerox PARC to me: one fantastic business funding great research projects. They are protecting that business well, by seeing and acting on mobile early, by acquiring Android and developing it. I think heads-up displays (eventually) will be the next big thing, because they remove hardware size-limitation (cf. watches), and Google is at least ready for that, with Glass.

158 points by charlie_vill 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

"A brainiac who works in the lab walks into Page’s office one day wielding his latest world-changing invention—a time machine. As the scientist reaches for the power cord to begin a demo, Page fires off a dismissive question: “Why do you need to plug it in?” It’s a tall tale that is repeated affectionately by the whizzes inside the futuristic lab because it captures the urgency and aspiration of their boss to move technology forward." Is this really repeated affectionately? (If at all.) That sounds like a bug, not a feature.

mahyarm 12y ago
It sounds like the typical strategy of just asking for something more when it's presented to you, to get more results. It's easier to ask than to make.
- corysama 12y ago
  The joke was probably intended as a jab at unreasonable managers, but joke-Page did catch an important engineering flaw: After you use the wall-socket-powered time machine to travel through time, there is likely to not be a wall socket at your destination...
  - Ygg2 12y ago
    Depends on what principles the machine works. Realistically, it transfers information several milliseconds from future into present. Socket present. Unrealistically, it can only travel couple of years into the future/past. Socket present. Unbelievably realistically, it can travel hundreds or decades of years into the future/past. ???
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      Extremely realistically, it transfers information from the present to the future in realtime.
- mkm416 12y ago
  The joke is that it's a time machine. Someone brings a working one of those to office and I wouldn't care if it's powered by a butter churn.
  - bronson 12y ago
    You'll care if it's powered by something with a little more kick, like plutonium.
    - daniel-cussen 12y ago
      I think it being a time machine trumps its being powered by plutonium: go to future for cure to cancer, come back, and just like that, the plutonium is irrelevant.
  - trhway 12y ago
    the joke is why you're still depending on some manager's opinion, bringing it to his office (for what? for demo? for approval?) when you have invented time machine.
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      Just go back and in time and invent Google yourself, then you're the boss when you walk in with the time machine!

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

But while the company still earns the majority of its revenue from advertising, during his tenure Page has helped to diversify the business. Notably, YouTube is expected to generate nearly $6 billion in revenue this year Maybe I am being pedantic but aren't revenues from Youtube also based on advertising? To the broader point though, why aren't more investors also putting money toward these "moonshots?" Is it because they don't have the liquidity to do it? Do they cost too much for the risk? If that were true then the Google's investments would be widely panned rather than held up as "making the right bets" as this article mentions. It seems like these "singularity" technologies are the types of things that valley investors would be all over.

melling 12y ago
That probably should have said 'search advertising'. YouTube is a different type of advertising. Google needs to plan for a day when search advertising comes under attack from the next big thing. Maybe traditional search fades away, etc.
- threeseed 12y ago
  The next "big thing" was supposed to be Siri, Cortana etc which are built into the OS and don't interact with Google. And there has been curious examples of Apple crawling web sites.
  - melling 12y ago
    Yes, I find "Hey Siri, search Google for..." to be quite useful.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  The interesting thing is that neither YouTube nor Google search have much user lock-in. YouTube has content producer lock-in, which is tremendously helpful. And it may be that there's just no room for improvement massive enough to pull people away, that video delivery is close enough to its peak to not leave any room for real competition. But if content was elsewhere, YouTube revenue would vanish very quickly indeed. Search, on the other hand, still has massive room for improvement. Someone, somewhere will eventually do it. And there's nothing that would keep users on Google search when they do. It's not like Facebook where's there's a huge network effect. Once there's a notably better search option, it wins very very quickly.

kurtle 12y ago

Disney is a classic example of a company that made huge leaps and transformed itself from a single revenue stream to a very diverse one. Can you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films? Or how what they said when he unveiled the original vision of EPCOT as a real city with a theme park bolted on. I don't have a strong opinion in Google doing their moonshots but it's happened before.

gregpilling 12y ago
A few? Walt got to Hollywood in 1923 and Disneyland opened in 1955. Perhaps more than a few. I would think the board would be fine with it, like Google's board seems to be fine with what Page is doing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney
grecy 12y ago
> * you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films?* I read an article on Walt once that covered this.. he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work. That was how he knew he was on to something - the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.
- afro88 12y ago
  > he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work. > the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work. Those are interesting reasons for being certain it will work. The combination of all the people you cherish the most telling you it's a bad idea and the fact that no one had tried it before. I mean, sure, I understand the romance of it and these reasons giving someone the drive to try it and succeed. But making you certain it's going to work? That I don't understand.

chuckcode 12y ago

It would be great to see google diversify their business model as well as their technology so they weren't getting most of their profit from advertising.

amaks 12y ago
It does -- there are products for enterprises, hardware, Google Play ecosystem, Internet access (fiber, loon), operating systems, investments into health research and robotics, self-driving cars, house energy and safety products (Nest). Not enough?
- millstone 12y ago
  Enterprise (with Google Docs), and maybe Chromecast, are the two arguably profitable non-advertising products. The other product areas are surely in the red. Google is trying to diversify, but they haven't been successful at turning a profit on non-advertising products, at least not yet.
  - amaks 12y ago
    How can you possibly know (unless you're a member of Google leadership team)?
    - ghaff 12y ago
      Because they're a public company and are therefore required by the SEC to provide a certain level of disclosure about the sources of their revenue.
      - amaks 12y ago
        I understand that, but it's not what I meant. I meant is how he knew that other products such as Play store are not profitable? I don't think Google breaks down the profit reports to this level of granularity, so it might be just reported as an ad revenue/profits.
12y ago

goshx 12y ago

Musk wants to colonize and live in Mars and Page is the most ambitious CEO of the universe?

duaneb 12y ago
Let's talk when Musk achieves one of his goals :P And no, I don't think musk is more ambitious than page; they are just headed different places.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  Seriously I would consider Musk an Co have achieved several of their goals. Each one being the step on the way to a bigger goal.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    Maybe, but so has Page—a self-driving car, a box where you can basically ask a question, the first major piece of wearable electronics after the watch—this aren't trivial. And yet, it doesn't impress me much more than Musk's existing achievements have—they're both in edison territory at the moment—brilliant businessmen—not Gutenberg, world-changing level yet.
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      Agreed, Google does a ton of things extremely well but the world would be more or less the same with subpar search or subpar youtube from some other company. If they can realize the self driving car or get everyone wearing glass then they've changed the world.
    - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
      Tesla is on the forefront of getting the car industry to accept something they said couldn't be done. Battery powered cars. This will change the world, or maybe be required step for us to not wreck it.
- 12y ago

jxjdjr 12y ago

Seriously end the hero worship.

jayvanguard 12y ago

Fluff piece.

psbp 12y ago
I've seen a lot of these about Page recently. I wonder if we're going to see a more aggressive shakeup.

comrade1 12y ago

I'm glad that Google has enough money to take on risky projects. So much of what they do fails - they essentially only have advertising. But to be honest nothing in that article seemed that world-changing or interesting. Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection. But nanoparticles for drug deliver is interesting but they've been doing something similar with bio-engineered antibodies since the early 2000s. (in fact, if you're rich enough you can get a tailored cancer treatment with antibodies specific to your own specific cancer - this has been around for awhile) I've long hoped that self-aware AI would come out of Google, but perhaps not. In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary.

rattray 12y ago
You may be giving up too soon here. None of the fruits of Google X's labors have hit mainstream production yet. You'll be able to judge them once they have.
- jacobkranz 12y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Google Glass come out of X?
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Is Glass considered mainstream yet? I thought it was still for developers mainly.
    - adventured 12y ago
      As a product, it's not even a beta yet realistically. It's nowhere near being a fully launched product. Maybe in three to five years.
richsinn 12y ago
Are you kidding me? Not "interesting" ideas? > Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection. Using antibodies and tailored cancer treatment is still a reactive treatment. As the article states, the Google X Labs is aiming for "constant monitoring" of your body with these nanoparticles - hence creating a "proactive" ability to constantly monitor your body of potential issues. If achievable, that's pretty remarkable. > In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary. Both Page and Musk are visionaries. The logic you use to criticize Page's "mundane" ideas can be equally applied to Musk - serious attempts at modern electric cars have been around since the 90s [1][2], and space travel has been around since the 60s. Your logic would dictate that Musk is merely extending the work in those fields. Your criticism of Page's "moon shot" ideas not being world-changing/interesting greatly misses the point. Page and Musk have different areas of strengths, but I don't think you can call one of them a "true visionary" compared to the other. They've already both proven to be incredibly prescient on more than occasion. As for self-aware AI, we're a long ways away from that. Neither Page nor Musk nor anyone else is remotely close to self-aware AI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

ChuckMcM 12y ago

"As Google’s core business continues to thrive, Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology" I am one of the folks who doesn't believe that Search Advertising is "continuing to thrive", rather I think if you look at the steady erosion of CPC and the growing cost of paid distribution you will see that Google's search advertising business is dying (or at least no longer organically growing). Google can pump those tires with additional inventory, cutting off partners to keep more of the revenue, and buying more traffic, but the bottom line is that if you just ran the business as usual search advertising revenues would be flat to down over the last 8 quarters. In that context their only choice is to find another Golden Goose quickly before the momentum flips. That said, I've been saying this for several years and they keep pumping and boosting the top line revenue. So it is entirely possible they consider this the normal evolution of their business. Maybe its just advertisers who are pickier or want a better return on their advertising dollar. I don't know, but I do know search advertising is losing profit margin faster than the market is growing.

hyp0 12y ago

Looks like Xerox PARC to me: one fantastic business funding great research projects. They are protecting that business well, by seeing and acting on mobile early, by acquiring Android and developing it. I think heads-up displays (eventually) will be the next big thing, because they remove hardware size-limitation (cf. watches), and Google is at least ready for that, with Glass.