[tsally]

Brin and Page are good examples of the fact that ideas in themselves can be extremely valuable and are worth guarding.

They're probably one of the worst examples. It was technical brilliance, not their idea, that allowed them to succeed.

[gcheong]

Who's technical brilliance? Sergy and Brin's got them a better search engine, but wasn't it the AdWords idea that originated at Goto.com that got them to the Google they are today?

[tsally]

Adwords without Pagerank is useless. The pay per click and auction mechanisms for Adwords are innovative in a sense, but Adwords is not successful because of its technical implementation. Adwords are what people pay for in a literal sense, but the source of Google's money is their search implementation.

EDIT: At this point their brand is also a source of Google's money. Today you need both to compete in search.

[coryl]

Good artists copy, great artists steal?

[dnsworks]

What was their big idea in 1998? Search .. Not a billion dollar winner. They only really won after seeing Overture and saying "Damn, we could do way better than those ideala! clowns"