A Conversation with Google's Sergey Brin

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Google has traveled a long way in a relatively short time from the first appearance of its clean search page to its much hyped IPO last year and its resulting multimillion dollar market capitalisation. Here, Sergey Brin talks about his own journey Stanford University graduate to Google co-founder. Attributing much of Google's success to luck, he says that he just followed his interests. While being at the heart of Silicon Valley was obviously fortuitous, it was not one of Brin's motives in choosing Stanford as a graduate school.

When asked about Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's comment that Google is number four in the list of internet portals, Sergey wittily responds that it means that Google is an underdog. He further elaborates on this topic by saying that he would like to think more as Google as a technology leader rather than a content rich portal. Google also does not want to follow Microsoft's "embrace and extend" philosophy to kill off smaller innovative companies.

Rebutting claims made on a number of websites, Brin says that Google is not planning to launch a web-based office productivity suite. He talks about how Google's AdSense advertising tool helps websites sustain themselves by generating revenues. Although Google recognises that click fraud is a problem, they have established internal teams to help combat it.