I think it's so great that someone as goodhearted and intelligent is so damn rich and powerful. The previous generation of tech giants seem really quite nasty and brutish in comparison. The industrial moguls seem like they were even worse. I really hope it's a trend that better people end up in positions of power.
Imagine a world where most of the powerful people in business and politics were like Larry Page. We'd have ourselves a Star Trek-esque utopia within 30 years. Actually that's kind of what Google campuses remind me of: Starfleet HQ (which is also based in the bay area, hmm....http://i.imgur.com/gPsTC.jpg)
Goodhearted? The guy is a bazillionaire. You'll be good hearted too when you have so much money that no amount given away is a sacrifice anymore.
FYI: You can't really tell if someone is genuinely goodhearted by watching them being interviewed by Charie Rose. It's what they do when they know no one is looking that will reveal the true nature of a man.
Page is running a company which has no regard for their users privacy. Don't try to make him appear good. He is a scumbag, just as any other CEO. He may have a great PR team but he still is a scumbag.
Great interview, they both brought up some interesting points.
I still can't agree with what Page says about 'personalised results' though. He talks about 'search understanding you' as if it just makes existing search 'better'. But to me search is about 'I know what I'm looking for so I ask for something specific', usually looking for a fairly certain answer. If this involves my search history, or people that I know, I will be able to tell the search platform that when I search, I don't want them to assume this on my behalf - this just makes my results less specific than I originally intended.
Its a bit of a conflation between advertising and search really, they are trying to second guess what I am interested in before I know it, which I'm not sure is very positive.
But to me search is about 'I know what I'm looking for so I ask for something specific', usually looking for a fairly certain answer. If this involves my search history, or people that I know, I will be able to tell the search platform that when I search, I don't want them to assume this on my behalf - this just makes my results less specific than I originally intended.
We (the HN community) are not the target audience for these optimizations. Ever watched your mom type in a search query? It's aweful, sometimes I'm amazed at the results Google can produce for crappy search queries. It's those people that will benefit tremendously from these kind of optimizations.
For us, who do not want the personalised search results, the standard answer has been that we should simply log off and it will be generic. While I do feel that Google should simply make this an account preference (so I don't have to log off from my gmail account just to be able to use search in a fashion I appreciate), I can clearly see and appreciate why Google is going for personalised search.
When I search for "Eclipse Java", I want results about the IDE. When my girlfriend searches, she's probably interested in Twilight-themed coffee or something. That's what personalization is all about.
I take it that this was your first Charlie Rose interview? He is one of the best interviewers still around. I just wish Mr. Russert could have interviewed Larry Page.
Agreed -- he did his research. I was imagining him having to be equally knowledgeable in many other domains when interviewing political leaders and so forth, and came away impressed. Although I'm sure he has a team that helps prepares the questions, he still has to think on his feet a bit.
The only place where he perhaps came off uninformed is when he implied that Google hadn't acquired any companies in 2012, when in fact they've acquired dozens. But that's not a very substantive mistake.
And imagine the wide variety of people that he interviews. Being a good interviewer like that takes talent and intelligent because he has to become a quasi-expert in pretty much everything, within a week.
is he right when he says that Facebook will eventually be forced to release personal data to its users? Would it be a market constraint? If so from whom? Or would be a legal constraint?
He argues that the data belongs to the user, and the user should be allowed to easily transfer it to another service.
We could argue about privacy stuff, but the fact that Facebook allows Yahoo access to the data means that Facebook uses this only as an excuse, all they really care about is giving competition a hard time.
I didn't watch the interview (is there a transcript somewhere?). Does he mean release like is possible under the "Download a copy of your Facebook data" link on the account settings page, https://www.facebook.com/settings? Or more?
Its a great interview. Its interesting to hear about his thoughts on YouTube. He is expecting majority of GOOG's revenue coming from YouTube. Is YouTube going to be "hollywood killer"?
Why are Charlie Rose interviews only available via Flash? It's a shame that these amazing interviews are only accessible on systems that run Flash. I'd love to even get an audio only file.
Did Page dye his hair? A bit off topic but it's a bit shocking that a 39-year-old would have hair that gray. I guess even running a wildly successful company is stressful.
Page doesn't really strike me as the type to invest heavily in appearances.
> it's a bit shocking that a 39-year-old would have hair that gray.
shrug maybe. I've had significant gray hair in my beard since I was 19 or so & my uncles were both bald by 25. Weirder things have happened.
> I guess even running a wildly successful company is stressful.
Probably more so than a failure. At least failures end :-P Having had recently to negotiate various potential outcomes in parallel, with nothing but upside all around, I couldn't believe how incredibly stressful it can be. It's an odd thought to find yourself wishing for (startup) death, to make the stress go away. However, on the other side, most of that type of stress is self-imposed. Maybe the same thing that made him so successful is what made his hair go gray...
I'm surprised that you haven't seen other relatively young people with gray hair. It's more common than you think, and it's not always stress, it just runs on the family sometimes.
[+] [-] staunch|14 years ago|reply
Imagine a world where most of the powerful people in business and politics were like Larry Page. We'd have ourselves a Star Trek-esque utopia within 30 years. Actually that's kind of what Google campuses remind me of: Starfleet HQ (which is also based in the bay area, hmm....http://i.imgur.com/gPsTC.jpg)
[+] [-] shin_lao|14 years ago|reply
I know my sample size is extremely small, but I tend to believe these qualities help reaching the top, if they are not mandatory.
Sly, idiotic and lazy people eventually fall from the sky.
[+] [-] eternalban|14 years ago|reply
Years of M.I.C. brain washing at work. Star Trek is run by a military Junta. (Did you note?)
[+] [-] edwardw|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archetypical|14 years ago|reply
FYI: You can't really tell if someone is genuinely goodhearted by watching them being interviewed by Charie Rose. It's what they do when they know no one is looking that will reveal the true nature of a man.
[+] [-] fear91|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twelvechairs|14 years ago|reply
I still can't agree with what Page says about 'personalised results' though. He talks about 'search understanding you' as if it just makes existing search 'better'. But to me search is about 'I know what I'm looking for so I ask for something specific', usually looking for a fairly certain answer. If this involves my search history, or people that I know, I will be able to tell the search platform that when I search, I don't want them to assume this on my behalf - this just makes my results less specific than I originally intended.
Its a bit of a conflation between advertising and search really, they are trying to second guess what I am interested in before I know it, which I'm not sure is very positive.
[+] [-] stingraycharles|14 years ago|reply
We (the HN community) are not the target audience for these optimizations. Ever watched your mom type in a search query? It's aweful, sometimes I'm amazed at the results Google can produce for crappy search queries. It's those people that will benefit tremendously from these kind of optimizations.
For us, who do not want the personalised search results, the standard answer has been that we should simply log off and it will be generic. While I do feel that Google should simply make this an account preference (so I don't have to log off from my gmail account just to be able to use search in a fashion I appreciate), I can clearly see and appreciate why Google is going for personalised search.
[+] [-] thurn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busted|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chubot|14 years ago|reply
The only place where he perhaps came off uninformed is when he implied that Google hadn't acquired any companies in 2012, when in fact they've acquired dozens. But that's not a very substantive mistake.
[+] [-] fl3tch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wensing|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gsa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mukaiji|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickff|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voidr|14 years ago|reply
We could argue about privacy stuff, but the fact that Facebook allows Yahoo access to the data means that Facebook uses this only as an excuse, all they really care about is giving competition a hard time.
[+] [-] jarek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marshallp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dm8|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstanley|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigfishl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InfinityX0|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snprbob86|14 years ago|reply
Page doesn't really strike me as the type to invest heavily in appearances.
> it's a bit shocking that a 39-year-old would have hair that gray.
shrug maybe. I've had significant gray hair in my beard since I was 19 or so & my uncles were both bald by 25. Weirder things have happened.
> I guess even running a wildly successful company is stressful.
Probably more so than a failure. At least failures end :-P Having had recently to negotiate various potential outcomes in parallel, with nothing but upside all around, I couldn't believe how incredibly stressful it can be. It's an odd thought to find yourself wishing for (startup) death, to make the stress go away. However, on the other side, most of that type of stress is self-imposed. Maybe the same thing that made him so successful is what made his hair go gray...
[+] [-] pacomerh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Estragon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertp|14 years ago|reply
They bought Milk (Kevin Rose) & TxVia (some type of mobile payment company)
[+] [-] johsoe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|14 years ago|reply
http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalg...
At the moment it is not slow for me at all. I am getting 2.2MB on a standard tw.rr.com cable connection...
[+] [-] narrator|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgs1019|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duncan|14 years ago|reply
http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalg...
[+] [-] duncan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] callmeed|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TechNewb|14 years ago|reply
Should be posted soon.
[+] [-] d0mine|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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