Larry Page and Sergey Brin Interview Webcast

This interview and audience question and answer took place last week at the end of the Google Zeitgeist conference. Some interesting notes from Sergey:

  • I like to see us not focus on maintaining Google’s culture but to improve it – continuous improvement (he specifically mentions how the infrastructure they have in place now allows them to experiment in ways that were not possible before – a reminder of Google’s focus on the scientific method and Experimenting Quickly and Often).
  • Google still follows their model of focusing 70% of the effort on core business (search) and 20% on related activities and 10% on “anything goes” (new business areas).
  • While not directly related to Google he is very interested in the innovation in nanotechnology and carbon nanotubes and the present time.
  • on moving toward universal power supplies – we are talking to some companies about solutions “but I gotta be honest with you it is a harder problem than I thought”

Larry:

  • focus on Google’s mission – to organize the world’s information
  • believes there is great potential in solar power and would love to see successful companies in that industry
  • improve power supply efficiency on servers

Both:

  • discussed poor web usability practices based on sites that adopt flashy technology that make it slower and more difficult for users – flash, excessive Ajax… Larry also mentioned doing testing on the user experience – no surprise for Google and no surprise that most poorly overly fancy sites care more about what a pointy haired boss might think on seeing the flash than on users experiences and testing.

Related: Great Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation