>>Larry Page: So I'm really excited to be
here.
There's a lot of partners here, a lot of customers,
a lot of Google users, a lot of people watching
on YouTube later also.
So I'm super grateful for all of your support.
You know, our success really depends on all
of you so thank you.
Now, technology should really do the hard
work, and that's really so people can get
on with living.
Recommendations, suggestions should be right
there without any effort.
And I have been really excited about Google
Now.
You know, it gives you flight times, boarding
passes, delivery dates and really understands
where you are and gives you just the right
thing at the right moment.
And I think that's what we need to be striving
for, is a smart assistant that really does
all the things for you so you don't have to,
right?
And we are really just getting started with
that, but I'm really excited about that.
Now when I think about that, I also think
about voice search.
We have really been working hard on that as
well.
If you are looking for the nearest pharmacy
now, you can just ask Google for directions
and we'll deliver them instantly.
You don't need to type or swipe or do anything
on your phone.
And you can even ask conversational questions
like: Do we need a jacket this weekend?
And the answer here I think would be no.
[ Laughter ]
>>Larry Page: Just indoors, right?
So, you know, I think we're really excited
by the potential for science and technology
to really improve people's lives.
And you really need to use business and entrepreneurship
to make those things real.
It is not enough just to invent them.
And when I think about Google, I think about
our core computing and Internet products.
Those things are really important.
I use them every day.
I suspect many of you do as well.
And we're also just getting started with those.
But there's so many other opportunities to
really make the world a better place, and
we like working on some of those things.
So you saw we have an automated car parked
out front.
We got excited about those things and the
potential for them to make people's lives
better.
And I was reflecting on this recently.
I sort of said, Well, does this really make
any sense?
Like, should I be working on automated cars?
That seems nuts, right?
Why am I spending time on that?
And actually I don't spend that much time
on it but a little bit just to get it going.
And I start reflecting back and as I was thinking
about Google, I start thinking about my own
life.
And I was really lucky that, you know, I had
basically a computer science dad.
You know, that's a pretty lucky thing in general,
I think.
At least I think so.
But when I had that dad, it was really rare.
It was -- thinking back, it was 1976.
I was 6 years old and I got our first home
computer, right?
And that turned out to be important, right?
It turns out that computers turned out to
be pretty transformational for the world and
having one in 1976 was pretty unusual.
And I don't think it is an accident that I'm
here today, right?
That living the future is really, really important.
And, you know, I happen to be lucky in that
way, but we all have choice.
Like, do we want to be living in the future?
Do we want to be living in the past?
And I think it's -- you know, I think it's
really hard to make sure you maintain that
focus on the future because it always seems
like, oh, I can wait until tomorrow and get
it done.
You know, future doesn't come along that fast.
And so I was remembering back to 2004.
You know, it was quite a while ago.
And I remember that I was very upset with
a particular part of computing which was mobile
phones.
And actually I was upset about it even before
that, even before 2004.
In 2004, I actually got upset about it and
a bunch of people at Google got upset about
it, that we actually talked about it a lot.
And we eventually bought a very small company
which turned out to be Android.
And that was quite a while ago.
And so, you know, at the time, I was just
thinking back to the time in 2004, I felt
sort of bad and sort of guilty.
Why am I spending time on this?
Why aren't I spending time on, you know, search
or advertising or something that was more
core to our business?
But it turned out to be a pretty important
thing to do.
So I think -- I just kind of wanted to give
you that example.
I think we really underestimate a bunch of
things.
One is the magnitude of large-scale change.
You know, when you have these kind of major
changes that are current technology, they
kind of change everything.
Computers are kind of changing everything.
And so it is really important to try to hit
that as early as possible.
The other thing I have found is that I was
kind of shocked in thinking back, like, how
long ago did we acquire Android?
How long ago did we start working on that?
It was a really long time ago, and it has
only kind of just now having a really transformational
impact of, you know, hundreds and hundreds
of millions or even a billion devices.
And so I think we underestimate the large-scale
change and, also, as technologists, we are
always way more optimistic it will only take
a year to do.
You know, I know I am super, I guess, optimistic
in terms of how long it takes to do things.
But when I look back at those things, they
actually take a long time.
And so what that tells you is that you need
to start today.
You can't catch up.
You know, if you're behind, it is very, very
difficult to catch up because the people you
are trying to catch up to, they've probably
been working on it for five years.
And we just heard about the little -- the
hobby quad rotors and things.
There has now been people working on those
forever, right?
And if you wanted to go into that area, you
are probably late already, which sounds crazy
but probably true.
So I think it is important to start now.
It is important to do things that you think
are crazy.
And if you are really spending all of your
time on incremental evolution, you are probably
doing the wrong thing.
It is probably always good to take, like,
20% of your time, focus on the things that
seem crazy and far out.
In our experience, those things have turned
out to be pretty important.
So that's kind of a big part of how I see
my job, is to get people focused on non-incremental
change and things that are really going to
make a difference.
Think about Gmail when we launched it.
We said you could actually have free email
that stores all of your email.
And when we launched it, I think we had about
a hundred times more storage than any other
free email.
We thought that was a pretty important thing
to do.
We saw a way to do it and to make money and
so on.
Recently on search, we've launched this thing
called the Knowledge Panel.
And, you know, it actually tries to know sort
of all the facts about the world in a structured
way.
And I was amazed, I was just interested in
the height of a bridge.
I typed in this query and I got back the exact
answer from the Knowledge Panel just recently.
So I think that's a really, really important
thing.
It is not just search.
It is actually structuring all the information
in the world in an organized fashion so that
we can answer complex questions.
That's a non-incremental change to search.
So, anyway, I think in my experience, as long
as you have ambitious goals that matter, that
are important to the world, technology can
kind of do anything.
And we can -- it is amazing what gifted, talented
scientists and engineers can do if you just
ask them.
And you motivate them.
You say, oh, we can save a lot of lives or
we can really make people's lives better.
So I think, you know -- I was also thinking
about Google Fiber.
That was a pretty crazy thing.
Sergey, my partner, was really responsible
for that, getting that going.
And to be honest, I thought he was kind of
crazy.
I was like, oh, you will never get permits.
It will be impossible to build.
You want to give people a gigabit.
And, anyway, I was the questioning one.
And three years later now we have -- first
homes are live in Kansas City.
People are super happy with the service.
And we are rolling out in Austin and Provo.
And we have learned a tremendous amount about
the technology, the deployment, whole bunch
of things.
I'm super excited about Google Glass.
People are demoing it here.
I hope you guys got a chance to play with
it.
When I use that product, you know, I get chills
because I feel like I'm using the future,
I'm living the future.
I know there will be a time when your children,
our children, think it's crazy that anyone
would ever fish in their pocket or their purses
just to use a computer.
That's not going to happen in the future.
There is no reason it should happen.
So I think, anyways, it's early stages for
that, but I'm really, really excited about
it because it is living that future.
There's so many opportunities for us to use
technology to empower people, to make people's
lives better.
We're really only at 1% of what's possible,
probably not even that.
And that's why I'm so excited to be here with
all of you.
So with that, I think we'll go to some questions.
Thankyou.
[ Applause ]
>>Allison Stewart: As CEO, I'm curious, you
talked a lot about the future.
How do you decide or how do you balance the
future versus the now, when you need to think
about the future or you also need to make
sure that you have a good, holistic, functioning
company now?
>>Larry Page: Yeah, I mean, I think you need
to spend time on both things, no question.
I just have been thinking about it, reflecting
back.
I always feel like it is very easy to neglect
the future compared to the present.
So I think in most companies, it tends to
be almost completely present-focused.
And in technology, that means you will always
be obsoleted over time because you do get
big-scale changes.
So, I mean, you need to do both things I guess
is the answer.
And, you know, honestly, the vast majority
of certainly management time and so on gets
spent on present basic operations, making
sure you're doing things well.
And it's hard to get people to work on future
things, right?
You actually kind of have to yell at people
and say, "Hey, why aren't you doing some new
thing that's important?"
So, I find it somewhat the opposite.
No matter how hard you try, you can never
get people focused enough on the future.
>>Allison Stewart: All right.
So the boss says focus on the future.
When you took over, you decided to do what
you describe as a cleanup a little bit, decided
to focus on certain parts of the company and
certain projects, to let them go, the idea
that you could be a mile wide but only an
inch deep and that's not necessarily a good
thing.
What was your criteria for deciding what to
keep and what to eliminate?
>>Larry Page: Yeah.
Our thinking about this has evolved quite
a bit.
I think -- you know, if I think about our
core Internet computing experience, you know,
you all as users, you rely on us to provide
a really greater experience that's, like,
well thought through and makes sense.
And because of that, you know, there can't
be a hundred different ways that you share
something or that identity is represented
or a bunch of other things.
And so that requires that we actually think
carefully, when we make new products, about
how they all interact together.
And that limits, a bit, the amount -- kind
of the amount of different things we can do.
We can't do a thousand different things because
then all thousand would have to talk to all
other thousand, and then that's a thousand
squared interactions so that becomes very
difficult.
So I think, you know, one of the kind of insights
which was kind of funny is you would normally
assume that, you know, as companies, you should
only do things that are very related to what
you're already doing, but actually if you're
making sort of products for users that need
to make sense like for Internet computing
and, you know, our kind of core products,
I think there's a limit to our ambition there
because you need something that makes sense
to you.
Whereas some of the other things we're doing
-- you know, automated cars or Google Fiber
or something like that -- actually don't have
much interaction with the rest of our business,
and so that's somewhat more scalable from
a management point of view.
So right now, I feel that I -- part of my
job is to kind of manage that, you know, kind
of totality of projects and make sure we're
-- things that need to interact, we have enough
bandwidth to cause the interactions, but also
that we're doing more and more things by thinking
carefully about when we take on new things,
what are the communications burden and so
on.
>>Allison Stewart: I also know you're very
interested in design.
You've become very focused on design.
Why?
>>Larry Page: I think design is really important.
I think, you know, art, beauty in people's
lives, is really important, and I think certainly
as Internet companies we sort of understand
that, but I think, I mean, you want to use
products that are beautiful, you want to have
beautiful things in your lives, and for me,
the potential of technology also to improve
that is really exciting.
You know, I had this idea which I've been
trying to get our guys to do forever, but
they won't do, but, you know, I just wanted
the Google logo to change based on the weather.
But I didn't really want it just to change
based on the weather.
I want it to simulate what would happen in
the future, like to your house.
So I grew up in Michigan.
There's ice and snow.
And so I wanted, like, the ice and snow to
be modeled properly so that it would collect
like on the north side of the logo.
You know, exactly what would happen to your
house.
Because in Michigan that's important.
You can die, you know, in an ice storm or
something.
But I think that would be beautiful and it
would be a way for technology to, you know,
kind of mix technology and design and so on.
So I'd like to see more things like that,
and I'm excited about that.
>>Allison Stewart: One of the things we've
talked about throughout this whole session
is the curious.
What are you currently curious about?
>>Larry Page: Yeah.
I mean, a lot of things, probably.
I mean, to me one of the things that's really
been surprising is even projects we do -- you
know, we make some kind of crazy investments.
We made an investment in Makani, which was
a kite power company which we recently have
in-house now as part of Google X.
Whenever you're trying to do something sort
of ambitious from a technology point of view,
you learn a lot of things.
And, you know, that project has some really
interesting technologies.
We just saw the quadcopters, but it has the
same kind of high-power motors and things,
control systems, that made those things possible.
They're also what makes that project possible.
And so I think -- I think the great technologists
and the great entrepreneurs are able to kind
of look at the technology.
It's almost like a boundary of technology.
Sort of what is possible with the technologies
we have, the computers we have, the materials
we have, and so on, and what could we actually
make that would really be important to people.
And what surprised me is I think that we're
not educating people to really do that well.
So, you know, I went to engineering school.
I learned about computer engineering and that
was very specialized, but I didn't really
learn about any other kinds of engineering
and I didn't really learn the sort of technology
boundary of what's possible.
And in my experience, you get interesting
things happening when you combine, you know,
computers with materials with control systems
with motors, or whatever it is, and you get
something interesting.
And so I think part of what we're trying to
do at Google also is to make sure we understand
those boundaries and have some teams that
are really pushing state-of-the-art.
So, you know, whatever is almost impossible,
that's what they're doing, and then we learn
to understand that and that becomes really
valuable for doing new things.
>>Allison Stewart: Okay.
This may be my last question so if you have
a question for Larry, you can line up.
There's a mic there and there's a mic there.
One of the things I read is that you -- you
created seven teams, is that right?
Seven different teams?
Am I using the right language?
>>Larry Page: Yeah, that's right.
About right, yes.
>>Allison Stewart: Okay.
What were your instructions to your team leaders?
What did you tell them were their goals?
They're all working on a different thing,
but they all have to have the same sort of
Google ethos.
>>Larry Page: I mean, I think, you know, in
reading the history of companies, I think
it's really important to have people all rowing
in the same direction.
So, you know, I think one of the things is
just to make sure everyone is acting as one
company and that everyone's helping out each
other, that we're trying to make everything
successful in ways that make sense.
It's very easy, I think, in companies to just
kind of resort to infighting and not everyone's
rowing the same direction and so on.
So I think that's the main thing.
And I think, you know, beyond that, we had
areas of focus.
We have Chrome, we have Android, things like
that, or, you know, we have Search and Knowledge.
You know, we have big areas of things we do,
and just try to organize into those product
areas and make sure we're really talking about
what we're building, what are we going to
build over the next year that's really going
to make people's lives better and make sure
we're moving the needle on kind of all of
our products and that we're organized to do
that.
>>Allison Stewart: Okay.
A question right here?
>>> Is it on?
Hi.
David Kenny from the Weather Company.
We'll help you with that Google forecasting
thing.
Ooh.
Wow. (indiscernible) going to help solve all
that.
Meanwhile, as a leader, I'm trying to know
what you're going to do to help the industry
with a bigger thing, which is, we don't have
enough scientists and engineers to do all
of this.
We're not bringing enough women into the field.
We're not bringing enough people from other
cultures.
What are you doing to develop talent?
>>Larry Page: Yeah.
I think that's a really great question.
To me, this is also very sad because I -- you
know, I look at, you know, if I were a kid
today or thinking about what to do, there's
two aspects.
One is that computing, kind of the Internet,
technology, I mean, is the way to make incredible
things happen.
You know, I think back to the days of Google.
We had several million customers and like
20 employees, and we accidentally put our
phone number on line and we -- we had to throw
away our phone number because we couldn't
answer it because, you know, you can't answer
your phone from 3 million customers with 10
people.
It doesn't work.
But the Internet lets you do that.
So in terms of changing the world, doing things
that are impactful, technology, computing,
engineering, you know, I think a bunch of
those things are really, really important.
And on the other hand, you know, I think the
culture of that is sometimes very negative.
We're very -- some combination between unpleasant
math problems and the fraternity or something.
You know, there's sort of a negative engineering
culture, very male, very geeky, so on.
And I think that turns a lot of people off
unnecessarily, and it causes us not to have
the kind of creativity that we should have.
We don't have the artists we should have,
you know, writing software or whatever it
is, and I think that's a big shame.
So I think -- I don't know, as an industry,
as a culture, I think that's something we
really need to work on.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in the
art and design part of what we're trying to
do is I think we can turn a lot more people
into the fields and get them working on it.
I actually think we have a fair number of
engineers and scientists.
Obviously not as many as we need.
What we don't seem to have is people working
on things that are really impactful.
You know, there's a lot of work going on for
just very incremental changes or things that
aren't that important.
So I think -- I think we can make a lot more
progress than we have with the people we have,
and that we should work a lot to improve our
culture in engineering and sciences and get
more women, more minorities, and just improve
that culture and make it more fun and interesting.
>>Allison Stewart: Do you believe in mentorship?
>>Larry Page: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, sure, that's a great way to do it.
I think it is getting better in a lot of areas,
but I guess people see all the excitement
around Internet software and apps and gaming,
some of those things, but I think we still
have a really long ways to go.
>>Allison Stewart: We had a question right
here.
>>> Thanks.
I don't know where I would find them, but
if we could find somebody who hadn't heard
of Google before and you had to explain to
them the business that Google is in today,
what would you say?
And the follow-up is: How do you decide what
you won't work on?
>>Larry Page: Yeah.
Actually, I did find some people a couple
years ago in Africa who had never heard of
Google, which was actually very surprising.
I think it was in Ghana or someplace.
And they had phones but they had never heard
of Google, which I felt was really sad.
And that's part of the insight that led to
Android and that work, was trying to really
make phones synonymous with computing, and
now you see that starting to happen.
I think -- you know, I thought that was pretty
sad that you could have a phone that's really
connected to the Internet and you didn't know
what a Search was on the Internet.
That wasn't -- you know, that was pretty recently
that was the case.
I think Google's model -- I mean, I tried
to explain it a little bit in my initial remarks.
I think, you know, we see such potential in
the technology, innovation, and real products,
getting that out to the people, and we see
that in core computing and in Internet.
You know, I think that's our core business.
And I think, you know, it's probably across
from the platforms you use to the -- to the
software you're using to really trying to
make sense of knowledge in the world and helping
you do your job, do your tasks, make your
life better.
And that's kind of our core business and then
I think we have other things we're starting
up in kind of a myriad of areas that aren't
as related but we just see tremendous potential
in, that our technology -- there's a lot of
technology leverage in.
We think we can make, you know, a billion
people's lives better every day or something
like that.
>>Allison Stewart: Question?
>>> Larry, just as you've invested in fiber
to improve -- add bandwidth, have you ever
considered partnering with the utilities on
broadband over power line?
Because that probably could do it too.
>>Larry Page: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we've thought about a bunch of those
things.
And I think -- I'm sure for any area like
that, a lot of things would make sense, and
we're certainly open to that, but fundamentally,
you know, what we've tried to say is that
people should have Internet access and it
should be really fast and it should be increasing
over time, and the technology can do that.
And that's really what we're trying to show.
>>Allison Stewart: Do you have any more questions
from the audience?
Because I've got a couple more.
Your voice.
You had -- your vocal cords became paralyzed.
You had something that happened about a decade
or so ago and then over the summer an issue
that aggravated it again.
Tell us what you learned from having this
period of time where you couldn't necessarily
communicate as well as you might want to.
>>Larry Page: Well, I mean it was stressful,
obviously.
I think for me, I'm really glad I'm able to
talk and communicate and do my job really
well and so on.
I think -- and Sergey said it makes me a better
CEO because I choose my words more carefully.
And maybe I listen a bit more.
But I think, you know, one thing I learned,
it's great actually I made it all public and
so on.
You know, once I got through the initial time,
but -- and made sure I understood what I was
saying and so on.
But when I made it all public, I mean, just
people's offers to help and lots of people
contacted me, got lots of great information,
I was really kind of -- it really warmed my
heart and I think showed me the power, also,
of information to improve medical conditions
you might have.
You know, we worked on Google Health for a
while, kind of ran into a lot of regulatory
issues and other kinds of roadblocks, but
I think the basic idea that in the right way,
you know, sharing your -- some of your medical
information with the right people can be like
a really life-changing thing.
It's really important to get the best treatment,
to understand what your options are and all
that.
So that was something I think I really learned.
>>Allison Stewart: One of the issues that
came up repeatedly, we were talking about
tablets in schools and there's been a lot
of talk about what technology and what the
role should be of technology in schools.
Where do you stand on that in terms of tablets,
you know?
>>Larry Page: Yeah.
I think -- I mean, there's a lot of issues
with kids and computers, and obviously us
as parents, we all know that.
Like my wife's been saying -- she's a programmer
but she's been saying the kids can use computers
once they know how to program.
[ Laughter ]
>>Larry Page: we've relaxed that a little
bit but I kind of like the ethic there.
But I think, you know, the way I guess I look
at it as a parent, I just feel like the software
we have for kids isn't very good, and I think,
you know, the software for adults isn't very
good either.
You know, your computer doesn't help you in
the ways it should and doesn't really pay
any attention to you, or how you're feeling
or anything.
And those things, for an adult it's kind of
annoying, but for a kid it's somewhat tragic.
So I think, you know, I look at it as just
a huge opportunity.
I think the ability for the industry, for
Google to make better software, software and
hardware, whatever, design things for kids,
is a really, really important thing, and that
that will be an amazing thing when it happens.
You know, look at teaching kids reading.
We know that adults or someone who knows how
to read can really teach kids a lot better,
is I think what the research shows, than any
of the things we've come up with.
Now, that doesn't mean we can't come up with
something -- or that I'm aware of.
Probably there is something I'm not aware
of.
We can probably come up with things that can
really help kids learn to read.
We just -- our technology isn't there yet.
>>Allison Stewart: You turned 40 this year.
That's a big birthday.
Happy birthday.
>>Larry Page: Thank you.
>>Allison Stewart: That's a milestone for
a lot of people and a lot of time people stop
and reflect at 40.
How is that -- this big birthday --
>>Larry Page: I mean, for me it was 32 and,
you know, 64 will be the next one.
[ Laughter ]
>>Larry Page: I'm binary, you know.
[ Applause ]
>>Allison Stewart: I think that's a great
place to end.
Larry Page, thank you so much.
>>Larry Page: You're welcome.
Thanks.
[ Applause ]
