Larry Page's Vision of the Future

adamjh writes "Yesterday, Google co-founder Larry Page gave an amazing talk to the 2005 graduating class of the University of Michigan College of Engineering. In true geek form, I made sure to record Larry's entire speech on my mobile phone in order to share with the Slashdot community a rare glimpse into Larry's thoughts on the past, present, and future -- on topics ranging from dropping out of Stanford to start Google to "Thinking Big" and the abundance of venture capital to traveling to Mars, curing world hunger, and well, much much more."

Re:Peak oil (again)

[ardor]

I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but while Peak Oil is likely to happen, it will NOT prevent the stuff he is talking about, it will delay it.

Middle Ages are a thing of the past. You need to get rid of ALL SCIENCE, of all technical achievements, of all cultural changes, reinstall the church as the supreme power....

While it is wise to take Peak Oil seriously, doomsaying won't help anyone. Oh yes, a crisis is likely, it will result in drastic cuts in energy until alternative energy sources are fully installed. When fusion power becomes feasible, we're back on track again.

Re:In other news

[jb.hl.com]

Heh, I have a GMail account too...doesn't mean I worship everything Google does though, as Slashdot seems to do now. It seriously is becoming a site for Google and Apple fanboys, and very little else. The only reason I'm still here is because I'm thoroughly addicted to this place :)

And of course, Taco/Timothy/Neal etc don't listen to what the users of Slashdot actually want...I'm fairly sure daily Google updates is fairly low on most peoples' list of priorities :)

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Right ... you know that Google had to hire a professional CEO a long time ago because Larry and Sergey couldn't hack it by themselves, right? They're smart people, but if they hadn't been the ones to found the company they wouldn't be at the top of the org chart, they would be run-of-the-mill Ph.D. researchers near the bottom.

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Anonymous Coward]

just because a successful business man says don't bother going to b-school doesn't mean he's right. it depends very much on what he said in context. if by "don't go, i just ready books," page meant "don't go to b-school to gain business knowledge, because it's better to gain experience," then his advice is probably a good one. if the message you took home is that someone became successful without going to b-school and he said don't bother, so b-school is useless, then that's not a very smart interpretation of his message.

i know it's not quite the same thing, but a lottery-winning millionaire simply recommending "don't bother to take jobs, just buy lottery tickets" and listening to it simply because he/she is wealthy is dumb, don't you think?

Re:EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT THE FILE

[Adam Heath]

What a useless use of even more bandwidth. Instead of trolling for emails, and/or letting other people insert their own email, so spammers can get it, it would be much more useful for everyone if a torrent was posted.

BitTorrent was designed for this sort of thing. Email was not.

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Concerned Onlooker]

From a man worth 7 billion dollars, it sure seems to me like his statement on how to run a business is pretty reputable.

I doubt that you'd base most of your other decisions based on one data point. Why do it now?

For every successful dropout there are thousands who are very unsuccessful. Too often we point to these sui generis cases and say "see! I don't have to go to school." The drop-out, under-educated successful type happens, but it's not the norm.

Google is changing things

[Infonaut]

We get it. Google is teh roxx0r. Move on. Please.

Google is one of the few market-changing forces in computer tech these days. There's a reason you read a lot about Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, AMD, Intel, etc. on Slashdot. It's because these are the companies that are changing the way other companies do business, and in turn how we all work and play.

Because you didn't include any sort of solution to what you see as an overabundance of stories about Google, I'm curious: What specific types of stories would you like to see?

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Anonymous Coward]

These billionaire drop-outs are successful because they already had a thriving business when they dropped out, not because they dropped out! Some run of the mill nerd is better off staying in school if the alternative is working somewhere for $10/hr. If you see an opportunity, you should take it. That's the message. On the other hand, I know a lot of kids who went back to Stanford with their tails between their legs after the dot-com bust...

Ohh! What a brazen reckloose!

[PocketPick]

Dropping out of his PH.D? *GASP*! What with only a pathetic Masters, how could he have made it?

Sarcasm aside, his leaving the academic world doesn't supprise me. Given that a PH.D won't expand practical knowledge of Computer Science as a Bachelors and Masters would, I would of done the same thing. He didn't take a chance, he just came to his senses.

Re:Peak oil (again)

[nate nice]

Once oil goes over something like $100.00/barrel it becomes cost efficient to refine shale oil, which we have loads and loads of. Not to mention geological surveys that point to the Gulf of Mexico having more oil than the Saudis ever could dream of. It costs more to get at this oil, but as the cost/barrel rises, it become efficient to drill this and refine it. So in this regard, America is in fact in a great future position in regards to oil as a primary source of power. However, I would agree we should reduce our consumption if possible and seek other methods for generating power. Oil rising to a high price is probably the natural way to make people consume less.

Re:Peak oil (again)

[Mac Degger]

The first form of viable power-generating fussion will most likely be not-so-portable. And you might need oil for a number of other reasons, like plastics and medicine, not to mention tens of thousands of other chemicals which you can'yt produce without oil.

Re:1999 called...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should watch startup.com. It's a good movie, and it shows why having even an inexperienced MBA is necessary for survival if the rest of the people on the team are just engineers.

Re:Pagerank and nothing more

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's easy to be charitable when it doesn't affect your lifestyle.

Does that make it any less charitable? (Especially to the people on the receiving end). Or is charity only really charity when it hurts the giver?

Re:Pagerank and nothing more

[Tristor]

Exactly. It has less to do with *how much* you give, and more to do with how much you *give up*. It is less to do with the amount, and more to do with the feeling and meaning behind it. Following that parable in the Bible, the woman gave all she had, 100%, and didn't feel any less for it. The man on the other hand gave only a fraction of his sum total (his being), and did so with the sole intention of *looking* good, but not out of the mindset of *doing* good. It is one of those questions of intent, that have nothing to do with the act in and of itself, but rather the intent and reasoning, if any, behind the act. True charity is both a philisophical and a spiritual thing, and is a rarity on this world. I see more true charity among people who give their skills, their livelihood, and their very existence to the things they love for the benefit of all than somebody who would give up a large fraction of their massive wealth to some foundation with their name all over it. Think of it this way, if you were to be truly charitable, would you throw money at something big and grand with your name plasted on it, or make an anonymous donation of monetary or temporal value to some organization with a dire need and a good goal? In this example, Bill Gates is all well and good to throw money at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but he is doing it more in the spirit of good PR than anything else. He makes more money off people believing that he gives a rat's ass about the rest of the planet than he would off squirreling everything away. On the other hand, some random person who takes the time out of their life to use the skills they worked very hard to earn to benefit everybody, such as in the case of an open source project, and expects little to no credit in return. Well, that is truly charitable. This is also a part of the reason that OSS takes off like it does. People feel a deep connection to those in the OSS community, because as they give of themselves, they establish bonds with all of those who use that labor of love they worked on. On the other hand, when you are dealing with a huge corporation and it's leader who throws money at some foundation with a grand name and an opaque surface where the true purpose isn't known, well the feelings are completely different.