We had the honor of co-sponsoring last Thursday's Garage Geeks event in which Sergey Brin came down to Holon to pay a visit to the Garage. Several hundred people showed up (apologies to everyone who asked me for an invite last week - space was really limited) to bask in the man's Google-y glow.
Sergey actually stayed for quite a while, close to two hours. At first, he seemed a little surprised at the rock-star reception he got. Either that or the poor guy was just trying to eat something while everyone mobbed him. But later in the evening, after some presentations by the Garage crew, he got up on stage to give a little talk and answer questions.
The Q&A session was also surprisingly lengthy. (Ayelet Noff has posted a video of most of it which you can find here). I'd be lying if I said that we heard some earth-shattering revelations from Sergey, but here are a few of the more interesting tidbits:
- When asked where Google is focusing its attention these days, Sergey mentioned both Android and RE>C (Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal), Google's cleantech initiative. I'm actually kind of thrilled to hear this. Along with the proliferation of the iPhone and similar devices, the rise of Android may finally help launch mobile Internet as a mainstream application. Google is one of the few companies that can leverage its size and prominence to introduce new standards and paradigms for the mobile world, so all the power to them. And although Sergey claimed rather politically that Google and Apple are not competitors here, it will be interesting to see how the dynamic plays out.
- Someone asked Sergey if Google was planning on buying Yahoo, which led him to tell the story of the first time the two companies met. In his telling, it was in late '96 or early '97. He and Larry had put together a small company already and approached David Filo with an offer: Give us a couple of million dollars and we'll develop a good search engine for you. Yahoo passed on the offer. In retrospect, Sergey says he understands what Yahoo was thinking -- a couple of crazy kids with an idea come to you asking for a lot of money and it seems a bit ridiculous. But from such events is history created.
- Charmingly, Sergey brought along his parents. Which led Yossi Vardi, who helped bring Sergey to Israel, to point out that in the eyes of Sergey's mother, despite the fact the guy has gazillions of dollars he still hasn't finished his PhD. Sergey says that he plans to finish the doctorate one day.
Now, being that we are all a bunch of provincials, someone had to ask when Sergey is planning on making aliyah. To which, a number of people in the audience shouted "after he finishes the PhD."
- Google's "70/20/10 rule" -- 70 percent of focus on the core business, 20 percent on ancillary businesses, and 10 percent anything-goes projects -- seems to actually track in real life.
- Sergey's favorite application -- Panoramio, an application over Google Earth which shows you pictures from any given place. Which is kind of like Flickr's geotagging feature that no one seems to use.
In short, an interesting evening and a chance to catch a bit of the magic. More on the event can be found here.
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