Google chief Larry Page slams European governments for failing to invest heavily in tech sector
03 Nov 2014
Google chief executive Larry Page has slammed European governments for failing to invest more heavily in the technology industry.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Page said a lack of proper government investment was stifling technology development, especially in Europe.
"[Innovation is] not really being driven by any fundamental technical advance. It's just being driven by people working on it and being ambitious,"he said.
"Why can't we get more of these things going in Europe? Like celebrating technology, having a friendly environment for it, having more investment in science and a basic understanding and entrepreneurialism and making money and moving quickly and kind of the things that are good about Silicon Valley."
Adding that Google was exploring new ways it could use its $62 billion worth of assets to help solve the problem, he said Google was in uncharted territory, and was trying to figure it out.
"How do we use all these resources we have and have a much more positive impact on the world?"
Page's comments follow a major shake up in the upper management team of the company.
Page was not the only industry leader to warn Europe was failing to support the technology industry. Numerous industry commentators had earlier blamed an ongoing technology skills gap for the problem.
While most companies would be happy with a product improvement of 10 per cent, Google CEO and co-founder saw 10 per cent improvement as doing the same thing as everybody else.
Business Insider deputy editor Jay Yarow, said in an article, Larry Page lived by the gospel of 10x.
According to Page, a 10-per cent improvement meant one was basically doing the same thing as everybody else. One probably would not fail spectacularly, but one was guaranteed not to succeed wildly either.
However, Page could miss the small projects that blossomed into bigger projects if he insisted on starting big according to a Business Insider article, Yarow said. And there were quite a number of small projects that were posing risks to Google's lucrative search business.
Google's search business was the most perfect business in the world. People were essentially asking for advertisements every time they searched for something on Google.
The ads, when done right, could be helpful for users, which had turned Google into one of the world's most valuable companies.
''But nothing lasts forever. And while Page looks to the moon, the search business is at risk of being surpassed by another, bigger form of online advertising'', Yarow wrote.
