About Lawrence Page
Larry Page has described artificial intelligence as "the ultimate version of Google," stating in a 2000 interview that an ideal search engine would "understand everything on the web" and "be able to answer any question basically because almost everything is on the web." He has also discussed his approach to innovation, saying he uses the economic concept of "additionality," which he defined as "doing something that wouldn't happen unless you're actually doing it." Page has said he tries to focus on "what that future really is going to be and how do we create it."
Page has commented on the structure of Alphabet, noting that he and Sergey Brin see part of their job as "the Warren Buffett part, managing these disparate things." He has said his job is "to create that scale that we haven't quite seen from other companies." Regarding self-driving cars, Page said he hopes they can cause "a really dramatic change" and noted that "so much of our land, in most cities about 30 to 50 percent, is parking which is a tremendous waste." He has also stated that "invention is not enough," arguing that "companies are doing the same incremental thing that they did 50 years ago or 20 years ago" and that "we need revolutionary change not incremental change."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Lawrence Page's recent appearances.
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Transcript (4 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
You're doing everything you want to remake the energy business, you want to remake the telecommunications business, you want to remake the transportation business. I mean, you heard this from Steve Jobs. I understand he said you're doing too many things.
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Lawrence Page0:11
Yeah, I mean, he was right. I mean, he did fine as well. But you haven't slowed down. Yeah, no, I worry about that in fact. And I think for me, you know, I mentioned I wanted to make a company kind of for engineers. Trying to make a company for entrepreneurs also is something I think we're striving for. I think in the same way, maybe when I was working for the consultant company, it wasn't really my inner calling. I think for most entrepreneurs, working for companies is also not so great. And then I think the other thing we're trying to do is say, is that thing really, really important? You know, is it going to affect everyone in the world? Is it going to affect a lot of people every day? I mean, look at smartphones. I mean, there's billions of smartphones, and so it's amazing to see. But what's the threshold you're looking for? Individual bets that will change the world. From a business standpoint, you're looking at the business benefit you might get. But I think also in terms of motivating ourselves and our employees, potential employees, entrepreneurs, we want to be doing things that are exciting, you know, that are going to really make a difference. I think also companies have pretty bad reputations in general. It's not like most people in the world get up and they're like, oh, I wish I could go work for a company. I mean, they do it because they have to.
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Interviewer1:20
Why do you think they have such a bad reputation?
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Lawrence Page1:23
I don't know. It seems silly. Well, you obviously have thought about this a lot. Yeah, and I think that's something we should work to change. How do you avoid it? I think we got to be more ambitious. We got to do things that matter more to people. We've got to do less things that are kind of zero-sum games and more things that really cause a lot of benefit. So too many businesses are either making marginal changes or fighting for market share, or they're just doing things that aren't great.
