For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe it's better to shoot higher. You don't want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what's possible and how to make the world better.

How exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing?

Our mission is to organize the world's information. Clearly, the more information we have when we do a search, the better it's going to work.

I feel like my job as CEO is always to be pushing people ahead.

Optimism is important. You have to be a little silly about the goals you are going to set. There is a phrase I learned in college called, 'having a healthy disregard for the impossible.' That is a really good phrase. You should try to do things that most people would not do.

We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served - as shareholders and in all other ways - by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.

Small groups of people can have a really huge impact.