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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."
Email never has and never will be a secure form a communication. Nothing is currently stopping the government from snooping on your email from other mail providers (e.g. yahoo, msn, aol). If you truly care about the privacy of your email, you really should be encrypting it.
Yes, but the other providers aren't archiving your messages, and providing a nifty interface to search and sort them. If they want to read my mail, they're gonna have to work at least a little bit for it!
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).
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 anything ever really deleted? My guess is google would keep the email stored somewhere, but I'm not paranoid...
Isn't destruction of subpoenad evidence a crime?
Well duh. Try proving it though. If you are being sued by some jerk with an axe to grind who is only out to get rich off your insurance company would you not delete e-mails that might be helpful towards this end?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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
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".
>at least the Government needs probable cause
Times have changed. Google for "Section 215" of the USAPATRIOT Act, and for the phrase "national security letter".
GMail is great even if you're heavily into privacy: imagine storing all your mailing list traffic on it. Automatic threading, user-controlled keyword assignment, high-speed search.
A clean page and what used to be some nice results sold me.
Biggest selling point it that they haven't driven me off with obnoxious ads and really stupid search results.
Google hasn't been blatantly evil to me yet.
In fact have they been provably evil at all, outside of designs on lunar domination?
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
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 agree with the rest of your post, but this...
... with Gmail or Yahoo you have none other then to bend over and hope you deleted anything that could harm you.
How about not emailing/doing stuff that could provide evidence/harm you in the first place?
There may be worries for some situations, but for the majority of people... don't break any laws/talk about it in email, and there yah go - no concern.
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This is the cute vorpal bunny virus, copy to your sig or runaway, runaway in fear!
You wouldn't be saying that if it was Microsoft with the mysterious aura
Normal people worry me!
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.
There is a fundamental thing stopping the governments from snooping right now: practicality.
Part of Google's income comes from providing search functionality for other companies. There is no obvious reason why the Federal government could not buy Google's search expertise and use it on a database populated by their Echelon monitoring system. While expensive, it would not be ridiculous compared with other federal spending on security. (Actually, I think it would be a lot better value for money than the ham-fisted repeated searches of the same baggage and repeated checks of the same documents currently going on in airports).
Now, I know that Google says "Do no evil", and some people will immediately call this evil. But I am not so sure you can make such a black-and-white judgement about it. It certainly would be a powerful tool in the hands of an oppressive government. But that is because it is a powerful tool - it is also a powerful tool for detecting terrorists. We know that terrorists are using ad-hoc email to co-ordinate their activities. It is the same power that helps me sort through the dross on the net for the gold I want. It is a dilemma facing anybody who manufactures dual-use technology. Should you stop manufacturing boots because they can be used to kick prisoners to death?
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Maybe if everyone starting using the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" feedback form at the bottom of the search results, they'd eventually take the hint. Or is that just totally inappropriate optimism? :) To be honest, I can't believe they aren't aware of the problem - so is it "can't fix" or is it "won't fix"?