"Great companies are vibrant, they can hardly contain themselves. It’s because they’re made by believers who want to find other believers and convert the rest."

"Urs’s most significant accomplishment, however, was building the team that built Google. “Your greatest impact as an engineer comes through hiring someone who is as good as you or better,” he exhorted everyone who would listen, “because over the next year, they double your productivity. There’s nothing else you can do to double your productivity. Even if you’re a genius, that’s extremely unlikely to happen."

"Urs understood this better than most. “Larry and Sergey had an expectation that things would be watered down along the way,” he explained. “Starting with something that’s more ambitious will get you something that’s reasonable. But if you don’t put the goal post way out there, people are already taking fewer risks and are less ambitious about how big the idea should be."