Breaking it down -- In a world that keeps increasing its demands of you, you either die after a long streak of satisfying increasing demands (and giving observers the impression your capability was infinite -- a hero!) or you live long enough to see those demands exceed your capability to satisfy (and giving observers a clear view of your shortcomings -- a villain!)
Personally i think Google's mission is much more heroic.
One of the article's main point was that the mission has changed, its no longer about "all the worlds information" because it (storing old historical information) doesn't help their business.