Dunno- we never discussed that. also, note that the author of the article (MG Siegler), and the founder of Excite (Joe Kraus) both ended up as venture capitalists working for GV.

Edit: the CEO of Excite at the time said the issue was that Larry wanted Excite to rip out all their search servers and replace them with Google (which would have been an inside-out acquisition, where the acquired company takes over the acquiring company):

Bell, currently with General Catalyst Partners, recalls Google’s asking price between $250,000 to $500,000 and 1% of Excite. He says the issue was not in the financial terms but in the larger deal points.

“Larry page insisted that we have to rip out all of the Excite search technology and replace it with Google,” Bell said.