Great Throughts Treasury

"Another important consideration is that the kinds of questions people ask have changed. They have become far more challenging and complex. People?s expectations have grown. They ask for unusual things that have a variety of associated linguistic challenges. We have to deal with all of those situations. (Sergey Brin)"

"At Google, the search results cannot be bought or paid for. (Sergey Brin)"

"Basically, our goal is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. (Larry Page)"

"Before Google, I don?t think people put much effort into the ordering of results. You might get a couple thousand results for a query. We saw that a thousand results weren?t necessarily as useful as 10 good ones. We developed a system that determines the best and most useful websites. (Sergey Brin)"

"By the time we deployed our initial commercial version of Google in late 1998, we had 25 million or 30 million pages in our index. Today we have billions? more than 4 billion, in fact. That volume requires a different approach to search technology. (Sergey Brin)"

"Google actually relies on our users to help with our marketing. We have a very high percentage of our users who often tell others about our search engine. (Sergey Brin)"

"Google is all about getting the right information to people quickly, easily, cheaply?and for free. We serve the world?all countries, at least 100 different languages. It?s a powerful service that most people probably couldn?t have dreamed of 20 years ago. (Sergey Brin)"

"I don't think we're going to run out of important things to do, compared with the resources that we have. There are many, many problems in the world that need solving. (Larry Page)"

"I feel there's an existential angst among young people. I didn't have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb. (Sergey Brin)"

"I like the fact that I can meet anyone now and have a conversation. (Larry Page)"

"I think part of the reason we're successful so far is that originally we didn't really want to start a business. (Larry Page)"

"I would rather have people think we're confused than let our competitors know what we're going to do. (Larry Page)"

"If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach. (Larry Page)"

"If you can run the company a bit more collaboratively, you get a better result, because you have more bandwidth and checking and balancing going on. (Larry Page)"

"If you have a product that's really gaining a lot of usage, then it's probably a good idea. (Larry Page)"

"If you're changing the world, you're working on important things. You're excited to get up in the morning. (Larry Page)"

"It's clear there's a lot of room for improvement, there's no inherent ceiling we're hitting up on. (Sergey Brin)"

"It's important that the company be a family, that people feel that they're part of the company, and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat people that way, you get better productivity. (Larry Page)"

"It's quite complicated and sounds circular, but we've worked out a way of calculate a Web site's importance. (Larry Page)"

"Many companies are under pressure to keep their earnings in line with analysts' forecasts. Therefore, they often accept smaller, predictable earnings rather than larger and less predictable returns. Sergey and I feel this is harmful, and we intend to steer in the opposite direction. (Larry Page)"

"My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they're having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society. As a world, we're doing a better job of that. My goal is for Google to lead, not follow that. (Larry Page)"

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world. (Sergey Brin)"

"Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine. (Sergey Brin)"

"The dream as conceived 25 years ago has not been achieved. Until software becomes the ultimate tool for collaboration, productivity, and efficiency, the work is not done. And there's nothing more fun than doing that work. (Larry Page)"

"The smarter we can make the search engine, the better. Where will it lead? Who knows? But it?s credible to imagine a leap as great as that from hunting through library stacks to a Google session, when we leap from today?s search engines to having the entirety of the world?s information as just one of our thoughts. (Sergey Brin)"

"The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we're a long, long ways from that. (Larry Page)"

"We are excited about Internet access in general. With better access to the Internet, people do more searches. (Larry Page)"

"We are targeting innovation. We believe mobile applications are essential. (Larry Page)"

"We believed we could build a better search. We had a simple idea that not all pages are created equal. Some are more important. (Sergey Brin)"

"We chose it because we deal with huge amounts of data. Besides, it sounds really cool. (Larry Page)"

"We deal with all varieties of information. Somebody?s always upset no matter what we do. We have to make a decision; otherwise there?s a never-ending debate. (Sergey Brin)"

"We don't have as many managers as we should, but we would rather have too few than too many. (Larry Page)"

"We have a mantra: don?t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing. (Larry Page)"

"We have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good ? always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, ?Don?t be evil? seems the easiest way to summarize it. (Sergey Brin)"

"Ultimately you want to have the entire world's knowledge connected directly to your mind. (Sergey Brin)"

"To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone. (Sergey Brin)"

"We hear surprising stories all the time. The amazing thing is that we?re part of people?s daily lives, like brushing their teeth. (Larry Page)"

"We just want to have great people working for us. (Sergey Brin)"

"We saw that a thousand results weren't necessarily as useful as 10 good ones. (Sergey Brin)"

"We want Google to be the third half of your brain. (Sergey Brin)"

"We want to build technology that everybody loves using, and that affects everyone. We want to create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are so incredibly useful that people use them twice a day. Like they use a toothbrush. There aren't that many things people use twice a day. (Larry Page)"

"We will intensify our efforts to build out our infrastructure overseas and to develop products that are tailored to individual markets. - Sergey Brin"

"We wouldn't survive if people didn't trust us. (Sergey Brin)"

"We're trying hard to find user needs that aren't being met at all. (Larry Page)"

"When it?s too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley. (Sergey Brin)"

"When we had about 50 people, we initiated weekly TGIF meetings on Friday afternoons so everyone would know what had happened during the week. But those meetings have broken down because we now have too many people, about 1,000, including many who work in different time zones. (Larry Page)"

"You always hear the phrase, money doesn?t buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it?s not really true. (Sergey Brin)"

"You may think using Google's great, but I still think it's terrible. (Larry Page)"

"You need to invent things and you need to get them to people. You need to commercialize those inventions. Obviously, the best way we've come up with doing that is through companies. (Larry Page)"

"You want access to as much as possible so you can discern what is most relevant and correct. The solution isn?t to limit the information you receive. Ultimately you want to have the entire world?s knowledge connected directly to your mind. (Sergey Brin)"