Sergey Gives Commencement Address at Maryland

[Brett_Tabke]

Anyone catch Sergeys Commencement address at Maryland on Cspan last saturday?

[satanclaus]

no but it must've been a real treat to get to hear from such an outstanding Alum. The guy at mine I'd never even heard of. Anyone got a recap of what was said?

[Brett_Tabke]

First there was nothing.
There there was the internet.
Then there was Google.
Then you could buy a dna sequencer for $80 over the net.
Then there was Google.
Then he was done.

Seriously - it was 8-10 mins max. It took me longer to fumble with the VCR to record it, than it did for the actual speech to last. Very little was said about G at all.

[GoogleGuy]

Heh. I set my TiVo to auto-record anything with the keyword "Google," so I got this. My favorite quote was sometime when Sergey was talking about the state of affairs a decade ago: if you wanted info, you needed to go to a nearby university, find the library, hope the library was open, rummage through the card catalog, and maybe find the info you needed. Sergey said something like 'Now, a decade later, a child in Cambodia can go to a corner cafe, enter a query on a computer, and get access to just as much information.... as long as they're doing a query for Britney Spears." Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny at the time. :)

Google "I love my little TiVo. That's why I added an extra 80 gig hard drive to it. Now it's big and strong!" Guy

[Jakpot]

Wow!

[Brett_Tabke]

The one thing I've gotten from the sergey/etal speeches this year was a subtle change in company philosophy and spin. Instead of denying and resisting "Google = Search = Google" and the loss of branding that it entails - it appears that the new philosophy is switching too "Google = Internet = Google = good ". Whether that is by best recourse action or grand design, is anyones guess. It is a powerful distinction.

[john316]

Google = Internet = Google = good

AOL did the same thing.

[Brett_Tabke]

ya, but aol tried it at a time when they were the laughing stock of the web and AOL!= Internet. It was actually AOL = Beware of the Newbies!

[john316]

AOL!= Internet

Well for a time they were synonomous for a great deal web users, we now know that for all the scorn heaped on the straw man AOL newbie, he wasn't as technically challenged as most believed, he even knew how to load a competitors CD!...wow! will wonders never cease?

[GoogleGuy]

I dunno, I don't think Sergey talked about Google that much or did much/any branding in the commencement address. The person doing the introduction talked about search engines and the internet more than Sergey did. :)

The takehome message to me was that Sergey (and Larry) think about the future in a very different, concrete way. From my experience, they're both really good at taking things that are pretty clearly true but non-intuitive, extrapolating that out, and intersecting trends. You saw glimpses of that when he compared things now to a decade ago, and mentioned what to expect a decade from now: e.g., a trend toward longer lives. He mentioned that every decade or so, people figure out how to add an extra year to the average lifespan, and talked about if the ratio ever reaches 1:1 instead of 10:1 then people could live indefinitely, barring accidents. So his most direct advice to the audience was "wear a helment." :)

I think both Larry and Sergey really enjoy thinking about things 50 or 100 years from now and how it can be better. Stuff like transportation/energy from one founder or nanomolecular/biochemistry from the other.

So I don't think there was much branding going on there--except for the Maryland folks, who gave Sergey a crystal Terrapin for his desk. I was really rooting from them to give Sergey an honorary degree; somebody needs to give these guys Ph.D.'s, right? ;)

[Yidaki]

>Stuff like transportation/energy from one founder or nanomolecular/biochemistry from the other.

Doesn't sound much search engine alike but interesting anyway. I wonder how this'll affect google ... bio processors? nano brains?

Faszinating. >:-¦

[mayor]

nano brains >>

Heh, my dog has a chip implanted in his neck so he can be identified if lost. That's already raised his intelligence level 10 IQ points.

Hey, how about a real-time Google search for lost dogs?

[markus007]

I think both Larry and Sergey really enjoy thinking about things 50 or 100 years from now and how it can be better. Stuff like transportation/energy from one founder or nanomolecular/biochemistry from the other.

We live in a time where we are on the verge of breakthru's in serveral area's of science that will radically alter the way we live. Not only that computers are getting smaller and faster and showing up in nearly every part of our lives. In 10 years from now i doubt google will have much in common with the present day google.

[skipfactor]

>>Hey, how about a real-time Google search for lost dogs?

Or geo-targeted PSAs for lost & found pets, mates & ski goggles--[try typing 'goggle' 3-times fast] :)

OT, is there a CSPAN replay scheduled?

[anallawalla]

Google "I love my little TiVo. That's why I added an extra 80 gig hard drive to it. Now it's big and strong!" Guy

We Aussies love our TiVos so much that we buy the Series 1s in the US, take them home, mod them for PAL and other tricks, and rely on volunteers to scrape and upload the program data to an ftp server. There is no likelihood of an official TiVo service here. I'll just add Google to my wishlist. Good tip.

(Still blank about what a Commencement Address at Maryland is)

[GoogleGuy]

That's really sweet, anallawalla. I have a Series 1 too, but I've been too wussy to get the ethernet card and trying to get the program data over the net instead of using a phone line. We've had a couple "TiVo boosting" parties here at Google where volunteers take Googler TiVo's and help them add in more hard drive space. There's nothing like seeing 10-15 TiVos stacked up on top of each other. Google can be a great place to work. :)

My other good TiVo tip: Do a wishlist for movie + 2003, movie + 2002, etc. Then you can quickly check for recent movies coming out on TV in the next couple weeks.

Hmm. TiVo just chalked up their 1 million-th customer, and WebmasterWorld just chalked up its 1 million-th post.. Hmm..

[div01]

(Still blank about what a Commencement Address at Maryland is)

Speech given to the graduating class of a college or university...in this case the institution was in Maryland.

[GoogleGuy]

(Maryland is where Sergey got his undergrad degree, I think.)

[Jakpot]

A Commencement Address is the vehicle to tell you that you must "commence" working for a living.

[dirkz]

> A Commencement Address is the vehicle to tell you that you must "commence" working for a living.

LOL.

[dirkz]

> I set my TiVo to auto-record anything with the keyword "Google," so I got this.

Where to download? :)