Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology

http://fortune.com/2014/11/13/googles-larry-page-the-most-ambitious-ceo-in-the-universe/

by charlie_vill • 12 years ago

158 74 12 years ago

wmeredith• 12 years ago

"A brainiac who works in the lab walks into Page’s office one day wielding his latest world-changing invention—a time machine. As the scientist reaches for the power cord to begin a demo, Page fires off a dismissive question: “Why do you need to plug it in?”

It’s a tall tale that is repeated affectionately by the whizzes inside the futuristic lab because it captures the urgency and aspiration of their boss to move technology forward."

Is this really repeated affectionately? (If at all.) That sounds like a bug, not a feature.

mahyarm• 12 years ago

It sounds like the typical strategy of just asking for something more when it's presented to you, to get more results. It's easier to ask than to make.

corysama• 12 years ago

The joke was probably intended as a jab at unreasonable managers, but joke-Page did catch an important engineering flaw: After you use the wall-socket-powered time machine to travel through time, there is likely to not be a wall socket at your destination...

mkm416• 12 years ago

The joke is that it's a time machine. Someone brings a working one of those to office and I wouldn't care if it's powered by a butter churn.

AndrewKemendo• 12 years ago

But while the company still earns the majority of its revenue from advertising, during his tenure Page has helped to diversify the business. Notably, YouTube is expected to generate nearly $6 billion in revenue this year

Maybe I am being pedantic but aren't revenues from Youtube also based on advertising?

To the broader point though, why aren't more investors also putting money toward these "moonshots?" Is it because they don't have the liquidity to do it? Do they cost too much for the risk? If that were true then the Google's investments would be widely panned rather than held up as "making the right bets" as this article mentions.

It seems like these "singularity" technologies are the types of things that valley investors would be all over.

melling2• 12 years ago

That probably should have said 'search advertising'. YouTube is a different type of advertising. Google needs to plan for a day when search advertising comes under attack from the next big thing. Maybe traditional search fades away, etc.

threeseed• 12 years ago

The next "big thing" was supposed to be Siri, Cortana etc which are built into the OS and don't interact with Google. And there has been curious examples of Apple crawling web sites.

waterlesscloud2• 12 years ago

The interesting thing is that neither YouTube nor Google search have much user lock-in.

YouTube has content producer lock-in, which is tremendously helpful. And it may be that there's just no room for improvement massive enough to pull people away, that video delivery is close enough to its peak to not leave any room for real competition.

But if content was elsewhere, YouTube revenue would vanish very quickly indeed.

Search, on the other hand, still has massive room for improvement. Someone, somewhere will eventually do it. And there's nothing that would keep users on Google search when they do.

It's not like Facebook where's there's a huge network effect. Once there's a notably better search option, it wins very very quickly.

adventured4• 12 years ago

Traditional search will never fade away, it'll be diluted. It's the same premise as what's happening to Microsoft with Windows, or Intel with the 'old style' CPU. The traditional desktop type OS isn't going to disappear, as people have been regularly and incorrectly claiming for ~20 years - it's going to be / has been diluted in terms of usage and importance.

Mimu• 12 years ago

The best contender for the next big search thing would probably be Google itself though.

jpatokal• 12 years ago

The time horizon for moonshots is way too long for the average VC. Google started working on autonomous cars c. 2010, and I'd be fairly astonished if they're available for sale to the general public by 2020.

shas3• 12 years ago

Google is a public company, and I think the average Wall Street investor is even more 'short-term' than VCs. In fact, it should be a surprise that investors are not questioning such spending. What insulates these moonshot projects from investor ire is that as an expense, they are only a very small part of the total revenue of Google.

yzzxy• 12 years ago

I bet Google's car tech will start yielding returns for the company far before consumers drive robotic cars. I doubt they will make cars themselves.

ajcarpy2005• 12 years ago

Well some startups that were making progress towards these moonshot ideas have been bought by Google. Also, they have a significant portion of the world's smartest human beings. But there are exceptions; there are companies, big ones and startups, that are working on self-driving cars, cancer-detecting nanotechnologies, high-altitude balloon-based Internet, robotics, home automation, etc.

Thinking further into this question you've posed...there has been a lot of discussion here on HN about how hardware is harder to work with than software. Whether this is true in anything other than for psychological or cultural reasons, who knows. But certainly there is more 'entropy' with your invested failures along the road to success and it's not as simple as deleting or cutting and pasting LOC in a computer file. Hardware is material.

snowwrestler2• 12 years ago

Why didn't investors put money toward creating the real actual moonshot? Because, amazing idea that it was, there was no sustainable business there.

Just because an idea is inspiring, amazing, even culturally transformative, that doesn't mean it can be a business. And generally speaking, investors are only interested in ideas that can be businesses. (That's what makes them investors instead of philanthropists...or politicians.)

Here's another reason--new technologies don't always win, because older technologies improve too. When I was editing a tech e-newsletter over a decade ago, a major hot new technology was called organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). This display technology had a huge viewing angle, did not need a backlight, and was super power efficient. It could be printed onto plastic substrates that were flexible and even translucent. It was going to kill the LCD.

Except, it didn't. LCDs improved fast enough to hold onto the market--they got LED backlights, power efficiency, higher and higher resolutions, better viewing angles, better colors, and (maybe most importantly) cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because the volumes were so huge. And it turned out that OLED's had some problems that were not so easily solved. So while OLED is used commercially today, the volumes are small. LCDs, so far, have kept on winning.

eli_gottlieb2• 12 years ago

To the broader point though, why aren't more investors also putting money toward these "moonshots?"

Because only ultra-large, incredibly-rich companies can afford to have seriously large investments fail quite this often. Which is not to say they're a bad idea! This is how blue-sky research works.

kurtle• 12 years ago

Disney is a classic example of a company that made huge leaps and transformed itself from a single revenue stream to a very diverse one.

Can you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films? Or how what they said when he unveiled the original vision of EPCOT as a real city with a theme park bolted on.

I don't have a strong opinion in Google doing their moonshots but it's happened before.

gregpilling• 12 years ago

A few? Walt got to Hollywood in 1923 and Disneyland opened in 1955. Perhaps more than a few. I would think the board would be fine with it, like Google's board seems to be fine with what Page is doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

grecy• 12 years ago

* you think of what the board of Disney said to Walt when he decided to open a brick and mortar theme park when their only product to date had been a few animated films?*

I read an article on Walt once that covered this.. he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work.

That was how he knew he was on to something - the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.

afro88• 12 years ago

he went to all his friends and family and told them his plan. Every single person told him he was nuts and it would never work.
the fact it had never been attempted before only made him more certain it was going to work.

Those are interesting reasons for being certain it will work. The combination of all the people you cherish the most telling you it's a bad idea and the fact that no one had tried it before. I mean, sure, I understand the romance of it and these reasons giving someone the drive to try it and succeed. But making you certain it's going to work? That I don't understand.

tonyedgecombe• 12 years ago

I'm sure there are plenty of people that went to all their friends and family with an idea, were told it wouldn't work and when they tried it it didn't.

chuckcode• 12 years ago

It would be great to see google diversify their business model as well as their technology so they weren't getting most of their profit from advertising.

amaks3• 12 years ago

It does -- there are products for enterprises, hardware, Google Play ecosystem, Internet access (fiber, loon), operating systems, investments into health research and robotics, self-driving cars, house energy and safety products (Nest). Not enough?

millstone• 12 years ago

Enterprise (with Google Docs), and maybe Chromecast, are the two arguably profitable non-advertising products. The other product areas are surely in the red.

Google is trying to diversify, but they haven't been successful at turning a profit on non-advertising products, at least not yet.

jeffreyrogers2• 12 years ago

Sometimes doing one thing well is good enough. Like Gillette or Coca-Cola.

saryant• 12 years ago

Gillette is part of Proctor and Gamble. Coca-Cola makes hundreds (thousands?) of products.

snowwrestler2• 12 years ago

I think Google also thinks this would be great, but they haven't figured out how to do it yet. Hence the many bets on new technology.

goshx• 12 years ago

Musk wants to colonize and live in Mars and Page is the most ambitious CEO of the universe?

duaneb2• 12 years ago

Let's talk when Musk achieves one of his goals :P And no, I don't think musk is more ambitious than page; they are just headed different places.

bjelkeman-again2• 12 years ago

Seriously I would consider Musk an Co have achieved several of their goals. Each one being the step on the way to a bigger goal.

ameister14• 12 years ago

Well, let's see: private rocket company sending stuff to the international space station, fastest production sedan and it's electric, made electric cars cool. Some of the goals seem to be accomplished.

mfisher87• 12 years ago

Yeah, in the universe. More ambitious even than Glorblax, creator of the monoliths.

Why does anyone ever continue reading an article after a headline like that? Nothing can follow except a thoughtless a puff piece.

rattray3• 12 years ago

Why does _anyone_

Some people like puff pieces, or don't spend much time worrying about whether Glorblax got his fair recognition. (Personally, I agree with you)

graycat2• 12 years ago

I nearly posted my standard view of Fortune but relented. But with your comment, here goes! My view of Fortune is that they have a formula for such articles.

First glance, the article seems to be to provide information to the readers, say, as in "this is what this really successful guy does that you, the reader, might learn from and find useful in your work in business". But my view is that this first glance is nearly totally wrong.

Instead the formula for the articles is not to provide useful, or even very solid, information at all. Instead, the formula is a manipulation of the reader: The reader is made to feel good about themselves.

How? The article makes the subject's work look simple, definitely like the reader can easily see themselves doing the same. Then the reader feels like they are on the right track, that is, already doing as well as the subject of the article. So, the article passes out a lot of simplistic insights, cliches, trivialities, etc. that any reader can agree that they could have done.

Really it is best for the formula if the reader comes away learning nothing at all; that is, part of the formula is to make the reader conclude that they are already on the right track, already know as much as the subject in the article, could easily do just what the subject does, and, thus, are on the way also to being worth billions. So, a main goal is that the reader learn nothing!

So, are making the reader feel good by confirming that the simplistic thoughts that they can easily already have really are the right stuff.

Or, such an article is vicarious, escapist, fantasy, emotional experience entertainment (VEFEEE).

And that's the article. The formula is to manipulate the reader into coming back for more, thinking that, "I'm reading Fortune and, thus, learning from the best Captains of Business; oh, oh, oh, I'm learning so much; and, since these guys are worth billions, I can be, too.".

I concluded all this long ago. I am surprised to see Fortune still following the same old formula. Heck, I kept reading to the end just to see if they had any significant content beyond their old formula -- they didn't.

So, net, I gave up on Fortune for years, and now I'll give up on the Web version for more years! What a big pile of nutten, deliberately, very carefully crafted, total nutten!

"Thoughtless" you say! How kind you are!

CmonDev• 12 years ago

I'd rather live forever than on Mars.

kamaal• 12 years ago

And that way you can live on Mars some day. :)

Actually we must let people make progress where ever they are interested.

After all the guy who built the first brick didn't know someday they would used to build pyramids.

jxjdjr• 12 years ago

Seriously end the hero worship.

jayvanguard• 12 years ago

Fluff piece.

psbp• 12 years ago

I've seen a lot of these about Page recently. I wonder if we're going to see a more aggressive shakeup.

comrade1• 12 years ago

I'm glad that Google has enough money to take on risky projects. So much of what they do fails - they essentially only have advertising. But to be honest nothing in that article seemed that world-changing or interesting. Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection.

But nanoparticles for drug deliver is interesting but they've been doing something similar with bio-engineered antibodies since the early 2000s. (in fact, if you're rich enough you can get a tailored cancer treatment with antibodies specific to your own specific cancer - this has been around for awhile)

I've long hoped that self-aware AI would come out of Google, but perhaps not.

In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary.

rattray3• 12 years ago

You may be giving up too soon here. None of the fruits of Google X's labors have hit mainstream production yet. You'll be able to judge them once they have.

jacobkranz• 12 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Google Glass come out of X?

richsinn• 12 years ago

Are you kidding me? Not "interesting" ideas?

Even the nanoparticles are mundane and not much more of an extension of the work that's been going on since the 90s on bio-chips for detection.

Using antibodies and tailored cancer treatment is still a reactive treatment. As the article states, the Google X Labs is aiming for "constant monitoring" of your body with these nanoparticles - hence creating a "proactive" ability to constantly monitor your body of potential issues. If achievable, that's pretty remarkable.

In comparison, Elon Musk seems like the true visionary.

Both Page and Musk are visionaries. The logic you use to criticize Page's "mundane" ideas can be equally applied to Musk - serious attempts at modern electric cars have been around since the 90s [1][2], and space travel has been around since the 60s. Your logic would dictate that Musk is merely extending the work in those fields.

Your criticism of Page's "moon shot" ideas not being world-changing/interesting greatly misses the point.

Page and Musk have different areas of strengths, but I don't think you can call one of them a "true visionary" compared to the other. They've already both proven to be incredibly prescient on more than occasion.

As for self-aware AI, we're a long ways away from that. Neither Page nor Musk nor anyone else is remotely close to self-aware AI.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

eli_gottlieb2• 12 years ago

I've long hoped that self-aware AI would come out of Google, but perhaps not.

No, that one's coming out of MIT. Gosh, don't you read journals ;-)?

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

"As Google’s core business continues to thrive, Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology"

I am one of the folks who doesn't believe that Search Advertising is "continuing to thrive", rather I think if you look at the steady erosion of CPC and the growing cost of paid distribution you will see that Google's search advertising business is dying (or at least no longer organically growing). Google can pump those tires with additional inventory, cutting off partners to keep more of the revenue, and buying more traffic, but the bottom line is that if you just ran the business as usual search advertising revenues would be flat to down over the last 8 quarters. In that context their only choice is to find another Golden Goose quickly before the momentum flips.

That said, I've been saying this for several years and they keep pumping and boosting the top line revenue. So it is entirely possible they consider this the normal evolution of their business. Maybe its just advertisers who are pickier or want a better return on their advertising dollar. I don't know, but I do know search advertising is losing profit margin faster than the market is growing.

hyp0• 12 years ago

Looks like Xerox PARC to me: one fantastic business funding great research projects.

They are protecting that business well, by seeing and acting on mobile early, by acquiring Android and developing it.

I think heads-up displays (eventually) will be the next big thing, because they remove hardware size-limitation (cf. watches), and Google is at least ready for that, with Glass.

Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology

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