So says Larry Page. There's been a few interviews published with him of late but this Wired one by Steven Levy is one of the best. Lots to take out but I really liked his answer to a question about ambition and big bets:
"I worry that something has gone seriously wrong with the way we run companies. If you read the media coverage of our company, or of the technology industry in general, it’s always about the competition. The stories are written as if they are covering a sporting event. But it’s hard to find actual examples of really amazing things that happened solely due to competition. How exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing? That’s why most companies decay slowly over time. They tend to do approximately what they did before, with a few minor changes. It’s natural for people to want to work on things that they know aren’t going to fail. But incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there’s going to be non-incremental change."
In an era driven by efficiencies, building in room for the big 'moon shots' isn't easy but that non-incremental change he talks about is surely true of not just the technology industry, but of every industry that technology is changing, impacting, or disrupting. Which is a rapidly increasing number.
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