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The Man Who (Really) Makes Google Tick
An anonymous reader writes "Like his friends Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Craig Silverstein abandoned his PhD studies at Stanford to become employee No.1 and technology director at Google. While building the search engine in a garage, never in his wildest dreams did he think Google would become what it is today. Not only is it the envy of software giant Microsoft, Google continues to redefine the technology market with its creativity and tenacity. In this in-depth interview, Silverstein discusses a wide range of issues including the backlash against Gmail among privacy advocates, the company's cultural changes and its shifting reliance on PageRank."
If you want to know more about this guy, just google him :)
--- To each of us a Truth is given.
Is not having all your personal information in the hands of Google. I don't feel that Google is the threat here. They've proved time after time to be an honest company. I'm more worried about some crazy new law (Patriot Act anyone?) giving the Government / Other corporations instant access to this online archive of some of our most private information.
"You have portrayed the ideal search engine as one resembling the intelligence of the Starship Enterprise.."
My new geek idol
Slashdot sucks
Because of this man's great efforts, we can google for 'failure' and be greeted with President Bush's Biography.
Technology never ceases to amaze me. :)
-
I've always wondered if Google will shut down once it hits a google of webpages indexed.
Well, the third idea is having the computer be as smart as a reference librarian.
Heh. He just managed to offend reference librarians everywhere. Next week: Reference librarians boycott google!
Drop the PhD study where right now he would probably be teaching at a college to kids who really couldn't care...knocking back 40k/yr. Or now be worth a few hundred million dollars. *Sigh* Reminds me of the day some hippy asked me if I wanted to join his computer company, darn thing was in a garage somewhere. I wonder whatever happened to him. Well I turned him down and now i'm a Walmart manager! Watch out for falling prices!!!!!!!
Like in the WiFi market? Or with Quicken???? Does someone still uses Money?
Lots of companies succeed against MS. Not that it's the easiest thing to do in the world, but it's doable. Google might be another Intuit.
Off topic question:
- Should I mod this flame bait or troll?
I'd mod it Interesting. He has a point, you know. Microsoft could easily overtake Google.
Google might be another Intuit.
Can I buy some pot from you?
He says: "I think that understanding language is kind of the last frontier in artificial intelligence, and then talking to a computer will be just like talking to a reference librarian, because they will both be equally knowledgeable about the world and about you. "
Now I love Google and don't mind the privacy implications of Gmail, but for the PR nightmare they just had you would think he'd be a little more careful. I am not sure I want computers to be knowledgeable about me (individually).
suprisingly where i am (australia) its MYOB which is the dominant force.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the article: We still believe that it is important to have a work environment that is fun. That is still true, just as much now as it was when we started, even though instead of having one massage therapist come in, you know, a few times a day, we have, you know, a whole crew going in, making sure that everyone can get a massage who wants or needs it. (emphasis added)
But what impresses me and is basically the reason I am still here is that even though the culture has changed, the basic principles that underlie Google, both in terms of the products and how we run internally as a company, have not really changed since it started
Funny, I would have thought the several hundred of million dollars worth of stock options you probably own, would play a factor too.
..is the "why is Google so successful?" question. This interview seems pretty focused on talking about "hot" topics (gmail privacy, microsoft, blah blah), and it talks about possible future technologies in Google, but the interview doesn't probe about just why Google got there in the first place. Where's the talk about what Google did differently? PageRank (before its manipulation by spamdemons), clean design, obliteration of banner advertising and "portal" services, clear separation of search results and "related advertising" results... that's the compelling stuff that I'd want to hear the man behind Google talk about. Those were all pretty bold moves from an economic standpoint ("what, you want to remove banner ads?! how do you expect to make money!!" etc etc), and by golly, it panned out and then some. Someone should go back and ask, "how the hell did that succeed, how did you convince people to come on board and work with you on Google when it was so damn different?"
One thing's for certain: The guy does an excellent job of keeping up Google's mysterious aura. When asked if the number of servers was 10k or more like 100k, he said "over 10k". When asked about future technologies and directions for the company, he always answered vaguely ("I can't comment on specifics").
This is pretty cool. The aura that google has that no one knows how it works, and no one knows where it is, and no one knows what it's doing... That's a pretty cool public image to have for something used as much as google is. I just wonder if investors are going to want to know more about what's going on.
~Will
sig?
What bugs me about Google is all the aggregators and useless pages-full-o-links-without-any-content sites that show up so high in the results when you are seeking, for example, technical information about _X_ piece of hardware.
Was looking for setup details on a Siemens router today, so I googled the brand and model #. The first few pages were results from overpriced worthless drop-ship web "retailers" instead of useful information. Isn't that stuff supposed to be over on Froogle instead?
and good on 'em. why would anyone want to support such an antiquated amendment?
all you gun owners just need to relax. you don't fight fire with fire
wtf, you live in NZ. There's no 2nd ammendment there, nor is Google bound to it, not being a government agency and all.
I thought you idiotarians were pro-business? Don't they have a right to determine, on their own, whose ads they do and do not want? Or should the nanny state step and tell them what to do.
Moron, just like every other libertarian. Lay off the sci-fi, and come join is in the real world. The women here are real, and even better than those alien ones wou see with Captain Kirk in star wars.
I remember the last time there was a big brouhaha over something that Google did, which was when we acquired the Usenet archives from Deja.com
/. in one day.
The last brouhaha people had was when Google de-listed xenu.net completeley over a complaint from Scientology.
It was March 2002. Buying out Deja was 2/12/2001. Scientology lead with 2 stories on
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Much as I love Craig (I'm having dim-sum with him next Sunday) I'd have to disagree with the poster's characterization of the interview as 'in-depth'.
It's got more than a few questions, but few of them are terribly interesting, and (by necessity, I'm sure) many of the answers are vague or "I can't really talk about that".
I support that.
Most of the countries have outlawed guns, simply because they are harmful.
US is the only crazy country sticking onto ancient and stupid means of fighting all in the name of freedom. Do you really think that if there is going to be war tomorrow, it is going to be fought with guns?
Most of Europe is far more developed (and civilized) and have bans on guns. Ditto for even several third world nations (India, for instance).
There is no point in supporting guns. We are not barbarians. Atleast not unless you're a gun-nut.
No, there isn't the RKBA in NZ. Yet. We members of the Libertarianz party are trying to rectify that :-)
:-)
And yes, of course, Google have the right to run whatever ads they choose. I said boycott, not legislate
At least in the US, a good lawyer can make a case that the PGP will self-incriminate based on the fifth amendment.
I dont know about the other parts of the world.
now supporting:
cmdrTaco for president '04
michael for oval office intern summer '05
This won't be a popular post but it sounds like the MS of the early 80's. Of course, it also sounds like a VH1 "Before they were stars" episode. Just substitute the word "Company" for the word "Band".
I agree with you 100%. Google's page rank is so messed up I've decided to use Amazon.com's A9 instead!
You should find things to mod up instead.
Google continues to redefine the technology market with its creativity and tenacity
Really? I don't mean to be a troll. I like google and all but what have they done differently since the first day they opened for business. They're search engine just works great and that's it. They're in a position to do more but what? Does gmail constitute N billion in market capitalization they're going to pull in when the IPO goes through? Makes one wonder what they're going to do an not be "evil".
There is no doubt that Google is the most popular search engine on the market today, however, is it the best ? Or has it just won a popularity contest ? Many use Google purely because others do. It is not that the technology is better, it is just that it has a much higher user rate, which allows it's results to be far better.
Yeh, back in the day that worked. I'm not so sure it would work in 2004 though, because now the existing companies are on the lookout for low-key competitors and aware of the risks of letting them grow. In the dot.com days, some of the old businesses got hammered pretty hard, but it's less likely now. Your local bookstore couldn't do jack about Amazon, but Amazon will probably sue you for patent infringement if you try to make a better bookstore and put it online.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Of all the companies that Microsoft has ever competed agains, Google is the first one where Microsoft is fighting a battle in enemy territory.
Microsoft's victories come in the software front (Netscape, Quicken, Office, etc.) where they can leverage their operating system dominance.
Google's home turf is massively scalable, reliable web services. Even though much of it is secret, all signs point to an incredible advanced platform that keeps these things running. Its highly redundant and distributed, using some cutting edge research and open source technologies. If Microsoft were to try to utilize Windows to power such a platform, their developers would soon discover how laughable Windows is for such a solution. Not that Microsoft isn't smart, but the culture of Google lends itself much better to success in this field than the culture of Microsoft.
I am, however, looking forward to Microsoft going up against them, as it will allow us to point out yet another failure in them trying to move beyond their core business.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
hahahahahaha, he can't mod JACK now that he's posted.
serves the bastard right for trying to mod stuff down instead of up.
man - if google could improve searching for porn what a relief that would be. Currently I have to wade through bucket loads of fake links, booby pop-ups, fake free pics, virii and other crap. I hope they improve the search engine so that it delivers the best free pussy on the net.
They can't practically do a full search across everyone's email for a particular keyword. To do so, the providers need to offer this kind of service, which they haven't been built to do (data persistence, indexing etc.). Alternatively, the FBI/CIA could just install snooping boxes at network hubs, but again this isn't practical for realtime searches given the volume of mail going around the world every day.
On the other hand, Gmail is (the first system yet) specifically designed to make searching across its datastore as easy as searching the web. Now, for the first time, large scale email snooping is practical. The FBI/CIA can just get a special privilege account from Google, with the ability to search everyone's email for keywords just like we do now when searching the web.
Laws don't mean much if enforcing them is impractical. Gmail and similar systems if they catch on make new laws practical.
As an internet webmaster, I certainly would like to hire the guy for a little SEO work. From the sounds of the article, this guy sounds like he knows what makes PageRank tick.
The rest of us only find out through experimentation.
Hey, I'm the number 2 Nigruitude Ultramarine site on the web!
I guess the Iraqis killing US servicepeople are doing so with water pistols? :-P
Also, firearms are still useful for self-defense, in fact, they're better than anything else, *especially* if you're a woman defending herself against stranger rape.
Drop the PhD study where right now he would probably be teaching at a college to kids who really couldn't care...
There are plenty of Ph.D. drop-outs that signed up with other companies that looked just as promising as Google and didn't make it. This sort of career choice is basically a lottery ticket with a rather high cost of entry--even if you ever manage to get back to grad school after your failed stint at a startup, it's going to be hard to get back into research.
If you want to make money, a Ph.D. is the wrong choice to begin with--go into business or finance or something like that. If you change your mind about getting a Ph.D. halfway through, again, there are far better career choices than to get involved with some startup.
Sign up with a startup in a technical capacity only if you feel passionate about the product or the work.
I knew google was mainstream americana when I saw something like this in the grocery store. Has anyone else seen these?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Correction, on page number two (mixed two thoughts together). Here, have another free shot at my karma!
Shameless Nigritude Ultramarine Plug.
Google is known for their new and interesting technologies. I stumbled across this search engine right before reading this article actually. A search engine that clusters your results! It makes it even faster and simpler to get right to what you want. It's nice to see new ideas like this coming out and helping to change the direction of search engines as google did several years ago.
http://vivisimo.com/
...Later on in Google's career the PETA enraging truth about PageRank was discovered, to this day they have a slave workforce of pidgeons providing millions of search results a day without providing proper break times or health coverage.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
As far as I know, your lack of knowledge does not constitute proof that he is wrong.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
that google was just a juy sitting behind the wall that knows everything.
Just like the standardized testing grading machines...
~mingust
I don't know about anybody else, but I have noticed that, lately, Google seems to be rather polluted by people who are exploiting the PageRank system to get higher listings. You know the types -- the url is of the form www.domain.com/your-exact-keywords.html, and the page doesn't actually have any content. Google is fantastic for anything that hasn't gone main-stream, simply because advertisers aren't Google-Bombing (heh, I can't believe I actually said that) those particular words yet.
Don't underestimate Microsoft. I'm sure they can outdo Google if they put their mind to it. They have the clout, the technological know-how, the financial backing, and they are not afraid of playing dirty. Eventually Google will make a mistake ; maybe a key employee will leave for Microsoft, something like that, and anyway Microsoft employs lots of smart people too.
What does Google have that Microsoft cannot duplicate, buy or steal, given enough time and resources?
Has any other GMail user noticed that there seems to be a limit on the size of attachments that GMail allows? For instance, it currently won't accept my 60+ MB attachment consisting of a gpg-encrypted tar of my Documents directory. I'm going to tar and encrypt smaller and smaller chunks until I find the limit. People could save me time if they already knew the limit.
And besides, why should Google do this!? They are the ones giving out a Gig. If I want to send a friend the ISO of Debian Disc 1, why should Google stop me? Why be choosy about how I use the Gig? Again, I didn't ask them to give out Gigs. They freely chose to. Let's remember: Don't be evil.
...his thoughts on negritude ultramarine
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Microsoft have technical "know-how" ? What planet are you living on?
I guess the Iraqis killing US servicepeople are doing so with water pistols?
No, Rocket Propelled Grenades are much more effective. But seriously, have a look at the comparative death tolls between the Coalition and Iraqis, ~600 vs ~11,000. I think the trigger happy US are more deadly with or without their guns.
in fact, they're better than anything else, *especially* if you're a woman defending herself against stranger rape.
So you wouldn't use a gun if someone you knew was raping you?
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
I mean that guns are less effective against rape by people known to the victims, as there's less opportunity to use them.
E.g. most wives don't keep their husbands at gunpoint while in bed together, but that doesn't mean they don't get raped while in bed with the rapist.
One, Silverstein acknowledges that AI problems are basically hopeless (gonna take "about 200 to 300 years").
Two, when asked if PageRank is dead and what they are doing to fight false popularity, he says they are "tweaking it in new ways".
Three, when asked how ("do you have algorithms?) he answers,
OK, they are looking at the anchor text. Then what? As long as HTML is the language, I'm afraid there aren't that many more things they can do.Time to cash in, perhaps?
This is...
O
U
T
R
A
G
E
O
U
S
!
When the fall of "American" society falls, who do you think we'll be defending ourselves against?
.sig does not own a gun... be afraid
Another country or our own countrymen?
The owner of this
The average professor salary in the U.S. is $98,499/year. Granted, that's nothing compared to what this guy is making, but it's not exaclty 40k either. Once a professor gains tenure, the job is nice and plush with plenty of job security.
I sware if I read one more f$cking google article with gmail attached to it I am going to go insane. Yes, google is amazing. NO I do not want to read about how amazing it is and how I can get a whole whopping gig of memory with this great new email service called GMAIL. Enough is enough! Think I am insane? Look at the history of how many stories have gmail and google in the title for the last couple weeks. Can we say get some real news?
Some of us are looking for free cock on the web!
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
and in NZ rather than the USA, I can see how this really matters to you. Besides, you're more likely to be killed in a gun accident than you are to be raped by a stranger, in the USA. So your point was...?
I'm far more worried about the divorse lawyer or the ex-employee with an axe to grind then I am about the Government.
I've been seeing this a lot lately, and can't understand why people screw it up so badly.
"Then" refers to a point in time. "Than" is used as a comparison. The sentance should read "I'm far more worried about the divorce lawyer or the ex-employee with an axe to grind than I am about the Government." Yes, yes, typos happen, but this happens so often that I think people honestly think they're saying "then" when they're saying "than".
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Yeah, and that's just salary. The real money is in research grants. I have an acquantance who works as a lab tech. Her boss, a PhD at UCLA, usually has about a dozen or so research subjects running at once, with each being funded by one or two grants. In fact, the only work that individual does is think of new things to research and file the appropriate papers, grad students and lab techs do the actual work. Pretty good gig, if you can put in the 20 years of school and work it takes to get it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Of all the companies that Microsoft has ever competed agains, Google is the first one where Microsoft is fighting a battle in enemy territory.
Er... you ever heard of this thing called the "Xbox"?
Score: -1, Troll (But totally accurate)
What does Google have that Microsoft cannot duplicate, buy or steal, given enough time and resources?
Google's corporate culture has valued technical r&d and clean user interfaces more than Microsoft's. Google also has a better reputation.
These are important when you run a search engine that users want to get to, find what they need, and get out of without any fuss; and when they can set their homepage to something else with a few mouseclicks.
Google could lose these at any time, but Microsoft is unlikely to gain them.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Do you really think that if there is going to be war tomorrow, it is going to be fought with guns?
If New Zealand is invaded by Indonesia, then we won't have any choice. That said, we should be able to do some damage if it comes down to ordinary citizens fighting on the streets afterwards. And there are towels to aim for.
We are not barbarians.
Doesn't mean 'they' aren't. But then, we don't kill women for being raped, so what do we know about barbarism?
the logo in the their toolbar is horribly pixelated. bothered me when i used to use ie.
Just because other email service providers are not specifically optimising their email service for search, doesn't mean they can't simply issue something similar to:
SELECT * FROM T_EMAIL WHERE MESSAGE_BODY LIKE '%terrorism%'
... it might take a little longer to execute than having a separate table to hold the keywords:
SELECT * FROM T_EMAIL E, T_KEYWORDS K WHERE K.KEYWORD = 'terrorism' AND K.MSG_ID = T.MSG_ID
... but it is just a database afterall, and they are meant to be searchable (and are indeed very often indexed -- but indexing in such a way is all about performance, it doesn't make it impossible).
Furthermore, I've got a feeling that other email providers might keep backups of emails in storage for a short while -- just like Google: they can't guarantee immediate deletion of your message from an archived backup -- but maybe they simply are not being as up-front and implicit about this fact in their terms and conditions? (e.g. I don't see how Hotmail/Yahoo could not have backups, so do they still have copies of your old messages? You will probably never know...)
Sorry, but I don't think it's impracticle: I agree with the grand-parent post: nothing is is currently stopping the government from snooping on your email from other mail providers -- just because Google are the 'search kings' doesn't mean nobody else can search a database of email messages (thinking otherwise is nearly ludicrous).
One thing that has made google as popular as it has become is one simple thing most search engines/portals overlook - Sheer simplicity. Ever try to maneuver through msn or yahoo? They're a constant flood of content and ads. Like I need to have everything on one page. It's too much. Google is simple and to the point. Total no-brainer.
nice comment
The DoT, namely C.S., used to be on the list of Google Executives.
Any comment on *this*, I mean...hello? Mr. Brin? Mr. Page?
Did Mr. Silverstein just dematerialize or what?
"In an interview before Google's IPO filing, Silverstein discussed [...]"
*yawn*
I wanted to know why three people became all employee No. 1 after they abandoned their PhD studies. You would expect them to become employees No. 1, 2 and 3.
Or even employees No. 0, 1 and 2, since Google is a geeky company. (With their IPO, they hope to raise 2,718,281,828 dollars with is floor(e billion) dollar.)
I Googled, didn't find it. Just maybe Google's not completely perfect.
When looking for how-to information, the query should be posed as the answer, not the question. The page that has the information you want will contain phrases such as, "... when installing the foorbar, be sure to ..."
Think about the answer, not the question.
Carbon Unit # 149-34-xxxx
Much as I like the new "Google" articles category, I can't help but feel that Google may have something along the lines of "trademark confusion" in mind when they write and ask /. to stop using their logo at the top of their page...
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
define:answer
>> questions
Something like, say, 200 miles in metres?
I don't know,
If Microsoft wanted to they could develop clean interfaces too. Microsoft's reputation is not that bad, except that it is known that they don't play nice with others.
But still, if they do develop a worthwhile engine, on par with Google or better (they have very good researchers, they are certainly capable of coming up with something) and put it as the default search engine in the next version of Windows and the next service patches, then Google could find itself in trouble.
Microsoft has tremendous leverage with its users by virtue of most of them not being very educated and not caring about interfaces all that much as long as it sort of works.
I read this:
Now, what's 10,000 times 1,000 percent?
Just check out ThumbFu.com - pretty much what you ask for I think ;)
erhmm.. that was ThumbFu.com of course... sorry
I mean, come on. If you have internet then odds are pretty high you have Email from you ISP. There is also Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Excite Mail, Mail.com, and thousands of other free email providers.
So basiclaly you have choices out the ass, email is one area in which *no one* can claim they have a monopoly.
So what's the big deal? Feel threatened by GMail? Then don't sign up for an account. It's not like anyone is holding a gun to your back.
The problem is, IMHO, excesive critical comments from internet. Looks the EULA problem with gmail. Something that is NOTHING has become the badababaBOMBA here, and there.. all over internet.
I think people at google work well, and shut up to avoid stupid excesive critical comments. The results of is work is nice, and this is the important. Not the Amige behind the coffee bar.
I am sorry for my engrish.
-Woof woof woof!
My points are still valid, even if my psuedo-code is not 100% correct -- but you miss my point: any of the large webmail providers (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) will still be able to search all the email in any users mailboxes, almost as easily you can log-in on their respective homepages. It would be a fallacy to think otherwise. Of course, these services already do -- just like Gmail -- have one huge store for all their users' mail, even if it is distributed, as you mention.
It is my belief, gained through knowledge of mail servers -- and too many years real-world experience writing high-end web-services/front-ends of one kind or another -- that SQL is the most scalable solution for the back-end of a web-based email system with this quantity of users, the idea of using any kind of file based mailstore is unpractical for web-based email for a number of technical reasons.
Furthermore, if I remember correctly, in the past I have read articles about the big webmail provider's back-end systems being SQL based (sorry, I can't remember which company the article was about -- I think I've read about more than one..(?)).
Your analogy about searching everyone's email is moot: we are not really talking about searching everyone's email spool, rather, people are arguing over whether Google's webmail -- Gmail -- is any less private than any of the other big webmail solutions (Yahoo, Hotmail) that are already out there -- and it's not. It's no better, and no worse -- but they are being more upfront about things (i.e. explicit about their business/technical processes) in their privacy policy than some of the other providers care to be, which has brought this matter into the eyes of the general user (who probably do not realise that when they click 'Delete' on Hotmail, a copy of their message may indeed still reside on another of Hotmail's systems in an archived backup, unaccessible to the all but the sysadmins -- and the respective law enforcement agents/agencies, if they have the right paperwork).
In this statement (and possibly inferred in some other statements) you make it sound like Gmail/Google will index everyone's mail-server's mailstores like it indexes webpages -- it won't. Gmail only indexes the mail of Gmail users.
Why do famous nerds situate their computer room in their garage? Are they too young to have a driver's license? Are they big believers in public transportation? Are they David Hasselhoff wanna-bes who stumble on an unrelated breakthrough while trying to invent a talking car? What's the story?
I know this is slightly offtopic, but I was reading comments and just realized something...
Each Mailbox will be able to hold 1GB of email. Each Email can be 10MB. What happens when gmailboxes become noting more than the equivalent of alt.binaries filled with software. No longer will the pirate/warez users have to worry about running ftp servers, P2P, Usenet, etc. Google will be the ones holding the goods and there will be a ton of gmailboxes setup for the sole purpose of warez sharing. Once this draws google's attention - *poof* either it will be gone or the max mailbox/attachment limit will be drastically reduced.
Don't get Me wrong - I think that *if* google's gmail doesn't do all the potentially nasty things with users data it would be great. I just hope they have thought of this possiblity and have also created some means to deal with it.
The main problem with a tenured professorship is that they aren't easy to come by. You have to put in a lot of work for a little money for a long time, and if you don't get enough grants or good publications, it's all for naught. Get denied tenure once or twice and your academic career is over.
While building the search engine in a garage, never in his wildest dreams did he think Google would become what it is today.
I had no idea the search engine was mechanical. I thought it was software, more likely produced in a bedroom office or a basement on a computer. That's why I keep reading the articles here, I learn something new almost every time.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
What more is there to know. One of God's Chosen People with this much power? Do not trust him.
Of course, I'm not buying, just looking for competitive information :-).
To date, all we've gotten from Google is a two-page flyer listing some of the features; I don't get the sense that they're overly excited about the product.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
It could be because of Google's impending IPO. SEC "quiet periods" are designed to make sure that all the information out there about a company is consistent and accurate. They prevent company execs from putting out their own spin on things in the press right before an IPO. Silverstein has probably been advised to make no forward-looking statements whatsoever, and to only confirm things that have already been well-documented in the press ("thousands" of servers, etc.)
Breakfast served all day!
Good one. You disagree, so you mod down. That's not the point of moderation, you know.
Cretins.