Brin: Google succeeded by luck

Sergey Brin unplugged at Web 2.0 | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Starting up: The number one success factor for Google was luck. We followed our hearts in terms of research areas and eventually we found we had something useful and we wanted to be impactful about it. We talked about open sourcing the code and working with universities, but it was difficult to do that because of the computational resources required–we needed money to pay for it.

It was truly a legend. Google started up great and achieved a greater value than Microsoft in a much shorter period of time. She was growing so fast that eventually has the face the head to head combat with Microsoft. Then we ponder: is there a true need for the two giants to have overlapping product lines? Both want to do searching, RSS, browser. As far as I see recent web applications (personal portal, groups, blog, photo album, IM etc) are all about a competition between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Personally I like to see them improve through competition, but I am also concern if they are rolling out new applications to get the market’s attention, without true demand or good quality…

Being an IT practitioner myself, I always see the giants as my role models for developing good software and applications. Luck may be a good catalyst to boost a success, but luck is never a factor to sustain a success. I look forward to seeing more IT companies, no matter big or small, to come up with new ideas that can make the world a better place.