Larry Page controversial MIA at Google, but his idea of ​​crazy hyperloop bike is worth it

Probable origin of the absence of Page and Pichai at a recent hearing at Capitol Hill, Bloomberg has come out today with a report asking "Where is Larry Page World?" He then details CEO Alphabet's controversial decision to withdraw from the audience, his broader remoteness from daily politics and problems. at Google, and the many distractions that have occupied it in recent years.

Larry Page's decision to disengage from the audience is manifested in an internal desire to see how, from a societal point of view, Google will largely criticize, namely the antitrust cases that the company is facing in Europe and the manipulation supported by Russia. of his platform.

"What I did not see last year was a central voice [Google’s] will operate on these societal and less technical issues, "says a longtime executive who recently left the company.

According to Bloomberg interviews, Larry has long been missing. Colleagues reportedly said he was "more retired than ever".

But in recent months, many interviews with colleagues and confidants, most of whom have been anonymous, because Alphabet was worried about retaliation, described Page as a more withdrawn cadre, at the limit of emeritus, unseen. ;business.

But where did he retire? Beyond his usual fascination with R & D projects on the day-to-day aspects of managing Alphabet's subsidiaries (the most important of which is obviously Google), it seems that Larry spends a lot of time on his private island – largely supposed to be Eustatia.

What time does the page occupy today? People who know him say he disappears more often on his private white Caribbean island. That does not mean that at 45, he already lives daiquiri lifestyle. He still oversees each Alphabet subsidiary, although the extent of his involvement is vague.

It is interesting to note that Bloomberg has new details on the exact choice of Page. One of these places is Google Fiber, which has been struggling lately. Apparently, the page was very convenient:

For several months, he held a weekly meeting with Google Fiber executives, a project to develop ultra-high-speed Internet access, to think about technical solutions to implement the service, as innovative methods to drill optical cables in the sidewalks. The.

Another thing in which Page was caught was a wild project called "Heliox", which apparently would have been a kind of crazy tube that would propel cyclists between Google's Mountain View campus and downtown San Francisco. This project is unprecedented, says Bloomberg.

Another skunkworks project that consumed Page, launched in 2015 and which had never been reported before, was a Disney idea to reinvent transportation, called Heliox. According to three people familiar with the effort, a team working in a former NASA hangar in the Bay Area built a tube of plastic the width of a subway car, winding around a circular track designed to propel high speed cyclists. oxygen and helium pumped into the tunnel at their backs.

And (emphasis ours):

Heliox was pure Page, an incredibly imaginative and mechanically wonderful space age concept: The vision was to stretch this system of tubes, hundreds of feet in the air, from a point of entry to the ground on Google campus to an outlet 35 miles north, in San Francisco. be seen flying over the US 101 highway.

The report concludes that Page's long-standing strategy of staying in the background could backfire, despite the obvious benefits of not facing critics Elon Musk with his reckless use of Twitter and marijuana on podcasts.

McNamee, the oldest investor who has since pleaded for the dissolution of the company, claims that Page and Pichai ignored their civic duty by passing the hearing. "It's corporate governance 101," he says. "You have been invited to speak at a Senate hearing to protect our democracy, and your answer is:" We are too important to go there. "The whole world looks at them:" What is it? Who's wrong with you? Who are you? "

Read the full report on Bloomberg.