Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: Sim Book here, the current CEO of Apple, Inc. Although I am Google's competitor, I like to follow their journey a lot. Steve Jobs, in fact, an admirer of Google's ideology and evergy.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: Hello, myself Deep Kanya Kumar, the Chief Technology Officer at Google India. Speaking of my background, I am a Ph.D. laurate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Hello, my name is Scary Page. I am an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Google along with Sergey Brin. I am the chief executive officer of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: Welcome everyone, the goal of this conversation is to discuss the strategic successes or failures of Google in its journey.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Ha! Noone had pegged that when two Ph.D. students met at Stanford in 1995, history would be created. Amazon was a product of the internet and so was Google.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: True that, but while Amazon changed they way people shop, Google changed the way people use the internet. I want to ask Scary, what did you guys start this project?

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Well Tim, let me tell you straight. While people were throwing money behind everything with a '.com' at the end of its name during the late 1990s, we realized that it is not going to help people if you don't know how to navigate through it.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: That's true. The 13 search engines back in the day were pathetic, not even giving you remotely relevant information to what you were looking for.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: You may not know this, but Google wasn't even called by that name in the beginning. It was called 'Backrub' back then.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Just curious: was it an attempt to rank higher in alphabetical search directories? That was the reason why we named a company starting with 'A'.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: That's possible, Deaf. But forget the name. I want to know that how is it that you guys did what others couldn't do? How did you find a way to get pages ranked based on relevance?

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Well, it's not so difficult. Most people think that web technology is about marketing, but in reality, its just mathematics. We developed a formula called PageRank. And that little formula made Google what it is today.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: I'm ready to buy the patent for the formula from you. Name your amount. It won't hamper your business - you shall continue to hold exclusive rights to use it. We just want the ownership.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: I'm sorry, Deaf, but that's not possible. Since the founders had developed the formula at Stanford using the university's resources, the law dictates that the owner of the outcome of the research is also Stanford.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Exactly. The university gave us access to exclusive usage in exchange for 1.8 million shares of Google. Unfortunately for them, they sold the shares in 2005.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: I did hear that they earned only $356 million for their investment. That's very sad. That's just a little more than the NUMBER of iPhones we sell in one year, let alone the revenues or profits.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Amazing - 1.8 million shares! Had they held on, Stanford would earn $2 billion today, at $1100 per share. Anyways, Google seems to have grown not because of its core search engine and advertisement revenue, but because of it's strategic acquisitions. Let's discuss that. It will give us more insights.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: There are many companies that we have acquired. There was a time when we were buying a new company almost every day.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook all have acquisitions in automation, robotics and machine learning. I think every major corporation today is moving there. But Google is different.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: Not very different, though. One of the key acquisitions was YouTube. Along with ads, it made Google the most visited search system and YouTube the second. You may not believe that every 72 hours, more than 10 years long video is constantly being uploaded to YouTube.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Yes, YouTube was a quick buy. The deal went through in a week or less. Most of which was decided over a single lunch.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: Forget YouTube; Android is of more significance. It is single-handedly giving me nightmares.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: iOS isn't doing so bad, either. But the beauty of Android is that its open source. It can, therefore, run your phone, car, refrigerator as well as spaceships. 80% of the smartphones in the market are Android.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: But I'm not very happy with Google's acquisition of NEST. Google Home is the output of controlling thermostats and other devices in your house, making it into a smart home. It is a direct competition to Alexa and Amazon Echo.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: I understand why Deaf is so upset. Others may not know, but Deaf Bezos, along with Amazon also invested in Google as an angel investor. That's how he's been associated with us since 20 years.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: Oh, but do understand Deaf. Our acquisition of DeepMind and NEST combined, powered by Android gave us an intelligent electronic assistant for every home. It would be foolhardy not to make homes better.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: Home and away- you're everywhere. You also are working on driverless cars like Apple. Aren't you? In fact, I hear that you have a secret facility called GoogleX where a lot of experiments on robotics are going on.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Yes, we are constantly working towards improving things. That has always been our approach. One such example is our headquarters - Googleplex. It has acres of lawns and naturally, they need mowing. But instead of using machines, we regularly hire 200 goats who come in and eat the excess grass and weeds. Isn't that an innovative idea?

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: It absolutely is. I envy your business sense sometimes. Like the way you made a deal with NASA to use their airport!

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: I don't know anything about such a deal. Could someone please enlighten me?

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Sure, Deep Kanya. Google has a fleet of large and small planes, but they could not be landed in the headquarters and there was no airport nearby. Hence Google requested NASA to let them use their airstrip.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Precisely. In exchange, they are permitted to conduct experiments on our planes.

Deaf Bezos (CEO, Amazon) :
Amazon: Absolutely amazing. But tell me something, Scary: why haven't you liquidated your stake in Google and retired? You have achieved everything that one would want in life.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Sergei and I never wanted to run the business ourselves. To be honest, after incorporating in 1998, we approached Yahoo to buy us off for $1 million. They declined. We went to them again in 2002, and asked for $5 million, but they rejected us.

Deep Kanya Kumar (CTO, Google India) :
CTO: They must be so regretting their decision right now. Especially after the 2004 IPO.

Sim Book (CEO, Apple) :
Apple: Really. By the way, congratulations on beating Apple after 7 years to become the world's most valuable brand.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Founder: Thank you. We did become a $100 billion brand, surpassing Apple by a tiny margin for the first time in years.