Google CEO Is Tired of Rivals, Laws, Wants to Start His Own Country

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/15/larry_page_io_keynote_google_ceo_blasts_microsoft_oracle_laws_and_the_media.html

by wikiburner • 13 years ago

67 73 13 years ago

slate.com

doktrin• 13 years ago

As much as I philosophically agree, and want to agree with much of the sentiment being evoked here ("solve problems", "cooperation", "progress", etc.), I can't help but shake the feeling there's a shark out there currently being jumped by a vibram-sporting surfer.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

It's so weird you say that, because the first thing that came to my mind reading those quotes was Fonzie in swim trunks.

srik• 13 years ago

Jesus, that was some serious word-twisting. It was an impromptu response and IMO they should be weighed with the spirit more than the words in mind.

Given the benefit of doubt, I can totally see where Larry was coming from. In fact it seemed bold and even slightly refreshing to hear him convey his thoughts without the usual restrictions. Industry wide conversations start these ways and examination of a problem is crucial before we can attempt to solve it.

eupharis• 13 years ago

/agreed

This is one of the most breathtaking biased pieces I've seen in a very long time. This guy really, really doesn't like Google. Or maybe just Larry Page.

Edit:

By the same writer:

In the same vein as this "story", a bizarre caption in a "story" covering Eric Schmidt's Guardian op-ed suggesting civilian drones are a bad idea:

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt knows what's best for us."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/15/ban_civil...

I glanced through the first 10 pages of his other stories on Slate. They aren't all rabidly anti-Google. Though he does seem to hold the founders of Google in special disdain for some reason.

Now I'm more inclined to think this is simple link-baiting, not bias. He'll say anything for the clicks. Which seems like a common trend on Slate these days. I remember the days when Slate had some really excellent original journalism.

gkoberger2• 13 years ago

A few random thoughts:

* "he left out the part where Google recently sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter demanding that it remove the YouTube app from its Windows Phones" has nothing to do with interoperating, but rather Microsoft not showing ads (among other infractions).

* "Mozilla guy" is Dan Buchner (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dandonkulous), who's working with Google on web components. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2cpEUw1...

Larry gave an impressive non-answer to the relatively basic question ("Hey, any chance web technologies will replace Java on Android?"), and went off on quite the interesting tangent about just about everything.

I can only assume he's been wanting to say these things for a while, and jumped on basically the first open ended question he got. I bet the Google PR team was freaking out a bit.

CloudNine3• 13 years ago

>has nothing to do with interoperating, but rather Microsoft not showing ads (among other infractions).

Says who? Microsoft offered to show ads but Google refuses to give them access to the API since almost 3 years.

Perhaps you haven't read this story because Google fanboys on HN are flagging it heavily to keep HN readers like you in the dark.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889

jmillikin7• 13 years ago

The public YouTube API documented at https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/ appears to have all the functionality required to implement a TOS-compliant client. In particular, it has support for fetching the HTML required to embed a video player that obeys uploader settings for advertisement and device restriction.

Microsoft's original request is for Google to create a new API which would allow querying of richer metadata about videos. It's not apparent why this new API is required to write a TOS-compliant YouTube client.

ok_craig2• 13 years ago

You realize that if ads are required by the TOS, but you don't have the ability to include ads, that it doesn't mean it's just okay to ignore the TOS and distribute the app anyway?

Whether it's fair or not for Google to not provide a way to include ads is a different argument entirely. It sounds like it's just not even technically legal for MS to distribute their YouTube app in its current state.

enraged_camel6• 13 years ago

Considering how big of a lie Google's "Don't do evil" motto has become, are we supposed to believe that Page really wants to solve problems and make progress by cooperating with other companies?

You have to have consumed quite a bit of the "Goolaid" to be able to take his ramblings seriously.

barista• 13 years ago

As a company whose goal is to make money can you blame them? It's the people who naively believe in the propaganda.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

There is nothing wrong with Google trying to make money. Making money is great. It's the utterly insufferable "we're not just making money, we're changing the world!" rationalization that accompanies it. Fact is that Google is an advertising company (95% of its revenues come from ads), selling eyeballs to companies peddling cheap Chinese crap. They're incredibly good at it. They should just embrace that and stop pretending they're something else.

wslh• 13 years ago

Probably cooperation at an infinitesimal scale. Like the money that AdSense pays.

riggins• 13 years ago

Considering how big of a lie Google's "Don't do evil" motto

Genuinely curious here, what are the things that google has done that people think are evil? Maybe as a follow-up, what corporations do you think make a greater positive impact than google?

QuantumGood• 13 years ago

Google's evil activity cost them half BILLION dollars when a gov't sting uncovered it: http://bit.ly/14osMvb

yekko• 13 years ago

I hope Google moves to Texas!

dvt3• 13 years ago

"To recap, Page criticized Microsoft for treating Google as a rival, blasted Oracle for caring too much about money, and then whined about everyone being so negative. Heck, if it weren’t for those other companies standing in the way, Google would have probably already solved world hunger."

I mean, pretty much this (assuming the above was facetious). The Youtube thing really made me lose a lot of hope in Google as a company. Even though, I feel that we've made great strides in the past 10 years, I can't help but be reminded that:

1) I have people on my Facebook that I can't add to my phone without some ridiculous hacks (that essentially scrape FB, breaking the TOS) - thanks Facebook

2) I can't use GMail in the vanilla mail app on my touchscreen W8 laptop - thanks Google

3) I can't have a Metro Chrome app - thanks Google

4) My sister can't have almost anything (native) Google-related on her ARM-based W8RT tablet - thanks Microsoft

5) I can't have a distro-agnostic framework that "just works" for downloading/updating/installing/uninstalling Linux packages - thanks FOSS infighting cliques

6) I don't have full control over my Android/Apple phone, over my Android/Apple/Windows tablet, (and soon over my Google glass) unless I root said devices

This is simply a consumer-space extension of the legal battles that these companies are so fond of (see Samsung vs. Apple). The sad part is, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Oh, well.. c'est la vie.

gkoberger2• 13 years ago

A lot of things you mentioned are more "why would company A bother building for company B's platform?" than "the companies are evil!"

CloudNine3• 13 years ago

Then why does Vimeo have a Windows Phone 8 and WinRT app while YouTube with a much higher revenue can't make one?

Why does the zombie company Yahoo Mail bother to a Windows Metro app while Gmail doesn't?

Or perhaps Google doesn't want to support Windows Phone and WinRT for the fear of rivaling Android phones and tablets.

jmillikin7• 13 years ago

2 - Gmail supports SMTP and IMAP, so any mail client should work. The top hit for [windows 8 gmail] is http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8... , which indicates that the Windows 8 mail app has an icon specifically for configuring Gmail accounts.

3 - According to http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.ht... , Chrome has supported Metro since June 2012 when running on a non-RT version of Windows. Computers running Windows 8 RT can't run any browser in Metro mode (see http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users... ), so it's not like Google has a choice there.

6 - To root a device means to gain full control over it. It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

icambron• 13 years ago

> It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.

dvt3• 13 years ago

2 - http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/mobile-app...

3 - There is no native Metro Chrome app (talking x86 or x86-64 here, I address RT in my subsequent point), so I'm not sure what you're talking about. The current Metro implementation is NOT a true Metro implementation (it's just the desktop app stuck in a metro window -- no gestures, no larger fonts, etc, etc).

6 - Someone already addressed this point

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

Why the negative slant in this article?

Personally I want more folks to spread ideas similar to Larry's. (Whether he meant it or not is impossible to know of course)

AJ007• 13 years ago

I don't have a very positive view of Google, but it was obvious that article was written solely to be a headline grabber.

kinleyd• 13 years ago

It was a pretty crappy article.

DuskStar• 13 years ago

Well, if Google decides to found a new country akin to Bioshock's Rapture, I don't think they'll lack for volunteer citizens...

But even for Google, founding a country would be enormously difficult. So even if Page genuinely wanted to, it won't happen this decade. Whether it should is a different issue.

erikpukinskis• 13 years ago

I identify with this.

I want to produce food for myself and my community on my property, and build structures that make efficient use of space for occupancy, and these things are extremely illegal.

random42• 13 years ago

Not a US citizen here.

Is growing food for community is illegal? is it due to the FDA requirements?

waltz• 13 years ago

I want to live there ;_;

lmarinho• 13 years ago

Maybe he can try starting a charter city.

seanlinmt• 13 years ago

Beta testing a new country? East Timor comes to mind. It's a fairly young independent country. Maybe the newest actually.

yen223• 13 years ago

South Sudan is the newest :)

CloudNine3• 13 years ago

Copy pasta from someone else's HN comment on Google sending cease and desist to MS for Youtube story:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889

From Google's About page: "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".

nvrmor• 13 years ago

Here's the Q&A for those who didn't see it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfK8h73bb-o

No1• 13 years ago

The quotes from Larry are interesting, the juvenile commentary that surrounds them is not.

tdiggity• 13 years ago

Google city - self driving cars only, please.

moultano• 13 years ago

Folks who are tired of lazy cynicism and spiteful snark might prefer to read this one: http://gizmodo.com/larry-page-reminded-us-why-we-love-google...

sliderpilot• 13 years ago

Larry Page seems to be in denial that Google is different from Microsoft or Oracle. For the most part Google doesn't care about collaboration or innovation. What they care about is increasing their mass, by offering an ever increasing number of products & services, in order to attract more eyeballs to view ads.

What value is Google creating by making another subscription music service with a similar catalog size at the same price as existing companies?

What radical innovation has Google+ Hangouts incorporated that doesn't exist with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp & Skype?

Why does the Chromebook Pixel look so much like a boxy Macbook Pro?

Just like Microsoft, they aren't trendsetters, they follow and copy what others are doing and use their brand recognition in order to gain market share.

Larry says "you can't focus on zero-sum games", but that is exactly what Google is doing. Maybe not for a specific industry ( Messaging, Music, etc ), but they are interested in winning the zero-sum game of people's attention.

If Google can spread itself across as many industries as possible, not necessary being the market leader of a specific industry, and take slices of people's attention here and there, they'll win the attention game.

Google embraces collaboration/standardization because it means a lower barrier of entry into another industry for them.

taylodl• 13 years ago

These are big words considering Google is the biggest thief in the history of the world. But who cares about intellectual property anyway?

Google CEO Is Tired of Rivals, Laws, Wants to Start His Own Country

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