Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Larry Page: Google Was an Accident

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the the-best-laid-plans-of-mice-and-men dept.

DarklordJonnyDigital writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Google founder Larry Page has admitted that the Google project wasn't originally intended to be a search engine at all. "It wasn't that we intended to build a search engine. We built a ranking system to deal with annotations." ' Of course, happy accidents have often been the cause for advancement, technologically or otherwise.

38 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Lego by Duds · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well given they were building PCs out of lego we didn't expect them to come up with something normal deliberately did we?

    1. Re:Lego by Squareball · · Score: 2, Funny

      lol I miss my legos! Welp this is just another thing my self and google have in common.. we were both accidents of our creators! ;)

  2. like bob ross by the+idoru · · Score: 5, Funny

    there are no accidents, just happy little trees.

  3. Some Accident by DarenN · · Score: 4, Funny


    Remind me never to give up when a project isn't going exactly as planned :)

    Mind you, looking at what it was originally planned to be, you can see where google came from. You keep going, you Crazy Kids!

    --
    Rational thought is the only true freedom
  4. Damn bastards by tmark · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish I was lucky enough to have such accidents. The only accidents I have usually involve me looking for a mop and bucket, or writing a big check.

    1. Re:Damn bastards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The only accidents I have are now the biggest financial burden of my life, and they still aren't even five ;-)

    2. Re:Damn bastards by zelphi · · Score: 2, Funny

      yeah, alimony's a real bitch, aint it?

  5. Thanks for the link to Google... by hey · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... we won't know how to find it otherwise.

    1. Re:Thanks for the link to Google... by ChristTrekker · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah. We might have had to search for it.

      --

      Constitutionally Correct

  6. really? by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, accidents are great! I can't wait to show my boss all of mine!

    --
    "I only speak the truth"
    Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
    1. Re:really? by n.wegner · · Score: 5, Funny

      I do believe the cupboard was 'a rockin', not stationary.

  7. So was I... by Da+Fokka · · Score: 5, Funny

    but I guess I'll never be as successful as google...

  8. Mental Anguish by fo0bar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, now Google is going to grow up with mental problems, constantly wondering if its creators really love it. This will probably lead to Google going into a KFC 20 years from know and shooting up the place. I mean, how well would YOU do if your parents told you that you were an accident?

    1. Re:Mental Anguish by stephenbooth · · Score: 5, Funny

      My father told me, when I was 15, that I owe my existance to a combination of some very loud crickets and the impossibility of easily obtaining contraception in Cairo in 1969. My parents decided to "Risk it".

      This explains a lot about my life. I haven't shot up a KFC yet, although I do eat there a lot.

      Maybe this is the next /. poll?

      I was...

      • Planned
      • Unplanned, but my parents have figured out the cause.
      • Unplanned, and my parents still haven't figured out the cause.
      • Found under a bush.
      • Brought into this world by the gentle hands of CowboyNeal.

      Stephen

      --
      "Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
    2. Re:Mental Anguish by Feztaa · · Score: 2, Funny

      You forgot "Abandoned, you insensitive clod!"

  9. And Jon Katz will be there to talk about it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    In the post KFCbine era.

  10. google is l33t by mrtroy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google is super l33t

    --
    [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
  11. In case it's slashdotted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:_Uc4KUIPqXIC: www.google.com/+Google&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

    1. Re:In case it's slashdotted... by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The funny thing is this quote from the page:

      "Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content."

      --
      ^_^
  12. Sue Sue Sue! by raile · · Score: 5, Funny
    Larry Page: "Lucas Pereira: 'You idiots, you spelled [Googol] wrong!' But this was good, because google.com was available and googol.com was not. Now most people spell 'Googol' 'Google', so it worked out OK in the end."
    It's time to sic the Google lawyers on googol.com for "brand confusion", or whatever they're calling it these days.
  13. Yep, that is how the Flaming Homer was created by gosand · · Score: 2, Funny
    I don't know the scientific explanation, but FIRE MADE IT GOOD.

    Lots of accidents have created great things, and a lot of concentrated effort has produced nothing worthwhile. Viagra wasn't an accident per se, but it was created for a different purpose than it is used today. The Slinky, Post-its, etc. Things like this happen a lot, and I am sure there is a website out there that compiles just this type of thing. If there were only a search engine I could use to find it...

    There is this book.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  14. Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You've /.'ed Google! ...or maybe not...

    --
    plur

    1. Re:Oh no! by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's ok, here's the google cache.

  15. Re:accidents by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 5, Funny
    If I wanted something, it would magically appear on the first link.

    Sounds like you're feeling lucky.

  16. Page has a big ego by wheeljack · · Score: 5, Funny

    why else would he have named Googles core technology "Page Rank"...

  17. Re:Before google by Duds · · Score: 4, Funny

    And there was me thinking all search engines were written by people who couldn't find porn without it...

  18. Another story by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard another story about this web site that was supposed to be a discussion board featuring intelligent discussions on the subject of science and technology and instead turned into Slashdot.

    Ok, mod me down now.

    --
    Forget the whales - save the babies.
  19. Re:Before google by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The fact that these guys accidently created a search engine that blows all the other ones away kinda says something about the laughable state of search engine technology before google, don't it?"

    You gotta admit, creating a search engine that doesn't spawn pop-ups is pretty innovative .

  20. Alimony by siskbc · · Score: 5, Funny
    yeah, alimony's a real bitch, aint it?

    Well, it's recipient usually is...

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

  21. For those who don't read the articles: by fishdan · · Score: 5, Funny
    Larry Page: "Google has been profitable since the first quarter of 2001. Why did we make becoming profitable such a priority? It's good that we did, because we might well be gone if we hadn't. The real reason is that we became profitable in the first quarter of 2001 because Sergey Brin made it a priority. You see, Sergey would try to go out on dates. He would call up women. And to impress them he would say, 'I'm the president of a money-losing dot-com.' But in Palo Alto in 2000, a huge number of people were presidents of money-losing dot-coms. And so they would not call him back. And he thought, 'If only I were president of a money-making dot-com, things would be very different...'"

    What I need to know is has more advancements in science come as a result of an accident or as the result of some guy trying to impress chicks. And what is the overlap?

    --
    Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
  22. I wonderful idea. by Vodak · · Score: 4, Funny

    It makes you wonder how long until some company comes up with the idea to copyright "the accidental creation of useful products and systems" and attempt to sue google and other things. =]

  23. here is the google cache by soorma_bhopali · · Score: 1, Funny

    Before google gets slashdotted!! www.google.com

  24. My Lucky Accident... by Sun+Tzu · · Score: 5, Funny
    This reminds me of the time I was trying to write a data storage system and accidently invented a combination compression and encryption algorithm far faster and more space-efficient than anything the world has ever known. Currently, it is one-way only ... but when I get the decompression / decryption working, I'll be rich!!! Muahahahahahahahahaha!!!

    Send us your Linux Sysadmin articles.

    --
    Geeky modern art T-shirts
  25. Talk about a Complex by RumGunner · · Score: 2, Funny

    Poor Google. Next thing you'll know, it'll be telling Larry Page "You're not my father!"

    .

  26. Wha's the big deal about google? by tundog · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would be cool if that "i"m feeling lucky" button actually took you to a web page, but I tried it a couple of times and it seems its broken on my client. Every time I'd do a search for a "search engine" the page would just reload.

    --
    All your base are belong to us!
  27. HHGTTG by syle · · Score: 3, Funny

    "It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass." - HHGG

    --

    /syle

  28. Re:Actually... by gughunter · · Score: 2, Funny
    ...the Information Retrieval (IR) geeks reckon there's 2 major factors. You are correct that one of those is relevance, which is known as precision. And the other is recall. Think of recall as getting all the relevant results.

    And don't forget the third factor: Information Retrieval's policy is to charge suspects for the costs of retrieval. It's only fair!

  29. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bill Gates: Windows Was An Accident
    from the packaging-pure-evil dept.

    Bill Gates writes: "Microsoft® Windows® wasn't originally intended to be an operating system at all. We were trying to put pure evil into a software form. After we finally got a working build, we executed it. First nothing seemed to happen. Then the PC rebooted - and loaded Windows®. Our precious had replaced the operating system on the disk with itself, and immediately we realized we had succeeded in our mission. This was going to make us rich, rich, RICH!"

    ( Read More... )