I think this goes to show that the secret to having better ideas is to have more ideas, and nobody cares about the million that suck, they care about the one that makes you a million.
but you cannot work on a million ideas - you have to pick the few that are actually good. Having a million ideas clearly makes it more likely you have the Big One, but I am interested in the mental process in picking and in committing.
or has Mr Page done a ridiculous amount of crazy that will never work things?
He's done his share of crazy will-never-work things too.
I think a lot of the reason it works out is the existence of an external feedback loop, a group of people that are willing to say "Larry, you're insane." Larry is actually pretty good at listening to other people - even now, in the New Google that sometimes does very unpopular things, he's committed to at least hearing out objections and weighing them. When Eric was CEO he also provided a very useful countervailing force to Larry & Sergey's more idiotic ideas, while still letting crazy ones like "Let's build a webmail client!" or "Let's build a browser!" or "Let's buy a mobile phone OS!" go through.
most of us have explicit or implicit backlogs. I think there is however something about just starting a project that tells you if it is feasible, problematic or interesting that somehow looking at a list does not.
Would be interested in how Page chooses the ones he will invest personal energy into
http://skrubu.net/2009/10/07/the-day-google-was-blank/
I think this goes to show that the secret to having better ideas is to have more ideas, and nobody cares about the million that suck, they care about the one that makes you a million.