[justsocrateasin]

I think he answers the second point of "not every company can be a Google" though. He says this will get you to the point where your company could be a Google, but makes no promises that it will be one.

I agree with the first point. I do think that the experience would nonetheless be valuable, though, to pilot a failed company.

[paulryanrogers]

Why even bring up 'Google' when the odds are (and always were) so long? It's like saying your bet could be the Powerball winner. I mean if his audience is only soon-to-be lottery winners, then it's kind of embarrassingly narrow and niche. And what advice is there to say except be rich enough to buy a lot of tickets?

[adventured]

Because it's drastically more exciting and interesting to a young audience, whose attention he's trying to acquire to get various points across. You won't get and keep their attention easily.

Inspiration matters. Attention matters.

Teenagers are not inspired by: you could start a little business that de facto operates as a medium paying job (but is far more stressful and risky to your future, your potential family, and your long-term finances), and it'll be miserably difficult, and you really shouldn't even try it because the likely rewards are so tiny that you should just go work for Microsoft instead for the fat (and easier) paycheck. Even if you try to sell that with a passion premise (the reward is in the love of the craft), the sell is so ugly you shouldn't even waste the young audience's time (they'll just come away depressed at best).

Why do people ever aspire to anything that's exceptionally difficult?

[xeonmc]

“Not every company can become a Google; but a Google can come from anywhere.”

- Peter O’Toole, probably.

[Solvency]

"Not every company can become a Google, but a Google can come from any incredibly wealthy, well-connected, elite nepo baby."

[adventured]

> but a Google can come from any incredibly wealthy, well-connected, elite nepo baby

A math teacher and researcher's son, a middle class immigrant from third world Soviet Russia.

Or: the middle class son of a professor of computer science and an instructor of programming.

Such privilege. /s

"Elite nepo baby" applies to anyone that ever accomplishes anything these days huh.

[Solvency]

Quoting Jim Koen:

"His dad wasn't "just" a computer scientist, he was a professor for computer science and artificial intelligence at Michigan State. Sergey Brin's father was equally a professor in mathematics at the University of Maryland. > It's obvious in retrospect that this was a great idea for a startup. It wasn't obvious at the time. It may not have been obvious, but the decision was damn well near as engineered with data as it could be. They also were _insanely_ well connected through their and their parents academic career. Both Sergey and Larry had obtained their PhD prior to starting the company. I can also remember reading that they obtained significant amounts of funding through connections Larry's dad had into the industry. You can ignore the rest of my comment, what follows is just my take. Their success story is imo one of the most blatant examples on how privilege really does give you a boost in life. I am not arguing that anyone could have done it, but I do wonder how the world would look like if we were all kids of academics with a successful career, with a relatively safe, secure and stable childhood home and a family background that really incentivizes learning and academic success over succumbing to the pressure of, you know, having an income at some point."