More from Google Zeitgeist
- May 30, 2006
- by Dylan Thwaites
Picking up from where I left off on Friday…
Back at Google Zeitgeist, it’s 6pm and time to go back on the record with gorgeous CNBC anchorwoman Maria Bartiromo.
But wait a minute, we have a problem, there is no fire – perhaps it is a concession to the global warming theme that pervades the event, or maybe the heavy hand of the Health and Safety Executive (one of our clients, so easy here!) protecting the vulnerable minor Theo Walcott from smoke inhalation. (Did I mention that the England football team are staying here at The Grove?)
Don’t panic, Maria announces, “We have a surprise bonus.” Noel Gallagher slouches on stage. But quickly we realise it isn’t the real Oasis songwriter, it is in fact Mr Bean playing Noel Gallagher.
“Can I introduce Larry Page?” Spontaneous applause, a real life star, here we have the John Lennon of Google.
The interview overruns as we are treated to a live docudrama set at the heart of Google. Schmidt alternates between avuncular uncle, proud of his nerdy nephew, to a Smithers-like number two sucking up to his boss. Yet all the time he carries just an edge of Dick Cheney menace.
Eric says, “Our product isn’t sticky, so we run scared. We need to constantly innovate.”
Larry demurs, “Yes, lots of things don’t work. The secret is to do loads of things and then see which ones work.”
Eric eulogises, “You’re brilliant Larry, the best inventor of your generation.”
Larry looks at his shoes and blushes a little.
Maria B asks some great questions, until some flunky sneaks on stage and passes her a note saying “Get the audience to ask some questions.” She looks down her nose as if to say, “But my questions are better!” And she is right.
Maria: “What about Microsoft?”
Eric: “We’re confident we’ll have the best product.”
Maria: “You wanna be a portal?”
Eric: “Certainly not – the faster we get people off the site the better.”
Maria: “Which territory is your next big one?”
Eric: “China now, but India will be bigger in 5 years.”
Maria: “On privacy, can we trust you?”
Eric: “We are clear with people on what they sign up to.”
Maria: “Is the search market slowing down?”
Eric: “Larry, do we have a plan B?”
Larry shrugs his shoulders.
Larry acts like a shy post-graduate who has been given the keys to a Beverly Hills mansion – in other words, he is himself, no acting. I like him and I believe him.
For example, Maria asks about China, “How can you give in to Communist China?”. Eric snappily replies, “Well, so did the US Government in 1973.” Larry immediately pipes up, “Well, that’s not a good answer.”
He goes on to explain that Google originally took a principled position, but it got no coverage and they just lost market share. He believes that they have done the best they can for the Chinese customer, explaining that censored results carry the tag, “Some results have been omitted due to local law”, and at least now Chinese censorship is talked about around the world.
Later Maria and Eric discuss the future of the PC versus the mobile. Larry sits to the side, bored, then blurts, “Smaller PC or bigger phone, who cares?” Right again.
Shock headline time.
Larry Page says paid search results are better than natural results.
He actually – and rather tellingly – said, “Every week I ask, ‘Are your ads better than my search results?’ If they’re not I get mad.”
Eric tells the story of when Larry was angry about the relevance of the paid search results and at 5pm Friday posted up print offs scrawled with red felt tip, “What is wrong with this?” On Saturday evening an engineer rang Larry up and told him he’d solved the entire problem and wrote a brand new ad system. Amazing – 24 hours to build the system that now accounts for 99% of Google’s profit.
So I now have personal insight into the machinations of Google and I feel positive. Larry is great, he really doesn’t want to do evil, and so long as the other 5999 employees are the same, the world is in safe hands.
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