David C - Investigation 2

Google
Google’s founders are Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Both Sergey and Larry came from educated parents: Sergey’s father was a mathematician, and both of Larry’s parents were educated in computer science. While Larry was born and raised in the United States, Sergey was not. He was born in Moscow, but had to flee to the United States at the age of 6, in order to escape Jewish persecution. Sergey and Larry met at Stanford University when completing their doctorates in computer science. In 1995, they created a search engine called “BackRub”. Though most search engines at the time ranked a website based on its’ relevance to the search term, BackRub attempted to rank websites based on their importance. It did this through the PageRank system, which would score a web page using the amount of web pages that have a hyperlink pointing to it. Later, this search engine was given the name we know today. In 1998, Google officially became a corporation. At first, Google relied on investments to keep running. In 2000, they moved to selling advertisements on their website. The founders were originally against this advertising-funded model, believing that it would inevitably lead to biased search results, and ranking sites based on profit rather than significance. I believe that this was an important shift in the company’s values. Sergey and Larry were strongly against making immoral company decisions. Their values were centered on the quality of their product and meeting the needs of the user, and their motto was “Don’t be evil”. This “early Google” is the company that I admire. Whether or not the company holds these values today is debatable. One value that has clearly persisted is the excellence of their products. They provide convenient and reliable services, which they continually improve upon.

References:

“Google Launches Self-Service Advertising Program”. News from Google. October 23, 2000. http://googlepress.blogspot.ca/2000/10/google-launches-self-service.html.

“How we started and where we are today”. Google. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.google.com/about/our-story/.

“Larry Page.” Biography.com. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.biography.com/people/larry-page-12103347.

“Sergey Brin.” Biography.com. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.biography.com/people/sergey-brin-12103333.

Stross, Randall. “Planet Google: One Company's Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know”. Simon and Schuster. 2009. https://books.google.ca/books?id=xOk3EIUW9VgC.

“Ten things we know to be true”. Google. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.google.com/about/philosophy.html.

Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto was born in a rural town in Kyoto, Japan. As a child, he spent a lot of time exploring his environment, interacting with caves and rivers near his home. He also enjoyed drawing, building his own toys, and other creative hobbies. In 1976, he graduated with a degree in industrial design. His job after graduation was at Nintendo, which at the time was a toy company. Later, when they started to develop arcade games, Miyamoto became their first artist. Eventually, he became a part of their video game development team, and helped create their first large success, “Donkey Kong”. Since this was at an early point in the history of video games, there were no experts. Anyone could be asked to design games, and each individual had a different approach. What made Miyamoto’s approach unique is that he focused on the creative component of the game, such as the story and the music, before any programming began, which was unheard of. He continued to create significant works in the video game industry, using personal experiences to guide his design. For example, his experience exploring caves as a child was the inspiration behind the design of “The Legend of Zelda”, an adventure game that is still influencing video games today. What I find impressive about Shigeru Miyamoto is his ability to take the medium of video games (which is becoming increasingly structured and formulaic) and create unique experiences, evoking certain thoughts and emotions. Adventure and wonder are especially prevalent in his works. It could be said that his work in the video game industry is what allows video games to be viewed and interpreted as an art form.

References:

Paumgarten, Nick. “Master of Play”. The New Yorker. December 2010. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/master-of-play.

Bill Gates
Even at a young age, it was clear that Bill Gates is exceptionally intelligent. As a child, he enjoyed reading reference books such as the encyclopedia. His parents enrolled him in a prepatory school, where he was first exposed to computers and developed an interest for them. Gates applied his cognitive talents to the world of computing. While in elementary school, Bill Gates met Paul Allen, his future business partner. The pair founded Microsoft in 1975. The company thrived thanks to Gates' intellect and business strategies. Today, Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world. Though this is quite an impressive feat, this isn't what impresses me about Bill Gates. What I find impressive about him is his responsibility with his wealth. Gates is acutely aware of the power he has because of his wealth. He uses this power to attempt to solve seemingly impossible world problems. He especially focuses on global health, and invests a lot in developing a vaccine for polio. Recently, he joined with other billionaires with philanthropic mindsets in signing a "Giving Pledge", where each individual promises to donate more than half their wealth for charitable causes. Although he does have a rather extravagant lifestyle, it seems that Bill Gates sees his wealth as a responsibility to properly invest his resources for the greater good.

References:

“Bill Gates”. Biography.com. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520.

Tweedie, Neil. “Bill Gates interview”. The Telegraph. January 18, 2013. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bill-gates/9812672/Bill-Gates-interview-I-have-no-use-for-money.-This-is-Gods-work.html.

Clifford, Catherine. “These 14 billionaires just promised to give away more than half of their money like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett”. CNBC. May 31, 2017. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html.

Hypothetical Interview
If you could interview anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I would be content with interviewing anyone that has taken a simple idea and created a successful business from it. However, I would especially want to interview Markus Persson, the creator of Minecraft, because of the uniqueness of his situation. His game began as a hobby project, but it rapidly gained popularity and he eventually sold it to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. My questions would mainly concern the rate at which the project progressed, both in completion and in popularity. I would also ask him what he would attribute the success of the game to. Most importantly, I would ask him what skills or attributes it took to bring his idea to fruition. It is known that is not good ideas that lead to success, but rather good execution of these ideas. Many speculate about what it takes to properly execute a good idea, but I am interested in asking someone who has achieved this because I believe they would provide a unique point of view. I am especially interested in Markus Persson’s point of view because he was not a business expert, nor was he an expert in his field, so it is harder to pinpoint what exactly led to his success. Whatever insight I would get from him would be useful to me, as I too am not a business expert or an expert in my field.

References:

“Markus Persson”. Forbes. Accessed November 27, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/profile/markus-persson/.