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Ev Williams: What He Admires Most in Founders Like Larry Page and Reed Hastings

By Larry Page · Mindset & Career · 1 min read

When Ev Williams got to Google, the thing that most struck him was how big they thought. Index the whole internet? Map the whole earth? Scan all the books? Their approach was — why wouldn't you?

Key Points

Williams came from a scarcity mindset — scrapping for change in couch cushions for years
Google's approach to everything: we can do this better. Index the whole internet. Map the whole earth.
The common trait of founders he admires: an abundance mindset, no matter how many resources they have

They thought so big. Why wouldn't you index the whole internet? Why don't we map the whole earth? Why don't we scan all the books?

The Scarcity Mindset

Williams: For many years with Blogger, even way before Blogger, I was just looking for change in the couch cushions, trying to figure out how to pay rent the next month. I was always coming from a scarcity mindset. Even though I was creative and wanting to do big things, I was like — I can't do much.

That's a habit you can get into no matter how many resources you have.

I was looking for change in the couch cushions. Always coming from a scarcity mindset.

Google Thought So Big

Williams: When I got to Google, the thing that most struck me is that they thought so big. No one had indexed the whole internet before. They were like — why wouldn't you? They were working on Google TV, recording all the shows. Why wouldn't you record all the shows?

Map the whole earth. Scan all the books. It didn't all work. But their approach to everything was — we can do this better. Sometimes it was arrogant. Sometimes it didn't work. But it imprinted me a lot.

Why wouldn't you index the whole internet? Why don't we map the whole earth? Scan all the books?

Abundance Mindset

Williams: The commonality of the companies and leaders I admire — whether they have a bunch of resources or not — they come from a position of confidence and an abundance mindset.

I'm still impressed by Larry and Sergey and the Google folks who think that way. And Reed Hastings. And Bezos. People who think that big. Something I'm still working on.

The commonality of the founders I admire: an abundance mindset. Whether they have resources or not.