The goal wasn't to create a billion-dollar company. The goal was to create something useful where I could learn things.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that - building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.
My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers.
Many entrepreneurs, and the venture investors who back them, seek to build billion-dollar companies.
If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars.
What I've learned in my career is that it takes the same amount of effort to build a $10bn company as it does a $1bn company; you as the entrepreneur are going to put your entire life, your entire effort into it.
Not everyone is born to run a $4 billion company. There is no magic formula. I've learned, and I've grown by learning. That's why I've enjoyed being in business so much: It's stretched me.
As a company grows, its purpose grows with it. It has the potential to evolve your purpose.
The turning point for me was realizing that I would learn more at Google, trying to build a company, regardless of whether we failed or succeeded, than I would at any of the other companies I had offers from.
It's really easy to create a $1 billion company - you just have to solve a $10 billion problem.
From the beginning... I wanted to build a company that could sustain not for two years or four years or even ten years but be something that really matters over time the way Amazon and Google and others have.