Larry Page, Google's CEO and co-founder, was interviewed by Wired under the title Google's Larry Page on Why Moon Shots Matter.
In the interview he had a bunch of great responses that talked about Google's motivation and how he feels about certain competitors.
Let me share some of my favorite snippets...
Page on Steve Jobs of Apple:
Wired: Steve Jobs felt competitive enough to claim that he was willing to "go to thermonuclear war" on Android.Page: How well is that working?
Page On Facebook:
Wired: One area where people say that Google is indeed motivated by competition is the social realm, where in the past two years you have been working hard in a field dominated by a single rival, Facebook. That's not the case?Page: It's not the way I think about it. We had real issues with how our users shared information, how they expressed their identity, and so on. And, yeah, they're a company that's strong in that space. But they're [Facebook] also doing a really bad job on their products.
Page On Google+
Wired: What's your evaluation of Google+?Page: I'm very happy with how it has gone. We're working on a lot of really cool stuff. A lot of it has been copied by our competitors, so I think we're doing a good job.
Page On TGIF Meetings:
Wired: You hold a weekly TGIF meeting, where any employee can ask you or other top executives a question, either in person or electronically. How can you keep that kind of intimacy as you grow?Page: Anything is scalable. We do need to be more cognizant of time zones, because we've got a lot of people in different places. Short of building a giant space mirror that causes the whole Earth to light up at the same time, there's not much we can do about that. So we're moving that TGIF meeting to Thursday, so that people in Asia can get it during their work week. That process still works pretty well at our size, and I’m sure it will work fine up to a million people as well.
No word on Microsoft Bing by the way.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
