Google was the right set of people at the right time, and they ended up doing the right set of things. It's worth looking at how they are managed. They are network-oriented and allow a lot of flexibility and creativity.

When everybody else is in a down market is focusing on what they're doing wrong, instead focus on what you should be doing differently, it may be that what you did in the past was perfectly right. It is possible to do all the right things in business and still have a business crisis because of what's happening in the external environment. And if you start focusing on mistakes only, you're going to miss opportunities.

Any thinking person is qualified to be a forecaster, and in fact, everybody does it every day.

The thing I see happening is that there's a real compression between generations. There used to be about 20 years difference (in technology use). Now you talk to 15-year-old kids and their 9-year-old brother or sister is using stuff that they don't understand.

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.

Every day huge amounts of information break off like icebergs and melt away. What worries me is that much information in electronic form is never reduced to paper. Some people have described this as being on the edge of a digital Dark Age and fear we may commit a massive act of amnesia.

I don't think information overload is a function of the volume of information. It's a derivative of the volume of information plus the sense-making tools you have.