Sergey stopped by Web 2.0 earlier this month and I interviewed him for about thirty minutes. You can find it on IT Conversations. From the summary:
Sergey Brin talks about his own journey Stanford University graduate to Google co-founder. Attributing much of Google’s success to luck, he says that he just followed his interests. While being at the heart of Silicon Valley was obviously fortuitous, it was not one of Brin’s motives in choosing Stanford as a graduate school.
When asked about Yahoo CEO Terry Semel’s comment that Google is number four in the list of internet portals, Sergey wittily responds that it means that Google is an underdog. He further elaborates on this topic by saying that he would like to think more as Google as a technology leader rather than a content rich portal. Google also does not want to follow Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” philosophy to kill off smaller innovative companies.