Whereas Microsoft’s Bill Gates has a thing about giving back to the community through donations and charity, another genius of our time, Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page has said that, instead of leaving his fortune to a cause, he might just give it to fellow billionaire and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk.
At the TED-2014 conference in Vancouver, Canada, on Wednesday, television talk show host and journalist Charlie Rose asked the 40-year old CEO about an older statement he made in regards to preferring to give his money to an entrepreneur like Musk than charity.
“You once said you might consider giving your money to Elon Musk because you had confidence he will change the future,” asked Rose.
“He wants to go to Mars. That’s a worthy goal,” Page replied. “We have a lot of employees at Google who’ve become pretty wealthy. You’re working because you want to change the world and make it better; if the company you work for is worthy of your time, why not your money as well? We just don’t think about that. I’d like for us to help out more than we are,” he added.
However, Page was also critical of how some companies work.
“You are one of those people who believe that corporations are agents of change, if they’re run well,” Rose told Page.
“I’m really dismayed,” said the Google CEO. “Most people think corporations are basically evil. They get a bad rap. And that’s somewhat correct, if companies are doing the same incremental things they did 20 years ago. But that’s not really what we need. Especially in tech, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.”
During the Q&A session, Rose asked Page about his affiliation with transportation systems:
“I became obsessed with transportation when I was in school in Michigan. Eighteen years ago I learned about automated cars, and I’m super excited about it,” Page said.
When asked how close we are to a driverless car, Page replied, “Very close. We’ve driven well over 100,000 miles by now,” referring to Google’s autonomous driving project.
By John Halas
PHOTO GALLERY
