It's not an admission of failure. Two businessmen created one of the most successful, influencial businesses ever and are passing the torch. They're rich AF and probably want to retire.
He's talking about the decision to make the Alphabet conglomerate, not Sergey and Larry. Obviously no one disputes the two of them are extremely successful.
They probably understood that the game is rigged in their favor and no matter who is leading the company, they will be just fine anyway. Also, playing a rigged game gets boring after a while.
I don't know man. Doesn't that sound a little bit suspicious? If you were to create Google why would you just peace out? Look at Bill Gates. He still wants to do things but the google founders are all MIA. How do guys like that just lose all ambition and disappear?
I don't know their lives. Maybe they will do stuff like Bill Gates. All I know is that if I were them, I'd have stepped down long ago. Either way they achieved great success and are leaving on a high. I don't know how anyone can interpret it differently.
If I had created Google I would have peaced out looooong ago.
Sure, I wouldn't disappear completely, but I'd work on low-stress things where I have a lot of free time and don't have so much responsibility under me.
I'm looking at early retirement in the next year or two. I'm certainly not anywhere near as financially successful as Brin or Page or Pichai, and I doubt I've put in as much stressful work as they have, but I've done ok for myself, and I'm looking forward to doing literally anything I want with my time, without having to answer to anyone, whether it's a boss, investors, or board of directors.
I guess only time will tell how much I like this arrangement, but I'm pretty optimistic about it, and am tired of hearing the usual "oh but you'll be bored and want to work again" tropes. There's a lot more to life than work...
Perhaps they didn't envisage it turning into a giant surveillance and advertising machine. I doubt that is what they imagined when they started on their PhD's.
Are you proposing that Larry and Sergey are starting a secret society of billionaires who are withdrawing their genius contributions from society as a protest against government regulations?
If Larry and Sergey were the kind of people that were quitting and disappearing in the book, they would not quit, but instead try to sneakily dismantle Google from within, like d'Anconia in the book. :)