
Larry Page on Charlie Rose - qasar
http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/12366
======
staunch
I think it's so great that someone as goodhearted and intelligent is so damn
rich and powerful. The previous generation of tech giants seem really quite
nasty and brutish in comparison. The industrial moguls seem like they were
even worse. I really hope it's a trend that better people end up in positions
of power.

Imagine a world where most of the powerful people in business and politics
were like Larry Page. We'd have ourselves a Star Trek-esque utopia within 30
years. Actually that's kind of what Google campuses remind me of: Starfleet HQ
(which is also based in the bay area, hmm....<http://i.imgur.com/gPsTC.jpg>)

~~~
shin_lao
Most - all? - the people I know who are very wealthy/successful are honest,
intelligent and hard working.

I know my sample size is extremely small, but I tend to believe these
qualities help reaching the top, if they are not mandatory.

Sly, idiotic and lazy people eventually fall from the sky.

~~~
gbog
My previous boss was not lazy or idiotic, but he was very manipulative and
would sell his mother to get a contract. I guess grandparent didn't mean most
bosses are stupid and lazy, he meant most are greedy and won't care a dime
about those people they have to throw in the sewer to achieve their selfish
goals.

~~~
shin_lao
Was your previous boss a billionaire?

------
twelvechairs
Great interview, they both brought up some interesting points.

I still can't agree with what Page says about 'personalised results' though.
He talks about 'search understanding you' as if it just makes existing search
'better'. But to me search is about 'I know what I'm looking for so I ask for
something specific', usually looking for a fairly certain answer. If this
involves my search history, or people that I know, I will be able to tell the
search platform that when I search, I don't want them to assume this on my
behalf - this just makes my results less specific than I originally intended.

Its a bit of a conflation between advertising and search really, they are
trying to second guess what I am interested in before I know it, which I'm not
sure is very positive.

~~~
stingraycharles
_But to me search is about 'I know what I'm looking for so I ask for something
specific', usually looking for a fairly certain answer. If this involves my
search history, or people that I know, I will be able to tell the search
platform that when I search, I don't want them to assume this on my behalf -
this just makes my results less specific than I originally intended._

We (the HN community) are not the target audience for these optimizations.
Ever watched your mom type in a search query? It's aweful, sometimes I'm
amazed at the results Google can produce for crappy search queries. It's
_those_ people that will benefit tremendously from these kind of
optimizations.

For us, who do not want the personalised search results, the standard answer
has been that we should simply log off and it will be generic. While I do feel
that Google should simply make this an account preference (so I don't have to
log off from my gmail account just to be able to use search in a fashion I
appreciate), I can clearly see and appreciate why Google is going for
personalised search.

~~~
greendestiny
I think we probably use this feature far more than any other segment - terms
we use for our technologies are often overloaded. I don't want to have to
constantly specify whether I want gems to be gem stones or ruby packages.

------
busted
I'm impressed at the quality of questions that Rose asked. They weren't all
easy and they were questions I was interested in hearing Page answer.

~~~
dfc
I take it that this was your first Charlie Rose interview? He is one of the
best interviewers still around. I just wish Mr. Russert could have interviewed
Larry Page.

~~~
jacobolus
Ugh, are you kidding? Charlie Rose is a terrible interviewer, fawning all over
people he thinks have high status, and constantly interrupting and pissing on
people he disagrees with. [He’s maybe better than cable news shows, but that’s
a pretty low bar.] He asks far too many ridiculously leading questions, cuts
off insightful lines of discussion by his guests to bring them back to
whatever point he’s trying to make, and often just starts rambling about
something irrelevant. His show is worth watching because of the fantastic
quality of the guests, not his skill as an interviewer. My favorite Charlie
Rose moment was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, in an interview with I think Bill
Joy, but it might have been someone else. Charlie asked some rambling minute-
second “don’t you agree that...” type question, and his guest responded with a
bored look, “well, duh.”

Go listen to a couple of episodes of Terry Gross’s truly masterful interviews
on _Fresh Air_ , or watch interviews by, say, Bill Moyers, and then come back
and watch an episode of _Charlie Rose_. Try paying attention to the different
ways they lead an interview, and the resulting differences in the
conversation. Often someone will be in the news or have a new book out, and
will appear on both _Charlie Rose_ and _Fresh Air_ at about the same time; the
_Fresh Air_ interview is always dramatically better.

~~~
dfc
_"Try paying attention to"_? Have I given you any indication that I would have
trouble focusing on the interview?

Terry Gross is certainly a good interviewer for art and culture guests. I
agree that she does not get the same quality of quests that appear on Charlie
Rose's show. I think that is part of the reason I may have discounted her
quality as an interviewer. In light of that I would like to compare the two
interviewers. Can you think of any guests who have appeared on both shows
recently? Do you think Rose's fawning/pissing on behavior is any different
than Gross's interviews with Franken and O'Reilly?

~~~
jacobolus
> _Have I given you any indication that I would have trouble focusing on the
> interview?_

Sorry, I’m not trying to imply that you’d have trouble following the
interview. I mean pay special attention to the _form_ of the interview, and
the style of the questioning (i.e. watch out for when Terry follows up on
something the guest said, when she allows him to keep talking and when she re-
centers the conversation. Think about what kinds of insights the she draws
out, what she can get him to say that wasn’t pre-planned, etc.), rather than
only to the _content_ of what the guest is saying. I think if you pay close
attention to the way Charlie interviews, you’ll find yourself wanting to throw
something at the screen.

Terry Gross’s interview with O’Reilly was impressively respectful and polite,
considering the way he was acting. Asking difficult questions is different
from pissing on people. What I mean is, Charlie Rose will ask a guest a
question, and then when the answer isn’t what he wants to hear, he’ll parrot
back at them effectively “well isn’t what you just said completely wrong, and
isn’t it actually like this ....?” What is the guest supposed to say to that?

> _Can you think of any guests who have appeared on both shows recently?_

Here are some from the last few months:

Steve Coll:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...](http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=05-02-2012)
<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12336>
<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12341>

Peter Bergen:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...](http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=05-01-2012)
<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11463>

Peter Beinart:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a> <a
href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12282"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12282</a><p>Matt
Weiner: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=03-26-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12256"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12256</a><p>Jonah
Lehrer: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=03-21-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12302"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12302</a><p>Ahmed
Rashid: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=03-20-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12281"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12281</a><p>Charles
Duhigg: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=03-05-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12254"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12254</a><p>Masha
Gessen: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=03-01-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12210"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12210</a><p>Tim
Weiner: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=02-14-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12283"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12283</a><p>Katherine
Boo: <a
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#38;prgDate=02-08-2012"
rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&#...</a>
<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12151"
rel="nofollow">http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12151</a>

------
wensing
Is something wrong with my browser? I see a picture of Page, click it, and
then it disappears and all I hear is audio. Is there video somewhere?

~~~
gsa
Direct link for the video:
[http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalg...](http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalgrill_content/052112CRS.flv)

------
mukaiji
is he right when he says that Facebook will eventually be forced to release
personal data to its users? Would it be a market constraint? If so from whom?
Or would be a legal constraint?

~~~
marshallp
It just takes one succesful lawsuit by a user.

~~~
tonfa
Also there is legislation being drafted in the EU for data portability.

------
dm8
Its a great interview. Its interesting to hear about his thoughts on YouTube.
He is expecting majority of GOOG's revenue coming from YouTube. Is YouTube
going to be "hollywood killer"?

------
saraid216
This was my favorite quote: "I look at what's possible to do with technology,
and I think we're still 1% of the way there."

------
jstanley
To anyone else who doesn't understand: you have to click on the picture of
Larry Page and then it plays a video.

------
bigfishl
The comments on the site are ridiculous.

------
jey
Why are Charlie Rose interviews only available via Flash? It's a shame that
these amazing interviews are only accessible on systems that run Flash. I'd
love to even get an audio only file.

------
InfinityX0
Did Page dye his hair? A bit off topic but it's a bit shocking that a 39-year-
old would have hair that gray. I guess even running a wildly successful
company is stressful.

~~~
pacomerh
I'm surprised that you haven't seen other relatively young people with gray
hair. It's more common than you think, and it's not always stress, it just
runs on the family sometimes.

~~~
davidw
I have a friend who is under 35 and his hair is going nearly completely gray
at this point.

~~~
simplegeek
I'm 30 and half of my hair are grey. I spotted first grey hair when I was in
8th grade ;)

------
robertp
I can't believe Page didn't know the name of the companies they have acquired
so far in 2012.

They bought Milk (Kevin Rose) & TxVia (some type of mobile payment company)

~~~
johsoe
I think his thought process was more like "what am I allowed to say" and
decided not to take a risk :D

------
dfc
here is the link to the flv file if you want to download it and watch it later
and/or having streaming speed issues:

[http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalg...](http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalgrill_content/052112CRS.flv)

At the moment it is not slow for me at all. I am getting 2.2MB on a standard
tw.rr.com cable connection...

------
narrator
I was impressed with his humility. It's amazing how he hasn't let all the
success he's had and being a billionaire feed his ego.

------
cgs1019
streaming is slow for me on the site. it's also on hulu, though:
<http://www.hulu.com/watch/364027/charlie-rose-larry-page>

------
duncan
flv

[http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalg...](http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/digitalgrill_content/052112CRS.flv)

~~~
duncan
306 mb

------
callmeed
Is there any way to watch this on an iPad or AppleTV?

~~~
TechNewb
<http://mobile.bloomberg.com/tv/shows/charlie-rose>

Should be posted soon.

