Sergey Brin: No Big Deal. Just Give It a Shot!

good afternoon it's a very exciting session for me I'm I consider myself as an entrepreneur even if I'm a social entrepreneur working for the public good but ii haven't my side someone who is considered as one of c greatest entrepreneurs of our times Sergey Brin who is as you know the co-founder and president of alphabet I think it's a unique opportunity to exchange some fuse with you and I wonder whether I should take my tie off or not but but let me let me go immediately into the subject we talked a lot about the Fossett us revolution and I have written a book one year ago when I look at the contents I have a feeling a such a lot is already outdated but was considered a year ago science fiction is already reality so maybe my first question to you is we'll do use these edges and the next frontiers of the force industry evolution that's a fantastic question first of all let me just so all of you that you maybe should doubt my answer it's a little bit so when I was heading up Google X a few years back and one little project we had in there which is now called Google brain which was this AI effort but I didn't pay attention to it at all to be perfectly honest and you know myself having been trained as a computer scientist in the 90s everybody knew hey I didn't work it's not like you know people tried it they tried neuron that's none of them worked out and this fellow who was you know one of our top computer scientists Jeff Dean would periodically come up with me and look the computer made a picture of a cat and I'd say okay that's very nice Jeff go you know do your thing whatever and Ford a few years and now brain probably touch every single one of our main projects ranging you know from search to photos to ads to everything we do and yeah this kind of revolution in deep Nets has been very profound and definitely surprised me even though I was like right in there sitting like I could throw you know paper clips at him it's an incredible time and and it's very hard to forecast you know what can these things do we don't really know the limits and in a hundred years if we imagine ourselves you know that these can do kind of everything we can imagine and more it's it's a hard thing to think through and has really incredible possibilities but it's I think it's impossible to forecast accurately but Sergei would you would you see more supportive side oh of course as an entrepreneur you have to see the positive side but do you see also possible risks in all those fancy if I may use as well world in a new means which we will have at our disposal I think it definitely requires some thought and and incredibly and I'm here at Davos and I'm just shocked at how I feel like the Luddite in the room you know everybody's talking about well how do we cope with this increased automation here and the jobs displaced and so forth and you know I feel like the one like oh you know actually that's pretty hard to do with a computer and I kind of know what we're trying to accomplish to make that technology work and I think a lot of folks here are I think correctly forward-thinking taking some of those innovations for granted and then saying whoa what does that mean for society and so forth I think that's the right thing to do I think thinking through sort of AI is the continuing of the automation that we've seen in the past 200 years and how that evolves society and economy and social order is that's the smart thing to do I don't think it's sort of impossible somehow but it deserves a lot of thought you cannot say stop it you can channel it and but I want to follow up a little bit about see horizons we speak about our times now being let's say shaped by the digital revolution some people would say when we sit here again you came over 10 years ago as one of our young global leaders for the first time here when we sit again together in 10 years we may much more talk about the biological revolution and of course Sons is a combination of the biological and the digital revolution can you explain your thinking can you explain us your thinking in this respect particularly because I know you are very interested in the medical issues also yeah well I think you can approach health from several levels you say well what are you know the specific things that we are afflicted with whether it's you know heart health or cancer or you know Parkinson's I'm personally passionate about and you know look at the specifics of treatments and understanding of those diseases you couldn't look at the more in the this is the dome I have you know if I kind of invest in Parkinson's research should I be doing that or should I be investing a more fundamental research you know you've seen what Christopher for example has allowed you know biologists across all disease categories to use that kind of a tool and it's just a more general kind of biochemistry innovation and genomics has obviously brought us a lot of innovation there broadly but then you could also ask the next question now leading to what you said about the digital revolution well if we had smarter processing smarter software you know could it unveil you know patterns and understanding you know should we just be working on sort of the machine learning solutions that are broadly going to allow us to do more in biology but also in other fields in the economy and electronics and astronomy so you know it's a whole set of layers and these lower-level layers the increased machine learning and so forth kind of spans the gamut of human endeavors yeah and therefore when you invest in those things you get this multiplied effect but of course you still need to do the biology and then you need to understand the individual diseases and ultimately you need to treat individual people so Big Data ditcher tools at the service of medical and biological progress and that one singh very fast but can you imagine that in ten years when we are sitting here we have an implant in our brains and i can immediately feel because you all will have implants i can and we measure you all your brainwaves and i can immediately tell you how the people react or i can feel how the people react to you our answers is it imaginable III think that is imaginable I think I I think you know you can imagine that you've imagined well you're going to be sort of transplanted into you know the speak to live forever in a digital realm you know you can imagine that you know you just in your biological incarnation are going to live to be some very long age I think it is almost impossible to predict and in fact the evolution of technology might be an errand I mean it could have been the case a couple hundred years back if it so happened that you know electricity evolved a little bit faster compared to internal combustion that we all would have been driving electric cars today and then somebody would have a newfangled internal combustion thing that would be like well that's kind of weird but history happened to go one way maybe there are fundamental inherent reasons for that but I think when you you know ask these kinds of questions about the future what does it mean to be human in the future what what does it mean to be an individual versus society kind of where are we going in the long term I mean these are deep and powerful and fundamental philosophical questions but I don't know that we are equipped to answer them I think it's premature because we don't know yet how the technology will look like but one one fear which I have heard is the technology now is and digital technologies mainly have an analytical power now we go into a predictive power and we have seen the first examples and your company very much involved into it but since the next step could be to go into prescriptive mode which means you you do not even have to have elections anymore because you can already predict what predict and afterwards you can say why do we need elections because we know what the result will be can you imagine such a world well you might then further ask well why do we need to have you know elected leaders because you might as well have all the decisions made I think that's one so yeah I mean you're venturing into I think profound questions you know you can ask also what will we actually want I mean we have a set of values and desires today that are probably pretty different than you know before the Industrial Revolution and different still than before the agrarian it evolution and we might continue to evolve and many of us today participates obviously almost probably in the global economy developing and so forth you know some of us choose to be you know buddhist monks and we just seek enlightenment through our spirituality so I mean I think people have different ways of evolving and finding meaning in different situations and it could be that the way we look at it 100 years from now is so different than we look at it today that it's almost unrecognizable for us the the thinking the rationale and the desires we wouldn't even be able to translate I think this is a really not only interesting it's a crucial issue we we are looking at technology way of threatening our present thinking interpretation of how the world evolves and actually we probably we need new you use the word meaning we need new concepts to define what humanity is and what's the purpose of our lives is and we may go much more gain into the direction of people are afraid of mobilization but it may be humanization which orbitty section will allow would you this is a very optimistic let's say perception which personally I share but would you would you agree Oh 100% I mean I think if you were to go back in time 10,000 years and you meet somebody out there you know work in their field you would say and they said well you know where are you they probably wouldn't even ask me what do you do that wouldn't be a meaningful question but if you were to say well I'm an economist we'll be like I use Wow my field and then you know we could talk more about you know whatever it is you mean you do you know I think it is exactly true I think that if some of the burdens of day-to-day life that have been increasingly alleviated through technology through agriculture and so forth you know maybe that leaves us free to really think abut more deeply about who does we are and what it is we see but those new technology paradigms need also I would say a new government governance paradigm if I think of the old fresh it's a government year technological development of regulatory agencies so the parliamentary commission finally regulations come out after five years scissors absolutely not suited anymore to our new technology so we need we need much more agile interaction between business regulators civil society and so on yeah I mean and once again you know I've been really blown away this year as you know I haven't been to the for more about eight years and I think of the level of you know enlightenment and conversation between you know politicians and business leaders and social entrepreneurs is incredible to me and that's the kind of interaction I think that will breed success and I think also not forget in you know outside of here you know often times it's a very antagonistic relationship between government and business and so forth and I think that also is very unhealthy so I think not only you know should we try to tackle things more quickly but also in a real collaborative way I think some of this let's say antagonistic view comes because people see particularly is effect on chop elimination and of course you know Schumpeter's rule of creative destruction or destructive creation and people have difficulties to see the chops of the future I explained we'll have maybe we are in need of I don't know how about polishes or coal dispatchers but I think there are limited possibilities for such skills where do you see the skills which you I mean I think you in Alphabet you do not have enough people I mean you are permanently looking for people but also stops coming from and what skills do you particularly emphasize I think that was a fantastic question and I think you know the sessions I've attended you know everybody is asking that question I guess I would hope that as some of them you know maybe more mundane tasks are alleviated through technology that people find more and more creative and meaningful ways to spend their time I think you know the way you're sort of the word job specifically you know has a lot of implication and a lot of you know the way that we might have spent the past couple generations like job means you go to the office like here and you do some things you have papers you have an inbox you have mouth box and and I think so our mindset there's somewhat narrow in that way and yet we have you know jobs that are more creative and thoughtful you know take economists for example which is you know hard thing to describe to a farmer four thousand yeah I mean Judy oh yeah oh you're an engineer sorry okay we have something on list here it is the World Economic Forum I think not engineering for engineering is pretty easy to describe I think to folks but being an economist not like that easy to describe and it's not that we need five billion economists but but the point is that I think if you sort of continue that trajectory you do see more and more people that have been freed up over the past couple hundred years to do work that is you know more kind of thinking about things or creating things you know seeking aesthetics whether it is in an intellectual domain or a purely artistic domain and I would hope to see that trend continue and I would hope that the world would find you know an opportunity this was where I think education becomes very important and I think broad education but as you know some of these jobs are displaced giving people the opportunity to get educated from the point of view of having actually the education resources the financial wherewithal to be able to pursue that like you know you don't want to be you know studying Shakespeare and going hungry or something like that and and being somewhat open minded giving people a chance to develop different skills that aren't necessarily you know okay we have 5,000 needs for this exact kind of thing today because probably the thing that you want exactly 5,000 of today is the thing that also is more realistically automatable so I think it's important for people to be able to have freedom to study financial opportunity to study and and to get meaning I think in addition to you know work being an important way that you know we exchanged money and whatnot people find profound meaning in their day to day jobs and I think that's another important thing for us to preserve I would say this is the keel it's a message for me to hope that we can move from chops which are meaningless much more to meaningful tasks and so maybe in the social area in the cultural area and that will be the underlying concept for a more humanized society but I also agree with you we need we should look at the individual chops now where do we need five thousand shops more and so on so key is the reformation of the whole educational system which is completely outdated would you agree I think there are several systems that we have in place that I think for a lot of understandable reasons you know they had just have so much inertia they lag behind the education is one and healthcare honestly is another and I don't mean healthcare in the sense of finding the biological roots of disease I mean you know sort of the healthcare systems of hospitals and you know maybe insurance to be a national or employer or whatnot and you know these systems are just so deeply embedded from an infrastructure point of view from a sort of governance point of view and so forth they're very hard to transform and to update to today's needs but but I think that is the challenge that we should seek to overcome and within education I mean I just think everyone should have access to education starting and I'm talking about obviously sort of primary education and secondary and university and you know for that matter grab postgraduate work I mean those things don't really those things are extraordinarily expensive today for kind of artifacts of the infrastructure or we assume we need like big buildings and you know fancy classrooms and things like that and I don't think those things are necessary I mean it's fine to have those for some folks but education should be universally accessible yeah when I look at I mean it's the incredible success of your company and when I look at Silicon Valley in terminal success is mainly related also to a platform approach and it's a new management concept and of course many people in rent envy you because you are in this area where you have this exponential growth potential and this creates also some not only envies also some how shall I say it's more than Envy it's it's aversion against the Silicon Valley model because you can go so fast what would be your response I think look I think first of all I'm very lucky to have been until now and Silicon Valley is very lucky to have been able to benefit from you know the semiconductor boom and then software and now Internet and mobile I mean I think it's there's a huge amount of luck there but the luck also comes from taking many shots you know so many failures you know if I told you all the dumb things that I did you know we'd have to have much longer session and and the success is you know they often are chance I mean I mentioned the Google brain work that they were just off in the corners like okay fine just you know do your thing are you know verily which is our subsidiary that does a wide range of healthcare innovation now I really started with this glucose sensing contact lens project and that was another one where I said this fella Babak and Brian noticed we're working on it you know and they wanted to put a computer in a contact lens and I was like you know what that sounds crazy but you know you go do your crazy thing you know you can only have a couple people work on it and not gonna give you a lot of resources but you know sure if you put a computer in contact lens good for you and yet here they are you know a few years later and they're you know running you know they're doing serious studies now they have a big partnership wound of artists and Alcon and they are you know hopefully going to bring those to market alongside with a bunch of other projects that that has spawned and I didn't know anything about that and I never would have predicted or guessed that I think we're just lucky to have the environment that tolerates you know making lots of risky bets and tolerating the failures that inevitably result under needs courage I mean I could ask you as a question I'm ray of nast starting seafoam with two people some journalists asking media people ask me did you every match in what is coming out could you ever imagine what what came out of your original entrepreneurial steps no I could not possibly have imagined but you know and I don't know what your thinking was behind the form but I remember when I was really thinking deeply about this and this was sort of a you know a graduate student project at Stanford and I talked to my advisors like you know should I really do this entrepreneurial thing and you know might not work out and I just finished my PhD and and he said you know why not go for it and then it doesn't work out you come back you finish your PhD which I'm still planning on doing but anyway you know there's like no big deal just give it a shot and and I think that that mentality permeates Vulcan Valley and I think that's one of those strengths that you know there's really not much it's not viewed so negatively to try something even if it doesn't work out when you look back now to this history and you have a I would say many young people listening to you here or by a digital transmission what would you out of your own experience give us an advice to so chien people who everybody sees you as a whole model and wants to imitate you but what would you tell them as a key learning of your own you know I think young people you know in some ways their their life is much easier than you know sort of my life might have been at that stage just you know for I think all of us you know having before whatever traveling to Switzerland it would be a big stressful thing how do you get in touch with people before mobile phones arrange your travel figure out how to exchange your currency you know there are there many things you know we can whip our phones out and look up anything and figure out how to get somewhere there are a lot of affordances that are such good means as today that make it easy but there is also a global stage that makes it hard actually you know because if when I was in school and I was on the math team or whatever Russ just compared to other kids in the school and I did quite well against them and you know and I found my stuff yeah I'm good at that I'm good at that I think I find younger folks today or their measures of themselves are always especially you know the ambitious ones on this global stage instead like well you know I have to be number one in the world at this or you know that's a really tall order and and I think it can be discouraging in a way because of you know you know the spokes say well you know I'm number 1,000 in the world of this game which which you know in my world would have been an enormous achievement because that means like you were definitely the best in like your city in your state and whatnot but but it's it's hard and I think you know they get there's a little bit of discouragement so you know I would encourage young folks to you know take chances and pursue their dreams and you know try to silence out kind of the voice does that say well actually there are like a thousand startups trying to do whatever writing bicycles or whatever it is they happen to be doing are nice things the keys to have fun in your startup but not comes the beginning on to think of the IP which may bring your billion such keep and said well certainly not your motivation to make it a success yeah I mean I certainly had no dreams much economic success and I think you're exactly right I think you should have fun and not be so weighed down by the weight of expectations that I think sort of this global network unfortunately one of the downsides I think it creates that weight we are coming to an end of this fascinating discussion but my last question would be I came from a luncheon and we had a discussion we said was a conclusion was we can address the issues which we have to confront in the world not just in a rational ways world in some way has to digest this tremendous speed of change complexity of change which creates an emotional turmoil so we have to respond much more also with values and not just with rational answers and what what would be your values what are you a driving value circle first of all yeah I think that's a very good question an amazing question and not having been in Davos ten eight years or so I'm like kind of even confused in a good way you know because they're all these you know business executives and CEOs and everybody every reason wondering well how are you know our people gonna find purpose and what about all these you know refugee what about income inequality I kind of feel like I'm at Burning Man but almost except world wearing clothes but but I I think it's wonderful things so I think for whatever weird reason maybe cuz we're kind of San Francisco hippies but you know Google has always had this a little bit of that a kind of social responsibility view also inspired by the way by Salesforce Marc Benioff and his philanthropic work as part of the company III think your phrasing it exactly correctly I think it can't be the case that companies such as ours are just purely profit motivated you know sort of you can't just take you know Adam Smith well apparently I've learned here that Adam Smith earlier work was actually much more touchy-feely than the wealth of nations but but you can't just you know think about narrowly oh this was your business now you know you're just going to maximize earnings it doesn't matter what else is going on around you and I think the leaders here from I can tell are broadly broadly concerned about to be at climate change or wealth inequality or you know this issue of job creation and all of those things and so it seems to me that companies are taking those things seriously and we ought to we ought to be and maybe there's some greater way to to you know write about that and baibe that and kind of the principles of company formation because I don't think sort of you know if you look at the laws and the regulations and you know SEC kind of rules technically you're meant to be purely profit seeking and that's not really a reasonable position to take seconds it's a great opportunity to to unfortunate opportunity because I would like to have much more time to conclude secession and what you just said is particularly with let's say some Silicon Valley companies like yours people sees those companies having tremendous power and I was recently together with Prime Minister of quite a important country who told me sir three or four powers left in the world one is u.s. one is China and one is alphabet so you have you have his let's say image of a very powerful organization and I think this session was very important because it showed us that behind those organizations are people who are not detached from the world people who asks themselves still questions say do not now necessarily make everything possible to to reign over the world to know so some people who have questions who have doubts who in a new case I may say so who are modest so I think secession was very important and I thank you for sparing and our sharing with us not only your ideas but your personality thank you thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: World Economic Forum

Views: 70,829

Rating: 4.8012171 out of 5

Keywords: World Economic Forum, Davos, WEF2018, Davos 2018, politics, finance, economy, news, leadership, democracy, education, 4IR, technology, tech, AI, automation, work, future, Sergey Brin, Google, Klaus Schwab, Alphabet, success, artificial intelligence, Google X

Id: rjjFQ6onAJM

Length: 34min 0sec (2040 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 06 2018