Larry Page's Vision of the Future

adamjh writes "Yesterday, Google co-founder Larry Page gave an amazing talk to the 2005 graduating class of the University of Michigan College of Engineering. In true geek form, I made sure to record Larry's entire speech on my mobile phone in order to share with the Slashdot community a rare glimpse into Larry's thoughts on the past, present, and future -- on topics ranging from dropping out of Stanford to start Google to "Thinking Big" and the abundance of venture capital to traveling to Mars, curing world hunger, and well, much much more."

Comments

Re:Peak oil (again)

[ardor]

I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but while Peak Oil is likely to happen, it will NOT prevent the stuff he is talking about, it will delay it.

Middle Ages are a thing of the past. You need to get rid of ALL SCIENCE, of all technical achievements, of all cultural changes, reinstall the church as the supreme power....

While it is wise to take Peak Oil seriously, doomsaying won't help anyone. Oh yes, a crisis is likely, it will result in drastic cuts in energy until alternative energy sources are fully installed. When fusion power becomes feasible, we're back on track again.

Re:In other news

[jb.hl.com]

Heh, I have a GMail account too...doesn't mean I worship everything Google does though, as Slashdot seems to do now. It seriously is becoming a site for Google and Apple fanboys, and very little else. The only reason I'm still here is because I'm thoroughly addicted to this place :)

And of course, Taco/Timothy/Neal etc don't listen to what the users of Slashdot actually want...I'm fairly sure daily Google updates is fairly low on most peoples' list of priorities :)

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Anonymous Coward]

just because a successful business man says don't bother going to b-school doesn't mean he's right. it depends very much on what he said in context. if by "don't go, i just ready books," page meant "don't go to b-school to gain business knowledge, because it's better to gain experience," then his advice is probably a good one. if the message you took home is that someone became successful without going to b-school and he said don't bother, so b-school is useless, then that's not a very smart interpretation of his message.

i know it's not quite the same thing, but a lottery-winning millionaire simply recommending "don't bother to take jobs, just buy lottery tickets" and listening to it simply because he/she is wealthy is dumb, don't you think?

Re:Page's Take on Business

[Concerned Onlooker]

From a man worth 7 billion dollars, it sure seems to me like his statement on how to run a business is pretty reputable.

I doubt that you'd base most of your other decisions based on one data point. Why do it now?

For every successful dropout there are thousands who are very unsuccessful. Too often we point to these sui generis cases and say "see! I don't have to go to school." The drop-out, under-educated successful type happens, but it's not the norm.

Google is changing things

[Infonaut]

We get it. Google is teh roxx0r. Move on. Please.

Google is one of the few market-changing forces in computer tech these days. There's a reason you read a lot about Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, AMD, Intel, etc. on Slashdot. It's because these are the companies that are changing the way other companies do business, and in turn how we all work and play.

Because you didn't include any sort of solution to what you see as an overabundance of stories about Google, I'm curious: What specific types of stories would you like to see?

Re:Peak oil (again)

[nate nice]

Once oil goes over something like $100.00/barrel it becomes cost efficient to refine shale oil, which we have loads and loads of. Not to mention geological surveys that point to the Gulf of Mexico having more oil than the Saudis ever could dream of. It costs more to get at this oil, but as the cost/barrel rises, it become efficient to drill this and refine it. So in this regard, America is in fact in a great future position in regards to oil as a primary source of power. However, I would agree we should reduce our consumption if possible and seek other methods for generating power. Oil rising to a high price is probably the natural way to make people consume less.