Larry Page on how to change the world

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/29/magazines/fortune/larry_page_change_the_world.fortune/

by jkush • 18 years ago

45 28 18 years ago

money.cnn.com

brooksbp• 18 years ago

"Even when we started Google, we thought, "Oh, we might fail," and we almost didn't do it. The reason we started is that Stanford said, "You guys can come back and finish your Ph.D.s if you don't succeed.""

So true. Society has formed a horrible notion of stressing the importance of earning your degree(s) right after high school and in consecutive order.

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

The sidebar on 'The Best Advice I Ever Got' makes for good reading too.

Here's the link:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.bes...

jkent• 18 years ago

Great link this one, a couple of red herrings in there.

Ford CEO (#25) saying "Focus on the customer. Deliver value.". Neither of which they are respected for.

aupajo• 18 years ago

I like the fact that he stays optimistic and talks about the opportunities we have to make a difference, rather than complain about all the problems we have.

tokipin• 18 years ago

yea, people that do that annoy me

redorb• 18 years ago

Wish cancer was on that list of noble things to fix. But I guess cancer < dirty water > shelter < food

gcheong• 18 years ago

I went to google's san francisco's open house a few months back where Vincent G. Serf (http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html#vint) gave a talk and at one point he mentioned a list of engineering "grand challenges" put together by the National Academy of Engineering. It's an interesting list and may provide some good food for thought for anyone with a bit of free time on their hands:

http://engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx

nazgulnarsil7• 18 years ago

i notice that all those challenges are related to one challenge that isn't mentioned. the exponential function as it relates to human population is the basis of most problems.

at some point engineering doesn't matter, there simply won't be enough resources to keep everyone alive, much less with a decent standard of living.

how do we reconcile our innate capacity to continuously expand with a finite world?

Xichekolas5• 18 years ago

Population growth has been slowing in the last couple decades. An odd effect of economic success (as a nation) seems to be vastly lower birthrates. It could be ready access to contraceptives, or more women working, or whatever, but it's an obvious trend. Nations like Japan and Italy have negative replacement rates at the moment.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Rate_of_increa...

Aside from that, population pressures do build, but they can't just build forever. Eventually something happens (war, famine, technological breakthrough) that solves the problem in the short term. If we suddenly run out of some critical resource, that will suck for individuals, and the ensuing resource wars may take a terrible toll, but the race as a whole will survive and grow again.

anewaccountname• 18 years ago

Thanks Malthus.

amirnathoo• 18 years ago

"how do we reconcile our innate capacity to continuously expand with a finite world?"

How about colonizing space? Seriously. Do you think it will never happen?

edw519• 18 years ago

"how do we reconcile our innate capacity to continuously expand with a finite world?"

Condoms.

Seriously, in keeping with the spirit of the OP, many people in the developing world can't even imagine a concept like "family planning" so they don't bother to do it. They just assume you keep having babies until you can't.

Maybe we should be less concerned with "One Laptop Per Child" and focus more on "Condoms for Couples". Then the laptop problem would solve itself.

dangoldin4• 18 years ago

The thing that struck me was the point about Moore's Law not being applicable to cars - which seems to go against his point of not believing in limits.

If we all expected cars to double their efficiency every 2 years maybe people would be working on that just like they are working hard to double the number of transistors every 2 years.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

It's a reflection of the physical limits of transportation. Even if you have a weightless car, you still have to move the weight of the passenger, who's a lot heavier than the electrons getting moved around in computers. Really, nothing in history has improved as fast as computer hardware, so it's reasonable to assume that most things won't.

That doesn't mean that huge advances are not possible - read Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken to learn how 250mpg cars are possible with current tech.

mrdorian• 18 years ago

i wish i could work for him on some of the projects

Larry Page on how to change the world

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