Q: Is Google a media company or a technology company?
A: It's better to think of Google as a technology company. Google is run by three computer scientists, and Google is an innovator in technology in our space. We're in the advertising business -- 99% of our revenue is advertising-related. But that doesn't make us a media company. We don't do our own content. We get you to someone else's content faster.
Q: You're rapidly adding people, real estate, servers and infrastructure. How long do you foresee that happening?
A: We are subject to something called the law of diminishing returns. You can't continue to double between here and infinity. There are no counterexamples in humanity. All business growth rates eventually slow. We don't know whether that's 10 years from now, 20 years, we just don't know. It's not worth predicting.
It's interesting conversation. We can chat about it in the hallway. But in terms of running the business, we're better off to take advantage of the growth now to invest. So we inform our decisions based on our ability to grow our market share and hire great people to solve new problems.
Q: How do you personally oversee that growth?
A: We're very analytical. We measure everything, and we systematized every aspect of what's happening in the company. For example, we introduced a spreadsheet product this week. I've already received my hourly updates on the number of people who came in to apply to use the spreadsheet, the number of people who are actually using it, the size of the spreadsheets.
Q: You're the CEO. Is that important for you to know?
A: Absolutely. Because I want to know how well it's doing. It's a very interesting product. We give the impression that, because of the lava lamps and all the [bouncy] balls, we're not paying attention to these things. And while that's very nice myth-making, it's not true. We are just ruthless with respect to watching all these metrics, so we know what's going well and what's going poorly. You can tell very quickly in an online world.
Q: How do you make decisions?
A: Our culture is a consensus-based culture. If a decision is not forthcoming, then I try to get a decision to come out. In rare cases then I will force a decision.
A traditional company would be hierarchically managed; it would have very clear chains of command. All of these things would be very well articulated. We function more quickly and more creatively in this consensus-driven culture, with a lot of data. Since you asked me specifically what I do: At the end of the day, I catch the ball.
