Obligatory Quotes

From New Yorker's "The Search Party":

"I worry about complexity. I admire Steve Jobs. He has been able to keep his products simple." (Sergey Brin)

"Microsoft is a bit of an unusual company. It doesn't seem to like any of us being successful in the technology space." (Sergey Brin)

"How many people do you think had embarrassing information about them disclosed yesterday because of some cookie? Zero. It never happens. Yet I'm sure thousands of people had their mail stolen yesterday, or identity theft." (Sergey Brin)

"There are almost three billion mobile phones worldwide, and Schmidt expects a billion more in the next four years. If the phones use Google software to sell advertising, Schmidt thinks that over time it is 'mathematically possible for Google to become a one-hundred-billion-dollar corporation.' Two vital markets are television, which is 'easily attainable,' and mobile phones, which are 'more personable' and more 'targetable' than most advertising. To achieve this goal, Google would need to claim ten per cent of all global advertising, which now amounts to just under a trillion dollars."

"What sets Google apart, Schmidt told me in another conversation, is that although people like him always assumed that 'Google would be an important company, the founders always assumed that Google would be a defining company.' He remembers a day in 2002 when he walked into Page's office and Page started to show off a book scanner he had built. 'What are you going to do with that, Larry?' Schmidt recalls asking. 'We're going to scan all the books in the world,' Page replied. Eventually, Google began to do just that."