What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
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Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#2Discussed pretty heavily here, with a rebuttal to the top post from pg and Buchheit: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1502765
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#3This appeared on HN 250 days ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1502765
As pg and paul (Buchheit - Google employee #23) point out, the top answer is inaccurate and misleading about what factors were really important.
As paul said: Unfortunately it's written in an authoratative style, so people assume it's true and upvote, demonstrating one of the major flaws in vote based systems.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#4This appeared on HN 250 days ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1502765 As pg and paul (Buchheit - Google employee #23) point out, the top answer is inaccurate and misleading about what factors were really important. As paul said: Unfortunately it's written in an authoratative style, so people assume it's true and upvote, demonstrating one of the major flaws in vote based systems.
Also summary section now contains bogus items which are not mentioned in the answers at all. Way to go Quora.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#5Just do it. Now.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#6Here's my stab (probably about as accurate as any of the misleading answers on quora):
0: realizing that search was important on its own (it wasn't a loss leader or a gimmick to get people to visit your portal where the real content and money making happened)
1: using cutting edge research to improve search result quality based on human factors (page rank)
2: using cutting edge computer science to create highly efficient search systems through sharding and aggressive parallelization.
3: facilitating aggressive parallelization through highly automated data center operations relying on large quantities of consumer grade hardware.
4: continuing concentration on human factors (UI simplicity, search result speed, unobtrusive advertisements, etc.)
All of these together made google a juggernaut, with some of them google would have been successful but maybe not dominant, with all of them nobody could touch google so long as they managed to monetize well. Better search results faster at lower cost per query and with much higher click-through rates for ads. That's a world beating formula right there.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#7Discussed pretty heavily here, with a rebuttal to the top post from pg and Buchheit: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1502765
I suggest that one should read the thread completely in that discussion, as I have done just now, rather than arrive at the quick conclusion that this guy is clearly wrong. As far as I understand, the points given are wrong per se, but just that pg and Buchheit just think that other factors were more important.
I think that (unless you're a historian or somesuch) asking what is the most important 1-2 factors in the success of a person and or company is not very profitable, one should have the larger picture so you can emulate it.
From the answers, my important takeaways to emulate are:
1) Single out what you think is innovative/right/awesome, pursue it relentlessly and let no one hinder you (tech pundits, VCs, board, etc)
2) Be knowledgeable with history of other companies (e.g. why they failed-succeeded) and current dynamics (e.g. the Microsoft-Netscape competition mentioned)
3) Create company culture from day one (one problem with the highest answer is that it never mentions this well-known factor) and don't let it get diluted (OK4) Don't sell out when you see a pile of cash (or do quickly, if your belief in (1) is now gone, before others notice too)
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#8I stopped reading after "Early NSA partnership."
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#9Larry Page's brother Carl Page had experience with venture capitalists, having sold eGroups to Yahoo for $432 million.
I did not know that.
I did know Bill Gates' mom was on the United Way executive committee with IBM's CEO.
I think these details are often omitted because we like to promote the idea that all you need is hard work and talent and perhaps a bit of luck to succeed.
We tend to not like stories about success as a function of familiar ties. This may have something to do with our distaste for monarchies and aristocracies.
It's also a bit depressing when you're working on a startup but no one in your family is well off, and no one is on a board with the CEO of a huge and potential partner, and your brother did not sell his startup for hundreds of millions.
Re: What were the key decisions that Page & Brin made in the early days of Google?
#10Not all the decisions we're made by them, you'd probably also have to thank Yahoo and a bunch of other companies for refusing to buy them.
I can only imagine how Yahoo would have destroyed that company.