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it seemed clear to me at the time, this is more than 10 years ago now, that aging is there's it's all genetic based... we should be able to understand the genetic basis of aging. And if we can do that, we can cure a lot of disease, prevent a lot of suffering
because Google can write a really big check
it didn't go it has not gone the direction I wanted it to go
So, Chris was at Google. So, he was doing this. Something happened that caused him to feel like he needed to do it on his on his own and he's created 10 billion, 20 billion, 30 billion, who knows how much value doing and and so when the question the overall question is uh why doesn't Google why why didn't Google buy X, Y, or Z? It's like, well, they're having trouble even holding on. When you're a big company, it's it's very difficult to hold on to innova- innovators.
Also, those were those are software businesses in large part with YouTube has a hardware data center component, but Google is great at that. Yeah. Building things in the real world uh like making cars, Manufacturing. Yeah. that's a whole there's a reason why GM is great at making cars. It's very hard. Supply chains are really difficult. Yeah. I learned this with Nest. Like very very hard.
I would argue no. I would say that that that that would have been very challenging for Google to see it through all of those challenges and then to commit to Gigafactories and all the other things that Elon has committed to and to also be the you know, the entrepreneur of the century out there, you know, sort of as the as the front person for the the technology.
I think cared more than startups need to and probably cared more than other companies did. I at the time at least, there was a very real to give the devil his due, a very real sense of responsibility around data, user data, how it's treated. Uh at least among the group of executives and engineers that I was working with that that yeah, you need to be really careful about that and and that makes it really hard to launch a product like TikTok or Buzz or and make those things successful
if you look at Google Plus, that was not a well-thought. It was not a thought-out product.
I don't think there's any social, right? Nothing's ever worked.
I think Google showed that courage with YouTube.
I think that Google didn't buy didn't buy Shopify. It just at the the price was price was too high. But of course the price is always too high for the good things. And and I really argued that that that that was incorrect. And and the price only goes up for has only gone up so from there. And I think it was a mistake.
I said Google should have bought Slack for sure.
I think you've seen a struggle with with with Allo and these different kind of chat fun and Buzz and I mean there's an endless list of things Google has launched that have failed to catch.
I think Google in some ways kind of lost its nerve to buy uh big things.
The people that work here should get paid like venture capitalists. They should have the same financial incentives because we had seen what happens is if you don't have that, especially in a corporate setting, the great people get offers and go somewhere else, leaving behind the people who probably can't or won't go somewhere else, and then your returns suffer as a result.
Credit to Eric and Larry and Sergey who basically gave us cart blanche. You know, set it up in the way that you think makes sense that makes this a real thing.
We're going to invest for a financial return. Any other metric is impossible to measure and therefore won't succeed. Like, if you can't measure it, especially at Google, it's like we'll never know if this is working and it'll get shut down.
I think Google showed that courage with YouTube. Oh yeah, I mean they bought YouTube for what? 1.6 billion when it had this crazy like incredible lawsuit coming down like a sword right about to hit them on the neck and like Google comes in and like stops the sword from decapitating.
Slack, people argued maybe Google should have bought Slack. Obviously, they you did buy Nest. that Google should have bought Slack. I said Google should have bought Slack for sure. You did, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, Stewart's a friend of mine. The same reason I think that Google didn't buy didn't buy Shopify. It just at the the price was price was too high. But of course the price is always too high for the good things. And and I really argued that that that that was incorrect. And and the pr
I think that Google didn't buy Shopify. It just at the the price was price was too high. But of course the price is always too high for the good things. And and I really argued that that that that was incorrect. And and the price only goes up for has only gone up so from there. And I think it was a mistake.
we invested in a company called Upstart, which is, you know, 100X return.
you wind up having a obviously Google winds up having a super contentious relationship with
I think you put 500 million into Uber at some point or 250 million into... I think that kind of eight or nine of the investments I did alone have generated, you know, billions of returns. Uber, Nest...