A Conversation with Sergey Brin | Hacker News Reader

A Conversation with Sergey Brin

techcrunch.com

47 pointsbastian18 comments

Why I think Google is and will remain strong and innovative:

"One day Larry and Sergey bought what became Android, and I didn't even know about this. They said this is really interesting. I didn’t think about that, but now think about the strategic opportunities that created"

The fact that Larry and Sergey can still pursue what they consider 'interesting' with their resources WITHOUT giant bureaucracy getting in the way speaks volumes about the health of the company IMO.

I mean, they should be able to dodge bureaucracy; they run the company. I'm missing what's so amazing here.

They do not own the company; they run it at the pleasure of (yes) a bureaucracy.

I'm pretty sure one of the most notable things about Google is Larry and Sergey's ability to avoid this, going back all the way to when they raised VC. They split the funds between rival firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital and kept control of the company for themselves.

Well, it's the fact that they can act independently, verses having to seek the board's approval that makes this an interesting case.

I don't think that particular move highlights the health of the company as much as it underscores the ability of the founders to pursue their strategies independently of the board of directors. I don't think that upper management would have protested an acquisition (in 2005) that would have moved the company into the mobile space. Android is certainly interesting, but I doubt Larry and Sergey buy companies without a clear plan of how that acquisition will (eventually) grow the bottom line.

The fact that Larry and Sergey can still pursue what they consider 'interesting' with their resources WITHOUT giant bureaucracy getting in the way speaks volumes about the health of the company IMO.

The hypothetical giant bureaucracy would be in place to prevent things like the corporation investing in the unrelated company of a director's wife, with the proceeds of the investment immediately being used to repay the loan the director gave to his wife's company.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124536959021129585.html

(They apparently rubber-stamped it, which kind of boggles my mind.)

In front of the press:

Eric Schmidt: It seems like Sergey has jumped the gun. We should focus mostly on search, and some of the ideas Sergey has.

I could only imagine what goes on behind closed doors.

This is hilarious:

Schmidt: let me, some of your assumptions about Chrome adoption are wrong. The adoption rate of Chrome is [very strong]. We are going to do a better job of getting that message out.

Schonfeld: Steve Ballmer calls it a rounding error, is it?

I don’t respond to Steve Ballmer questions. Next question?

You'd think they'd act like grown-ups before the press, given media's tendency to blow things out of proportion. But nope, not Schmidt.

You'd think they'd act like grown-ups before the press, given media's tendency to blow things out of proportion. But nope, not Schmidt.

The person acting like a child is not who you think it is.

Is it just me or does his bold formatting detract from rather than add to the interview? I found it hard to follow with the constant switch back and forth from bold to regular text.

I quickly switched from reading to skim-reading to trying to find a pattern in the boldness to giving up. I might've read it all if it used one font face consistently.

"Sergey: There is also the security aspect. In a recent hacker competition, Chrome was the only one to escape unscathed in terms of security vulnerabilities. And more stable."

When, oh when will people learn that touting the security of a product by how well it did in hacking competitions is not a measure of how secure it is?

There is no single measure of security. The hacking competition mentioned is a perfectly valid data point though.

Nothing wrong with comparing against a single benchmark, regardless of how good/bad the benchmark itself is. On the other hand, how would you have gone about measuring the security of browsers in a meaningful way?

Is it just me or does the entire interview seem very strained and uncomfortable? Schmidt seems to violently differ from Sergey and they both go compeltely mum when asked about their competitors.

To me it seemed like they avoided the celebrity cat fighting those questions about competitors would devolve into, "Jobs gets served by Brin and Schmidt" idiocy.

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