Google is in the news, with Larry Page's ascension. Generally when I hear people compare Larry Page and Sergey Brin it is Page who is described as the "Big Think" guy. But these guys didn't always think big. Stupid Business Decisions: Excite Rejects Google's Asking Price:
In 1999, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google (GOOG), decided that their creation was interfering with their studies and offered it to a slew of companies (including the defunct Alta Vista, which passed, and Yahoo (YHOO), which also passed, but had a strong enough product that they were able to stay afloat with their own technology). An offer was then made to Excite’s George Bell, who deemed the asking price of $1 million too high. Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins went back for another attempt -- this time for $750,000 -- and was thrown out of Bell’s office.
George Bell still seems to be around. I guess when you achieve a certain level of success truly stupid decisions don't matter. Whatever happened to "skin in the game"? But notice that Page and Brin actually thought about selling their idea for $1 million dollars in 1999! Bell wasn't the only one who was lacking vision and genuine perspective. It should remind us that genuine innovation is by its nature hard to predict. Also, Kambiz Kamrani is back blogging at Anthropology.net. Too bad he won't be blogging chicken genetics! And another interesting blog, For what they were... we are.
