
Trying to interview Larry Page - coloneltcb
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/insider/try-to-interview-googles-chief-executive-its-emasculating.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
======
zem
i found this bit really depressing:

> Our technology group tends to work thematically, meaning that we try to
> focus on how tech is changing our readers’ work and personal lives. Google
> is the main focus of my reporting, and it is a brutally competitive beat. It
> takes me an hour to go through the day’s headlines each morning, and there
> are dozens of competitors and talented journalists on the tech beat. That
> means I’m often scooped, and the scrum of daily news can make it hard to see
> the bigger picture.

if the new york times cannot take an extra day or two to get a good,
comprehensive and well-put-together story without worrying about the churning
techblogs scooping them, who can? there has to be space for slower-moving
newspaper articles, without having to fall all the way back to magazines.

~~~
TrevorJ
The whole business model of journalism seems broken. I'd love to see a crowd-
funded journalism portal that takes the 'patreon' model and extends it to a
stable of well-trained independent journalists and provides them with an
overall support structure of editorial oversight, illustration & layout
support, etc, etc.

In place of advertisement, the portal could run their own messaging to fund
various initiatives (raise x amount in order to bring on a tech reporter for x
number of articles a year, etc, etc). Users could choose to fund specific
reporters at x amount per month, or just donate directly to the portal for
day-to-day operational expenses.

~~~
genericpseudo
The problem with journalism is everyone _wants_ it but hardly anyone will
_pay_ for it unless it directly helps them in some way.

So Bloomberg and the FT (trade press) have a business model, the BBC has the
license fee so doesn't _need_ a business model, and everyone else will go
bankrupt slowly – note that none of the other para-news apps which were
fashionable a while ago (Circa, Feedly, Google Reader, etc...) have come
anywhere close to being financially valuable.

~~~
michaelwww
I think a lot of people like me would pay for it if there was some sensible
micro-payment system. I'm hardly ever inclined to sign up and pay ~$10 a month
to read an article on a site. If I saw the article in a newspaper at a stand
or machine, I used to spend 50 cents buy it and get an entire newspaper for my
money. A single article would seem to be worth at most 25 cents, most of the
time a dime, and I would gladly pay that amount to read a good article. I
don't understand what the problem is and why this isn't implemented yet.

------
js2
Here's an interview Page and Brin did with Terry Gross in 2003, when they were
more accessible I suppose. There's an amusing exchange where one of them tries
to explain idempotence ("When I type 'Google' into Google and click "I'm
Feeling Lucky", it just takes me back to Google.") to Terry:

[http://www.npr.org/2003/10/14/167643282/google-founders-
larr...](http://www.npr.org/2003/10/14/167643282/google-founders-larry-page-
and-sergey-brin-part-2)

~~~
morgante
That's a terrible interview. She literally ends by calling them nerds,
probably in reflection of the fact that she has no clue what they're talking
about.

~~~
justin66
If that really poor explanation of idempotence is representative of the
interview, it's no wonder she didn't know what they were talking about.

------
bko
I may be in the minority on this forum but I am not worried about the
information that I willingly provide private corporations. The corporations
that have my data continue to exist because people find their products
valuable. When people talk about the power Google or Facebook have, they speak
as though these are companies that have been around for hundreds of years
amassing ever more power. I feel like I have more choices than ever as to the
services I use and the power of these corporations is very fickle. Apple has
lost over 10% of their value since this year began and about 25% in the last 6
months simply because expectations are that they are losing favor in the
public, or at least that's my hypothesis. Every generation had a different
country or corporation that they were afraid of.

And then we have the Congress in US with an approval rating in the teens and a
re-election rate in the 90s [0]. Since there appears to be little
accountability in the public sector and the monopoly on violence the
government holds, I am much more concerned about that.

[0]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php](https://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _the monopoly on violence the government holds_

People keep complaining about the "government monopoly on violence." What
other group would you prefer to have a monopoly on violence? If the government
doesn't enforce a monopoly, then invariably someone else will, in the process
becoming the new government; or else two or more groups will actively dispute
it, a condition commonly known as "war."

~~~
jdminhbg
The point is that the entity given a monopoly on violence needs to be held to
a higher standard than entities that aren't.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I can agree with that, and I hope that's what bko meant, but I've seen enough
people (on HN and elsewhere) complaining specifically about the existence of
the governmental monopoly on force that I wonder.

------
us0r
I was watching a video[0] the other day and Eric Schmidt said since the
Playboy interview they have not given any more.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns)

~~~
jjulius
If you're working and can't watch YouTube, here's a transcript:

> I knew that it was Larry and Sergey’s company, and I acted that way. For
> example, I never did any press. Right before the IPO, Larry and Sergey did
> an interview with Playboy — no pictures. It turns out that the interview was
> at the wrong time in the quiet period, and it put the IPO in jeopardy. “Did
> we screw up?” The correct answer is Yes. But the even more correct answer is
> no problem, we’ll fix this. From that moment on, they’ve never given an
> interview. That was 12 years ago. When they wanted to do interviews, they
> did them. Once they didn’t want to do it anymore, I did them.

[https://medium.com/cs183c-blitzscaling-class-
collection/cs18...](https://medium.com/cs183c-blitzscaling-class-
collection/cs183c-session-8-eric-schmidt-56c29b247998#.5sxzh9a2g)

------
tim333
Maybe given that Google is emulating Berkshire Hathaway[1] they could adopt
Buffett's approach to taking questions which was for many years to avoid it
364 days of the year and then have one multi hour open question session at the
annual meeting. He's changed a bit recently in giving more interviews but in
earlier years the annual meeting was largely it. It seemed quite smart in that
he could be open while being free from being bugged by journalists 99.5% of
the time.

[1] [http://qz.com/527596/eric-schmidt-explains-how-alphabet-
will...](http://qz.com/527596/eric-schmidt-explains-how-alphabet-will-emulate-
berkshire-hathaway-and-warren-buffett/)

~~~
munificent
Larry and Sergey take questions every Friday (well, Thursday now). It's just
only within Google.

------
amag
_In public comments, Mr. Page goes out of his way to say the opposite,
describing Google more in terms of a nonprofit than a gigantic corporation.
During a 2014 interview with Charlie Rose, he said he wished there were a
vehicle for people to donate money to their company so that it could be used
for projects that had some kind of social purpose._

There is such a "vehicle", google something and click on an ad.

Seriously, why would anyone want to donate to Google so that they can do
projects with "some kind of social purpose"? Is Google an expert at "some kind
of social purpose"-projects? Can Google (or the founders) not afford such
projects without normal people explicitly donating? Just the thought of
donating to Google is offensive and I find the article author's seemingly awe
at Mr Page's idea of such a thing repulsive.

------
ikeboy
Does "Once was at an off-the-record gathering where nothing interesting
happened" mean that whatever happened is off the record, or does it actually
mean nothing happened? I'm not sure how to read it.

~~~
aaronsnoswell
I read it literally - as in, nothing interesting happened.

------
portmanteaufu
"Emasculating" was a very strange and evocative choice of words for this. Most
of the article describes Google's significance and direction, with only this
snippet at the tail end having anything to do with the title:

> ....I can tell you from experience that it is really awkward and
> emasculating to try to interview someone who doesn’t want to talk. You feel
> like a big dork.

~~~
mrmcd
I assume the NYT headline was a reference to a few years back when Page was
talking about how great Glass was and by way of comparison described looking
down at a phone screen as "emasculating".

I assume he (Page) was just meant that using a phone a lot felt awkward and
took your attention away from the rest of the world around you, but made a
poor word choice while improvising in front of an audience. The tech press had
a little tisk tisk field day about though, especially since this was well past
the point where Glass was looking like a silly boondogle.

In most newspapers though, someone besides the author writes the headline for
an article, so I'm assuming whoever wrote this one for the NYT thought they
were being clever here in referencing that faux pas.

edit: Just checked it was actually Brin who said the emasculating thing, so
who the fuck knows what the headline writer was thinking. Maybe they
remembered wrong too.

~~~
theoh
The idea that "emasculate" was a bad word choice was a foolish media
bandwagon. The secondary meaning of emasculate is "make weaker or less
effective" and holding a fragile and valuable object does do that...

~~~
TillE
That's not how language works. Words have implications and subtleties that go
beyond a straightforward reading of a dictionary definition.

Especially with that definition, you really can't escape the roots. It's just
a metaphorical twist on the word.

~~~
theoh
Many people think "a series of tubes" was a hilariously bad analogy for the
internet too. It has always seemed reasonable to me, and some others. [1]
Maybe I'm just too interested in actual communication rather than mockery. But
"Be liberal in what you accept" etc.

[1] [https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/taking-stevens-
ser...](https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/taking-stevens-seriously/)

~~~
wavefunction
Well, it's a series, but also a collection at the same time, right? Unless you
conceive of the internet as one long line of tubes connected one to the other
(series) rather than a number of tubes, some connected in series but others
running in parallel.

That's the subtlety of language the parent was referring to.

~~~
theoh
Actually the original context is something like "the internet is not a big
truck, it's a series of tubes" which makes it clear that he was referring to
what was involved in sending data down a single connection.

It would be absurd to infer that Stevens thought real-world truck haulage
consisted of "one big truck" rather than a fleet.

------
denniskane
The first time I was aware of Larry as a person was in early 2014 when I saw a
replay of him on stage at the 2013 Google I/O event. I immediately got an
impression of him as being a truly saintly figure, with his gentle, soft-
spoken demeanor.

Considering what I have been going through in my daily life, I could not be
more in awe of what Larry has been able to accomplish. I feel that Google is
easily an order of magnitude more important than the next closest institution,
be it public or private, be it a business or a government.

My offering to Larry is a little thing that I've been working on for the past
several years called "Linux on the Web". If you stick those four words
together and put it into a relevant search engine, then the link should appear
as the top hit. It only works in Chrome... a fact that truly warms my cockles
at this moment.

I f __*ing love that man.

Screw all the haters.

Suggestion to all potential future reporters out there: pay more attention in
your math, science and engineering classes, and less in your liberal (f)arts
classes.

~~~
pconner
> Suggestion to all potential future reporters out there: pay more attention
> in your math, science and engineering classes, and less in your liberal
> (f)arts classes.

No. You do not create technology that serves real humans by refusing to study
the humanities.

------
ksk
>There’s a strong argument that Google is now the most important company in
the world

Does anyone know what this argument is? It boggles the mind that an
advertising company is the most important company in the world.

~~~
spinchange
Is it fully accurate (or helpful) to think of Google only as an advertising
company? Movie theaters and gas stations earn most of their profit on
concessions and ancillary stuff that isn't the central product or service, yet
we don't think of either as strictly a "concession" or food service business.

~~~
ksk
I'm not a 100% sure about this, but maybe you know. Do movie theaters and gas
stations provide their core service at a loss so as to profit from the
ancillary stuff?

I'd agree with you if movie theaters were giving the ticket away for free in
order to get you to buy a $20 hotdog.

~~~
guyzero
The movie ticket receipts go to the studios. Tickets alone don't make the
theatres any money. For a bunch of historical reasons (antitrust) studios
don't own the theaters.

[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/11/united-
state...](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/11/united-states-v-
paramount-movie-theater-concessions-got-expensive/)

