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Portuguese is usually quoted as being the 6th language most spoken in the world (as a first language). The number of native speakers is around 300 million, most of them in Brazil (around 200 million). While Portugal only has 10.5 million inhabitants, 20 million Portuguese live world-wide. The remaining speakers live in the other countries where Portuguese is the national language (eight in total), and together they form the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP).Besides those countries, all across the world, corrupted versions of Portuguese abound on the most remote areas. From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, there are lots of dialects and languages that are corrupted forms of Portuguese. Interestingly enough, even though the language diverged for over five centuries in some cases, it is still understandable to native Portuguese speakers, and it is rather uncanny to imagine that an inhabitant of Jamaica might be able to talk to a Malaysian native and understand them (to a degree!).Portuguese vocabulary has far more Arabic words than people realize (even in Portugal). This makes Portuguese vocabulary hard to learn because speakers of other Romance (i.e. Latin-inspired) languages expect the same words to have similar meanings in Portuguese, while Portuguese usually use a word with an Arabic root — specially in areas related to science and agriculture. When traveling to Arabic countries (traditionally, there are close ties between Portugal and the Maghreb countries), Portuguese often can get along by pronouncing the names of vegetables, fruits, and some everyday things, because many have the exact pronunciation. The infamous Al-Qaeda is, in Portuguese, the word "alcaide", which means "leader" (usually in the context of the city mayor — in Spanish, "alcaide"is still used as the word for "mayor").On the other hand, Portuguese is one of the European languages with the largest vocabulary. It is common for English speakers to say that every concept has two words, one coming from the Anglo-Saxon root, the other from the Norman-French root, and that makes English one of the languages with the largest vocabulary (a typical example: cows [Anglo-Saxon] become beef [Norman-French] once dead and presented for eating). Portuguese goes even beyond that — typically, every concept has at least 3 or 4 words, all synonymous, often used depending on context and/or location, and these words may have Latin, Greek, Arabic, or Celtic roots.While this is still controversial, Brazilian Portuguese is far closer to 18th century Portuguese than European Portuguese. This means that for a native European Portuguese speaker, Brazilian is pronounced much softer and often uses a vocabulary and a style of grammar which is 250 years out of fashion! Ironically, Brazilian Portuguese speakers consider themselves "innovative" — both in inventing new words and bending the grammar — while the reverse is true. It is far easier to learn Brazilian Portuguese because it's pronounced more clearly and more softly; European Portuguese (like European Spanish!) sounds rough, harsh, and is spoken very quickly and almost without inflection (it's monochordic; Brazilian Portuguese is more of a sing-song); it has been often described sounding like "a Middle-Eastern native attempting to speak Russian". Brazilian Portuguese spoken by the so-called upper classes is very articulate, very precise, very clear, with all vowels and consonants perfectly pronounced, and sounds a bit like Spanish (but it isn't!).Spanish and Portuguese have common roots, and most Portuguese speakers will be able to _read_ Spanish. Most will also believe they can actually talk Spanish. However, even though the vocabulary has common roots in 95% of the cases, Spanish speakers use completely different words for the same concepts. These words might actually be synonymous in Portuguese but long disappeared from everyday vocabulary. The result is that many Portuguese speakers understand Spanish, but Spanish speakers might have no clue about what they are talking about.One of the little-known facts about the Portuguese language is that Portuguese (specially European Portuguese) are extremely formal in the way they address each other, and this came to notice to the Japanese in the 16th century, since the Japanese language also requires different forms of address depending on the social status of the speakers and the listeners. While most European languages have two levels — a "formal" and an "informal" one — Portuguese has a lot more, but they are not easy to figure out for non-speakers. Thus, a mother from the upper classes will address their own children differently than a mother from the middle classes or the mother of the lower classes. Hierarchical superiors, inferiors, and one's own peers are addressed differently. On high school, for instance, it's customary to address one's friends by their first names; but on college (or on the military), addressing our colleagues by their last names is more traditional. At work, where there is a degree of informality, but not close friendship, colleagues might address each other by their academic titles; but when addressing hierarchical superiors, the prefix "senhor"/"senhora" (Sir/Madam) is added to the academic title. But there is an exception! If all people working at the same place are all in the same profession, then they address each other by "colega" ("colleague") which is gender-neutral, and is applied to hierarchical superiors and inferiors as well as one's own peers.Here is an example. Let's imagine that at a company, one architect is the owner and CEO, and has four employees: two civil engineers, one lawyer, and one (junior) architect.The CEO will address the lawyer as "ó doutor!" (this could be roughly translated as "hey doctor!"), since "doutor" is the appropriate title for a lawyer. This CEO will also address the civil engineer as "ó engenheiro!" ("hey engineer!). However, he will address the architect as "ó colega" ("hey colleague!), because he shares the same profession.The junior architect will address the other employees as "doutor" and "engenheiro"; but he will address his boss as "colega" as well.The civil engineer will address the junior architect as "ó arquitecto!", and the laywer as "ó doutor!" — but he will address the CEO as "Senhor Arquitecto". The lawyer will do the same (switching roles).Now imagine a civil engineer is visiting, and he's not a personal friend of anyone in the company. He will address everybody as "Senhor [title]" — *except* the other civil engineer working at the company, which he will address as "colega". It doesn't matter that they aren't acquainted at all. They share the bond of having studied the same subject at university and working in the same field.A secretary works also for the company. She will address *everybody* as "Senhor [title]". When receiving calls for the civil engineer when he's out — let's assume he's called José Moreira — she will say: "O Senhor Engenheiro Moreira não está" (meaning the civil engineer is out). If the other person is aware of the civil engineer's surname, she'll drop it, but she will have to know first that they're acquainted! If another civil engineer comes — let's call him João Lopes — but José Moreira is out, when he returns, the secretary will say something like: "O Engenheiro João Lopes veio cá na sua ausência" (meaning: he came to visit when you were away). Notice that in this case, since the person is not physically present, it's socially acceptable to drop the "senhor" in the conversation about a third person. It might also be possible to drop the first (Christian) name and just say "Engenheiro Lopes", so long as there is no confusion.A very senior CEO with a huge difference of age might bend the rules a bit. If our architect CEO is 60 years old, and José Moreira is freshly graduated, the CEO might refer to him as "Engenheiro José" (using his first name) in conversation. This would be a serious breach of etiquette if the CEO were not the hierarchical superior and older than José Moreira; for example, the secretary should never call him "Engenheiro José" but always "Engenheiro José Moreira", possibly "Engenheiro Moreira" if they have been working together for many years, but if she wants to ask him if he wants a coffee, she would say, "O Senhor Engenheiro quer um café?" — using the third person.Women without academic titles are all given the prefix "Dona" (abbreviated D.), following an Iberian tradition, where the gentry was all "Dom" (male) and "Dona" (female — written "Doña" in Spanish). The exception are domestic servants in the household, and, by extension, everybody working for cleaning companies. Most Portuguese always get this wrong! (I know I do!) Wives of husbands with a solid career — which used to mean having an academic title — are addressed as "Senhora Dona" (abbreviated "Srª D."). Of course, women with academic titles are addresses precisely like the men are, with the same rules, although women tend to be a little more flexible with their _female_ colleagues at work and call them by their first names (if they are peers). Notice that unlike in Spanish, Portuguese men are _never_ addressed as "Dom", _except_ if they are actually members of the nobility. Yes, Portugal is a Republic since 1910, but there is still a nobility with granted titles, and they are addressed accordingly; and so is the Catholic clergy (all priors and bishops are addressed as "Senhor Dom").Domestic servants will call the sons and daughters of the couple that employs them "o menino/a menina" (which means literally "a little kid", and has the same concept as "master" and "miss" used in English) — even if they are adults! It feels weird to be called "a little kid" if you're 60 years old, because your 90-year-old parents have just hired someone to clean their houses once in a week. But such is the tradition!After 1974, everyone with a university degree is, by default, addressed as "doutor" — which means "doctor" and traditionally is just employed to address members of three professions: lawyers, medical doctors, and people with a PhD. However, for some strange reason, this was broadened out to all university degrees — except architects, engineers, and teachers. This can become horribly complex: imagine that you've taken a degree in architecture, then later on finished a degree in civil engineering, proceeded to do your mastership thesis, then your PhD in architecture, and got a job at a university. What is your title then?"Professor Doutor Engenheiro Arquitecto" (the title for the mastership is never used in Portugal)And yes, people print that on visiting cards (usually abbreviated).This can become rather confusing, as non-Portuguese speakers expect "doutor" to be either a medical doctor or eventually a PhD, but it can, in fact, be a car mechanic with a university degree in sociology. On the other hand, a kindergarten overseer might be called "professor/a", which will confuse people expecting that a "Professor/a" is a university teacher with a PhD (thus, all university teachers are, at least, "Professor Doutor").I could go on and on, but I guess this already gave you a good idea on how these things are complex :-) The Japanese adore us; they say the Portuguese have twisted minds about social address that are almost as obnoxious as the ones used in Japan :)

Referencing is an essential aspect of academic writing. Every person should have a clear concept regarding the differences between each of the referencing styles, including the difference between MLA and APA. When a student gets enrolled in a university, he is made to study different subjects and topics from the field of study chosen by him. He has to attend lectures, do self-study, appear in various examinations and writing assignments. When it comes to writing assignments, the professors want the assignments to be well-structured and have well-researched content. He expects the students to follow the required format and search for different peer-reviewed articles, journals, websites, government reports, etc. A student cannot simply take content from any of the sources without giving it the due credit in his assignments. Referencing is a technique through which the students can provide due credit. But who will teach these students how to reference a source; there are no separate lectures or tutorials. Some professors guide their students about referencing styles, but it is not enough to train the latter on every minute details. There are many referencing styles, and each of the assignments comes up with one of these styles. The present blog will eliminate the confusion of students with regards to the difference between MLA and APA. We have chosen these two styles due to their excessive usage in the field of academics so let’s begun and explore the difference.MLA style of referencing and formattingMLA is an abbreviation of modern language association of America. It is a professional body for scholars studying language and literature. The purpose of this association is to promote the study and teaching of language and literature. The MLA style of referencing is quite common in assignments related to humanities. So a student studying humanities must be aware of this style. The style is usually applied while writing literature, or describing a theatrical work of art. Like any other referencing style, MLA also comes up with a unique citations style. Usually, the last page of any assignment has a heading, ‘Reference’ but if you are tasked with MLA referencing format then the last page will have a heading, ‘Works Cited’.Let’s explain this referencing style with some examples:“The strength of the company depends upon the type of service provided by it during the pandemic situation’’ (Grover 38).The above statement is supported by the citation (Grover 38), Grover is the author’s last name, and 38 is the page number. MLA style of referencing does not include the year of the reference; instead, it includes page numbers.Grover, Samson. Coping with pandemic related issues. Springer, 2020. Print.The above is the entry that will be made in the Works Cited page. The MLA style of referencing includes the last name and the first name of the authors. No initials are used in this referencing style. Grover is the last name followed by the first name, the name of the book, the publisher name, year and the word print which signifies that it is available in the print version. The name of the book has been italicized.MLA style of referencing has a unique feature of indentation of all entries in the Works Cited page. The above reference had less information, so there was no scope of indentation, but let’s take another example to understand this feature:Grover, Samson. Coping with pandemic related issues. Journal of Management and Justice, 56.4 (2020): 43.With the above example, we hope that you have understood about indentation. You can also note one thing in the above reference that the source’s entire name has not been italicized. Reference has been taken from a journal, and as per MLA guidelines, name of the journal should be italicized. In the above example, the Journal of Management and Justice is the name of the journal.But if in case there are two authors then the name of the first author will be reversed but the name of the second author will be included in the normal order that is the first name followed by the last name.When a reference has a number of authors, there are some referencing styles that ask the term, ‘et al.’ to be included with the first author’s name. Et al. is a Latin word signifying, ‘and others’. In the case of the MLA style of referencing, the term et al. is to be used when a reference has three or more authors. The term et al. signifies the contribution of other authors as well. Once you have entered the last name and first name of the first author, you can use the term et al. A period comes after the word et al. and the reference would look like the one mentioned below:Grover, Samson, et al. Coping with pandemic related issues. Journal of Management and Justice, 56.4 (2020): 43.APA style of referencing and formattingAPA is an abbreviation of modern American psychological association. It is a scientific organization consisting of psychologists from the field of science, education, medical, consultants, students, etc. This association aims to provide benefit and improve the lives of the people living in society. In the year 1929, an article was published in the Psychological Bulletin, which laid the foundation of APA style. The APA style of referencing is quite common in assignments related to social sciences, education and psychology. The last page of an assignment following APA format will have, ‘References’ or ‘Reference List’ as the last heading.Let’s explain this referencing style with some examples:“The strength of the company depends upon the type of service provided by it during the pandemic situation’’ (Grover, 2020).The above statement is supported by the citation (Grover, 2020), Grover is the author’s last name, and 2020 is the year. APA style of referencing includes the year of the reference. Page numbers are not necessary to be included in the citations, but it can be included if the volume of the source is large. If in case page numbers are included, then the citation will have the below format:“The strength of the company depends upon the type of service provided by it during the pandemic situation’’ (Grover, 2020, p. 38).Grover, S. (2020). Coping with pandemic related issues. Springer.The above entry will be made in the References page. The APA style of referencing includes the last name and the initials of the authors’ first name. S is the initial of the first name preceded by the last name then the year, name of the book and the publisher name. The name of the book has been italicized.Like MLA style of referencing as mentioned in this difference between MLA and APA blog, APA style also has the feature of indentation of all entries in the reference list. Let’s take an example to understand this feature:Grover, S. (2020). Coping with pandemic related issues. Journal of Management and Justice, 56(4), p. 43.In the above example, the journal’s name and the volume have been italicized as per the APA guidelines.As mentioned in the previous section of this blog on difference between MLA and APA, et al. is used in APA style of referencing but with a difference. It is not used in the reference list rather in the in-text citations section. As per the APA 7th edition guidelines, et al. is to be used when there are three or more than three authors in a reference.Page format difference between MLA and APAThere are some obvious differences between the two formats which will be discussed in the below section.In both the formatting styles, double space is used in line and paragraphing sections. A margin of 1 inch is left from all sides of the paper with a 12 font size. The text can be easily read in both styles. When a page is formatted as per the APA style, the following points should be noted:Title pageAbstract or an Executive summaryMain bodyReferencesWhen a page is formatted as per the MLA style, there is no requirement of any title page or an abstract. The following points should be noted:The main body of the paperWorks CitedMLA page formatAPA page formatThe difference between MLA and APA can also be seen in the formatting of the title page. In APA, the title page has all the details of the student and the university whereas in MLA, there is no title page and the first page of the document includes the details about the student and his university.Details to be filled on the title page under APA format are at the centre of the page whereas details to be filled on the first page of a document under MLA format are at left side of the page.The page header difference between MLA and APA is also obvious. Under APA page number comes at the right hand of the paper, but under MLA, the page number and the name of the student come at the right hand of the main page.There is running head difference between MLA and APA; the former has running head appearing on the left side of the title page, which follows all pages whereas MLA does not have a running head.Referencing difference between MLA and APAThe first difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the heading of the page, which includes the references. Under APA format, the page listing all the references is signified as References or Reference list whereas MLA lists all references with the heading, Works Cited.The second difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the format of the author’s name. Under APA, last name of the author is followed by initials of his first name and the middle name whereas, in MLA, the last name of the author is followed by the first name. Complete name is used in MLA and if in case there is more than one author, then the author’s second name is written in the normal order.The third difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the usage of et al. Under APA format et al. is never used in the reference list whereas et al. is very much used in MLA format when there are three or more than three authors in a reference.The fourth difference between MLA and APA referencing format can be found in the citation style. APA uses the author’s last name, the year and page number if required, whereas MLA uses last name of the author and the page number, there is no inclusion of year.The fifth difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the usage of the connector between two or more authors. Under APA ampersand and used in the reference list and in the in-text citations whereas in MLA, the word, ‘and’ is used in the in-text citations and references.The sixth difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the placement of the year in the references. In APA the year comes after the author’s name and before the details about the source whereas in MLA year comes at the end of source details followed by page number.The seventh difference between MLA and APA referencing format is the usage of parenthesis. APA uses parenthesis in its Reference List entries whereas there is no usage of parenthesis in the entries mentioned on Works Cited page.

I visited Google a few weeks ago and, after almost getting arrested, my mind was blown.First, Claudia wandered into the garage where they were actually making or fixing the driverless cars. When they finally realized she was wandering around, security had to escort her out.We got scared and we thought we were going to get in trouble or thrown out.Then we met with a friend high up at Google and learned some of the things Google was working on.Nothing was related to search. Everything was related to curing cancer (a bracelet that can make all the cancer cells in your body move towards the bracelet), automating everything (cars just one of those things), Wi-Fi eveywhere (Project Loon) and solving other "billion person problems".A problem wasn't considered worthy unless it could solve a problem for a billion people.So now Alphabet is aligning itself towards this strategy: a holding company that owns and invests in other companies that can solve billion person problems.It's not divided up by money. It's divided up by mission.I want to do this in my personal life also.Just analyzing Larry Page's quotes from the past ten years is a guidebook for "billion person success" and for personal success.----Here are some of his quotes (in bold):"If you're changing the world, you're working on important things. You're excited to get up in the morning."To have well-being in life you need three things: A) a feeling of competence or growth. B) good emotional relationships. C) freedom of choice.Being able to wake up excited in the morning is an outcome of well-being.Feeling like every day you are working on a billion-person problem will give you those three aspects of well-being.At the very least, when I wake up I try to remember to ask: Who can I help today?Because I'm a superhero and this is my secret identity.------"Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change."Too often we get stuck in "good enough". If you build a business that supports your family and maybe provides for retirement then that is "good enough".If you write a book that sells 1000 copies then that is "good enough"You ever wonder why planes have gotten slower since 1965? The Dreamliner 787 is actually slower than the 747.That's ok. It's good enough to get people across the world and save on fuel costs.It's only the people who push past the "good enough syndrome" that we hear about: Elon Musk building a space ship. Larry Page indexing all knowledge. Elizabeth Holmes potentially diagnosing all diseases with a pin prick.Isaac Asimov wrote classic science fiction like "The Foundation Series" but it wasn't good enough for him. He ended up writing 500 more books, writing more books than anyone in history.Larry Page keeps pushing so that every day he wakes up knowing he's going to go past "good enough" that day.What does your "good enough" day look like. What's one thing that moves you past that?-----My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they're having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society.Whenever I've managed companies and have had the small opportunity to be a leader I've judged my success on only one thing:Does the employee at night go home and call his or her parents and say, "guess what I did today!"I'm not sure this always worked. But I do think Larry Page lifts all his employees to try to be better versions of themselves, to try to surpass him, to try and change the world.If each employee can say, "who did I help today" and have an answer, then that is a good leader.Empowering others, empowers you.----------------------"Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future."The stock market is near all time highs. And yet every company in the original Dow Jones market index (except for GE) has gone out of business.Even US Steel, which built every building in the country for an entire century, has gone bankrupt.Never let the practical get in the way of the possible.It's practical to focus on what you can do right now.But give yourself time in your life to wonder what is possible and to make even the slightest moves in that direction.We're at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we're still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity... Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That's boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don't exist.Sometimes I want to give up on whatever I'm working on. I'm not working on major billion person problems.And sometimes I think I write too much about the same thing. Every day I try to think, "What new thing can I write today" and I actually get depressed when I can't think of something totally new.But I am working on things that I think can help people. And if you are out side of people's comfort zones, if you are breaking the normal rules of society, people will try to pull you down.Larry Page didn't want to be defined by Google for his entire life. He wants to be defined by what he hasn't yet done. What he might even be afraid to do.I wonder what my life would be like if I started doing all the things I was afraid to do. If I started defining my life by all the things I have yet to do.-------"Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don't believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you're likely to have issues."Guess which company had the original patent that ultimately Larry Page derived his own patent (that created google) from?Go ahead. Think a second. Guess.An employee of this company created the patent and tried to get them to use it to catalog information on the web.They refused.So Robin Li, an employee of The Wall Street Journal, quit the newspaper of capitalism (who owned his patent), moved to China (a communist country), and created Baidu.And Larry Page modified the patent, filed his own, and created Google.And the Wall Street Journal got swallowed up by Rupert Murdoch and is dying a slow death.-----"I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society."A friend of mine is writing a novel but is afraid to publish it. "Maybe it will be bad," he told me.Fortunately we live in a world where experimentation is easy. You can make a 30 page novel, publish it on Amazon for nothing, use an assumed name, and test to see if people like it.Heck, I've done it. And it was fun.Mac Lethal is a rapper who has gotten over 200 million views on his YouTube videos. Even Ellen had him on her show to demonstrate his skills.I asked him, "do you get nervous if one of your videos gets less views than others?"He told me valuable advice: "Nobody remembers your bad stuff. They only remember your good stuff."I live by that------"If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach"Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to be academics. When they first patented Google, they tried to sell to Yahoo for $1 million (ONE MILLION DOLLARS).When Yahoo laughed them out the door, they tried to sell to Excite for $750,000.Excite laughed them out the door. Now an ex-employee of Google is the CEO of Yahoo. And the founder of Excite works at Google. Google dominates.Money is a side effect of trying to help others. Trying to solve problems. Trying to move beyond the "good enough".So many people ask: "how do I get traffic?" That's the wrong question.If you ask every day, "How did I help people today?" then you will have more traffic and money than you could have imagined.------"Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people."Everyone quotes the iconic story of Thomas Edison "failing" 10,000 times to get the electric lightbulb working.I put failing in quotes because he was doing what any scientist does. He does many experiments until one works.But what he did that was truly remarkable was convince New York City a few weeks later to light up their downtown using his lights.The first time ever a city was lit up at night with electricityThat's innovation. That's how the entire world got lit up.----"If you say you want to automate cars and save people's lives, the skills you need for that aren't taught in any particular discipline. I know - I was interested in working on automating cars when I was a Ph.D. student in 1995."Too often we get labeled by our degree and our job titles. Larry Page and Elon Musk were computer science majors. Now they build cars and space ships.David Chang was a competitive golfer as a kid, majored in religious studies in college, and then had random gopher jobs in his 20s.The gopher jobs all happened to be in restaurants so he became familiar with how the business was run.Then he started probably the most popular restaurant in NYC, momofoku. A dozen or so restaurants later, he is one of the most successful restauranteurs in history.Peter Thiel worked as a lawyer in one of the top law firms in NY. When he quit in order to become an entrepreneur, he told me that many of his colleagues came up to him and said, "I can't believe you are escaping".Escaping the labels and titles and hopes that everyone else has for us is one of the first steps in Choosing Ourselves for the success we are meant to have.We define our lives from our imagination and the things we create with our hands.----"It really matters whether people are working on generating clean energy or improving transportation or making the Internet work better and all those things. And small groups of people can have a really huge impact."What I love about this quote is that he combines big problems with small groups.A small group of people created Google. Not Procter & Gamble. Or AT&T.Even at Apple, when Steve Jobs wanted to create the Macintosh, he moved his small group to a separate building so they wouldn't get bogged down in the big corporate bureaucracy that Apple was becoming.Ultimately, they fired him for being too far from the corporate message.Years later, when Apple was failing, they brought him back. What did he do? He cut most of the products and put people into small groups to solve big problems.Before his death he revolutionized the movie industry, the computer industry, the music industry, TVs, and now even watches (watch sales have plummeted after the release of the Apple Watch).All of this from a guy who finished one semester of studying calligraphy in college before dropping out.Studying the history of Apple is like studying a microcosm of the history of how to create big ideas. Larry Page is recreating this with his new corporate structure.-----"We don't have as many managers as we should, but we would rather have too few than too many."The 20th century was the century of middle-class corporatism. It even became a "law" called "The Peter Principle" - everyone rises to their level of incompetence.One of the problems society is having now is that the entire middle layer of management is being demoted, outsourced, replaced by technology, and fired.This is not a bad or a good thing (although it's scary). But it's a return to the role of masters and apprentices without bureaucracy and paperwork in the middle.It's how things get done. When ideas go from the head into action with few barriers in the middle.To be a successful employee, you have to align your interests with those of the company, come up with ideas that further help the customers, and have the mandate to act on those ideas, whether they work or not.That's why the employee who wrote much of the code inside the Google search engine, Craig Silverstein, is now a billionaire.Where is he now? He's an employee at online education company, The Khan Academy.------If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.Google is now making advances in driverless cars, delivery drones, and other methods of automation.Everyone gets worried that this will cost jobs. But just look at history. Cars didn't ruin the horse industry. Everyone simply adjusted.TV didn't replace books. Everything adjusted. The VCR didn't shut down movies.The Internet didn't replace face to face communication (well, the jury is still out).---------"What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!"Not everyone wants to create a driverless car. Or clean energy. Or solve a billion person problem.But I have a list of things that are uncomfortably exciting to me.They are small, stupid things. Like I'd like to write a novel. Or perform standup comedy. Or maybe start another business based on my ideas for helping people.Every day I wake up a tiny bit afraid. But I also try to push myself a little closer in those directions. I know then that's how I learn and grow.Sometimes I push forward. Sometimes I don't. I want to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.-----"I do think there is an important artistic component in what we do. As a technology company I’ve tried to really stress that."Nobody knows what the definition of Art is.How about: something that doesn't exist except in the imagination, that you then bring out into the real world that has some mix of entertainment, enlightenment, and betterment.I don't know. Something like that.Certainly the iPad is a work of art. And the iPad has created works of art. And when I first saw a driverless car I thought, "that's beautiful".I'm going to try and put my fingerprint on something today. And maybe it will be art.-----"The idea that everyone should slavishly work so they do something inefficiently so they keep their job – that just doesn’t make any sense to me. That can’t be the right answer."We've been hypnotized into thinking that the "normal life" is a "working life".If you don't "go to work" then you must be sick or on the tiny bit of vacation allotted to you each year.What if everything you did you can inject a little bit of leisure, a little bit of fun into it.I have fun writing, except when I think I have to meet a deadline (work). I have fun making a business that people actually use except when I think about money too much (work).When you are at the crossroads and your heart loves one path and doesn't love the other, forget about which path has the money and the work, take the path you love.------------"We want to build technology that everybody loves using, and that affects everyone. We want to create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are so incredibly useful that people use them twice a day. Like they use a toothbrush. There aren't that many things people use twice a day."What a great idea for a list of the day!What are ten things that can be invented that people would use twice a day?------"You need to invent things and you need to get them to people. You need to commercialize those inventions. Obviously, the best way we've come up with doing that is through companies."I was speaking to Naveen Jain, who made his billions on an early search engine, InfoSpace.He just started a company to mine rare earth minerals on the Moon.But his real goal is extra-planetary colonization.Somehow we got around to the question of why have a company in the middle of that. He has billions. He can just go straight for the colonization part.He said, "Every idea has to be sustainable. Profitability is proof that an idea is sustainable.""You may think using Google's great, but I still think it's terrible."K. Anders Ericsson made famous the "10,000 hour rule" popularized later by Malcom Gladwell.The rule is: if you practice WITH INTENT for 10,000 hours then you will be world-class.He then wondered why typists would often reach a certain speed level and then never improve no matter how many hours.After doing research, its because they forgot the "With intent" part. They were satisfied with "good enough".You have to constantly come up with new metrics to measure yourself, to compete against yourself, to better the last plateau you reached.Google is great. But it can be better. Having this mindset always forces you to push beyond the comfort zone.Once they changed the way typists viewed their skills (by recreating the feeling of "beginner's mind") the typists continued to get faster.“We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.”Many people argue whether or not Google has succeeded at this. That's not the pointThe point is: Values before Money.A business is a group of people with a goal to solve a problem. Values might be: we want to solve a problem, we want the customer to be happy, we want employees to feel like they have upward mobility, etc.Once you lose your values, you'll lost the money as well. This why family-run businesses often die by the third generation ("Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations).The values of the founder got diluted through his descendants until the company failed.I spoke to Dick Yuengling about this (CEO of the largest independent beer maker and a fifth generation business).His family found an interesting way to solve the problem. The business is not inherited. Each generation has to BUY the business from the generation before it.To do that, each generation needs its own values, its new way of doing things that keeps the brand fresh and ongoing.--------------"I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. In fact, there are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name."Our parents have our best interests at heart and tell us how to be good adults.Our schools have our best interests.Our friends, colleagues, sometimes our bosses, sometimes government, think they have our best interests.But it's only when everyone thinks you are crazy that you know you are going to create something that surprises everyone and really makes your own unique handprint on the world.And because you went out of the comfort zone, you're only competing against the few other people as crazy as you are.----------------You know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know that if you don't have a pencil and pad by the bed, it will be completely gone by the next morning. Sometimes it's important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it.For every article I've ever written, there's at least ten more I left behind in the middle of the night thinking I would remember in the morning.I have to beat myself in the head. I . Will. Not. Remember....Must. Write. Down.It's hard to wake up. And that's the only thing worth remembering. It's hard to wake up.----------------"I have always believed that technology should do the hard work - discovery, organization, communication - so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers! That means making our products work together seamlessly."This is a deep question - who are you? If you have a mechanical hand, is that "you"?Conversely, if you lose a hand, did you lose a part of you. Are you no longer a complete person? The complete you?If an implant is put into your brain to access Google, does that effect who you view your self to be?When books were invented, memory suffered. We no longer had to remember as much, because we can look things up.Does that make our brains less human?I bet memory has suffered with the rise of Google. Does this mean our consciousness has suffered?When we created fire, we outsourced part of our digestion to this new invention. Did this make our stomachs less human?With technology taking care of the basic tasks of our brain and body, it allows us to achieve things we couldn't previously dream possible.It allows us to learn and explore and to create past the current comfort zone. It allows us to find the happiness, freedom, and well-being we deserve.-----------"Over time, our emerging high-usage products will likely generate significant new revenue streams for Google as well as for our partners, just as search does today. "This is it. This is why Larry Page has re-oriented Google into Alphabet.Don't waste your most productive energies solving a problem that now only has incremental improvements.Re-focus the best energies on solving harder and harder problems.Always keeping the value of "how can I help a billion people" will keep Google from becoming a Borders bookstore (which went out of business after outsourcing all of their sales to Amazon).How does this apply to the personal?Instead of being a cog in the machine for some corporation, come up with ways to automate greater abundance.Always understand that coming up with multiple ways to help people is ultimately the way to create the biggest impact.Impact then creates health, friendship, competence, abundance, and freedom.Oh my god, this answer is too long. And believe it or not, I cut it in half.If I can just wake up every day and remind myself of these quotes by Larry Page I know I will have a better life.But this is also why he created Alphabet and put Google underneath it.To save the world. To save me.