Just to quote a bit from The Google Story, a book that I am currently reading. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google were giving a talk to a group of Russian-born students at an Israeli school. Just like the school kids, Sergey fled Russia as a youth with his family to get away from anti-Semitism and discrimination. Because of this common experience, naturally Sergey related well with the school kids, and they in return look upon him as their hero. Here is an excerpt from his inspiring speech:
“You have several things here that I didn’t have when I was going through high school. The first one is the beautiful weather and the windows. My school in Maryland, which was built during the ‘70s energy crisis, has three-foot-thick walls and no windows. You are very fortunate to be in such a beautiful setting. The other thing we didn’t have back then was Internet access.”Growing up I didn’t have the internet, or not in its current form, and the World Wide Web. Today, the world is very different, because each of you has the power to get information about any subject in the world. And that is very, very different from when I went to school.You really have a lot of power that our generation did not. I think that will enable you to succeed earlier in life, and much more in life, than I did.Finally, the most important thing I didn’t have growing up, which all of you do, is all your wonderful peers who are also very hardworking and inspiring. I shouldn’t say bad things about my peers. But my school was a little bit different. It was in the suburbs of Washington DC, and the academic standards and the children’s goal were different. You should really value what you have here with such an incredibly talented peer group. I am sure you are going to know many of your classmates for the rest of your life.”
I think all this goes back to the theme discussed earlier in Hadi's recent post, about seeing everything around us as special and learning to appreciate them more. We ought to be thankful for things we have, rather than complaining about what we do not have. Limitations should not be seen as an excuse to stop trying to reach a greater height.
Thanks Sergey for the wonderful speech. And thanks Hadi, hope you are doing fine.
2 comments:
Funny, I was reading that book a couple of weeks ago. Have you seen the glossary at the back? I didn't know you could do/find SO many things with google.lol. But yes,it was an interesting book,seeing how normal they actually are, plus I think credits ought to be given to Google for cultivating a good and healthy corporate culture - have you seen the main headquarters? Heck, they have everything there!!!
I had a computing course last session and one of the things we learnt is maximising the use of Google, basically the same thing as in the glossary. So yeah, I kind of knew that before you did. Sorry Nabila. Haha.
The headquarters is a marvel, definitely a workplace of everyone's dream. Plus Larry Page and Sergey Brin are really good guys. I'm most impressed with their corporate ethic- "Don't be evil".
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