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Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

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Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#111

Post by ksec »

paxys wrote: post #9

It was clear years ago that neither he nor Brin were interested running Google day-to-day anymore. I'm actually surprised that every billionaire doesn't do the same after reaching a certain point of success. Like..is calling the shots at Facebook really that big a deal that Zuckerberg spends his life being dragged from one mess to another, put in front of Congress every other week, criticized across the political spe…

>It was clear years ago that neither he nor Brin were interested running Google day-to-day anymore. I'm actually surprised that every billionaire doesn't do the same after reaching a certain point of success.

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

“I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#112

Post by ryantgtg »

heavyset_go wrote: post #104
ethbr0 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not anti-science: they're ignorant. If we had better basic education, presumably people would be able to understand how things work.

It's partisanship. Some people will say they believe even the most ridiculous of things if that means they're toeing the party line.

I agree with this. And partisanship is largely the outcome of propaganda peddled by the media to sell ads. I know this is a narrow, arrogant viewpoint, but I view all hardcore partisans as victims of propaganda (with the caveat that perhaps "propaganda" is not the best word here...).

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#113

Post by nodesocket »

tehjoker wrote: post #38

Notch is said to be a deeply unhappy person, or at least he was a few years ago. He also made a hard right-wing turn. https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/technology/minecraft-creato... https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/online-conduct-leaves...

> A Microsoft spokesperson told Variety that the reason for his exclusion is the "comments and opinions" Persson has expressed on Twitter, saying that they "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang, and are not representative of Minecraft."

Apparently you're only allowed to have freedom of speech if it fits in the tech left narrative. Show me an example of a extremist left person being denied access to a company event, let alone the founder of the company? Seems downright hypocritical to me.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#114

Post by walrus01 »

paxys wrote: post #9

It was clear years ago that neither he nor Brin were interested running Google day-to-day anymore. I'm actually surprised that every billionaire doesn't do the same after reaching a certain point of success. Like..is calling the shots at Facebook really that big a deal that Zuckerberg spends his life being dragged from one mess to another, put in front of Congress every other week, criticized across the political spe…

My question is, does a person really need $110b, or even $1b or $500m to retire and live a life of leisure and luxury until they die a natural death from old age at 95? How much is enough?

MySpace Tom took his money and went off to do other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Anderson

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#115

Post by tootahe45 »

tim333 wrote: post #84
tehjoker wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All billionaires are right-wing. They uphold and embody social inequality. Whether they endorse rigid social divisions along cultural lines is just extra gravy.

Buffett for one is notably democrat leaning. Also Soros and others.

Buffett calls himself a 'card carrying capitalist'. Have you looked at democrat policy in the past 4 years?

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#116

Post by chrisco255 »

dagmx wrote: post #96
ryantgtg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if Gates has shown that. > According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 44 percent of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements — a widely debunked conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.[0] [0]: https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-cor...

It's depressing knowing how large swaths of people are anti science and have made it part of their political identity to boot

It's depressing knowing how many people think all polls are scientifically valid representations of the general population. It's well known that even the way a question is stated or worded can influence the outcome of a poll.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#117

Post by pwython »

ksec wrote: post #111
paxys wrote: post #9

It was clear years ago that neither he nor Brin were interested running Google day-to-day anymore. I'm actually surprised that every billionaire doesn't do the same after reaching a certain point of success. Like..is calling the shots at Facebook really that big a deal that Zuckerberg spends his life being dragged from one mess to another, put in front of Congress every other week, criticized across the political spe…

>It was clear years ago that neither he nor Brin were interested running Google day-to-day anymore. I'm actually surprised that every billionaire doesn't do the same after reaching a certain point of success. “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’…

It's an inspirational message, sure, but it's VERY easy for a billionaire to say something like that.

Many have the exact opposite advice: "Don't turn your passion into a career."

Some could say it's a sad way of thinking, but when you're making a good living and have kids to raise, gambling away your career to pursue a dream isn't necessarily selfish... yet it could be irresponsible. Taking the advice of a lucky billionaire at face value is risky.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#118

Post by jrockway »

disown wrote: post #60
mxwsn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg owns Facebook in a way that no other major company (to my knowledge) is owned. He is a monarch that can override any and all board politics. While power sloshes around in other companies by tug of war, Zuckerberg's word is final. Given this, I don't think it's unusual that Zuckerberg would stick around. He, with Facebook, explore new possibility space in how a company can be run that few other companies in…

> Zuckerberg owns Facebook in a way that no other major company (to my knowledge) is owned. He is a monarch that can override any and all board politics. So can brin/page. They own more than 50% of the voting rights of alphabet. Zuckerburg modeled facebook's IPO and voting share structure after Google's IPO and their share structure.

Maybe he doesn't want that power, though. People start to do weird things to please a supreme leader.

Here's a story from my first couple months at Google. When I joined, I worked on payments. We were about to launch a new credit card thing. I honestly don't remember what value this had to anyone, but it seemed like a big deal at the time. Anyway, one morning we all gathered into a conference room to hear "an update" on the project after a review with Larry Page -- we're doing a total rewrite on everything, because we were switching the network that processed the cards. Why? Because at the review, Larry made a face when told the name of the network that processed the cards. Note that nobody in this meeting was at the meeting with Larry Page. We were throwing away a partnership and thousands of hours of work because someone said someone else saw Larry make a face.

(We did switch networks. The new network was more popular, but with that popularity came so many restrictions that the product could no longer do what we originally intended. It failed. Fortunately, nobody cared, because who ever even asked for a credit card from Google anyway?)

My point is, do you want one random grimace to control the fate of an entire organization? Probably not. But that's how people treat authority figures. You have to do some serious work to get people to talk, rather than to react. So maybe he just opted out of that after seeing it play out over and over again.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#119

Post by UnpossibleJim »

NationalPark wrote: post #92
dpcan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a creator with the freedom to create and not have to make money anymore would be amazing. Look at Jim Carrey and George W Bush for example. They're pretty much set with money, and now they can paint their hearts out.

W was set for money two generations before he was even born. Imagine if he'd just stuck to painting...

Look, I'm no fan of Bush II and I don't want to turn this into political theater, but the presidency was corrupted long before Bush II. I'd almost guarantee that his policy was set forth in an almost "dynastical" form, that has been around since Carter's interventions in the Middle East. Maybe before.

That being said, I wish they had all stuck to their post presidential passions... minus the political fund raising.

Re: Ask HN: What Happened to Larry Page?

#120

Post by mbgerring »

nodesocket wrote: post #113
tehjoker wrote: post #38

Notch is said to be a deeply unhappy person, or at least he was a few years ago. He also made a hard right-wing turn. https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/technology/minecraft-creato... https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/online-conduct-leaves...

> A Microsoft spokesperson told Variety that the reason for his exclusion is the "comments and opinions" Persson has expressed on Twitter, saying that they "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang, and are not representative of Minecraft." Apparently you're only allowed to have freedom of speech if it fits in the tech left narrative. Show me an example of a extremist left person being denied access to a company e…

I've met several people involved in union organizing at household name tech companies who have been disciplined by the companies they work for for exercising their "free speech" rights. You don't mean "tech left" here, you mean "liberal".
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