So I made it out to California. I got a job at O’Reilly, the book publisher, and a couple years later, Meg and Paul and I started Blogger. And so the origin of Blogger came from... We were actually working on something else. It was a much more complicated project management thing. But we all had blogs, and I’d written a little script for my... See more

It's (The internet) simply like a lot of other technologies, a lot of other major technological revolutions that have taken place in the history of the world, for example, agriculture. Agriculture was obviously a tremendous invention. It made life better. It not only got people fed, it freed them up to do many more things, to create art and invent... See more

But there was one way I discovered growing up in that small town literally in the middle of the cornfields. I discovered a technology that could take me out of there for periods of time. It was combination of a form of time travel and mind reading that allowed me to tap the knowledge and ideas of people who are much wiser than anyone I thought was... See more

But the convenience is only bad if we miss the point, if we miss that it’s about nourishment and freeing people up and doing better and better things, and if we only focus on the clicks and the connections and the retweets and the likes for the sake of more and more connections.

The Internet is still awesome. And after 20 years in cyberspace, today I think it is mundane because it's ubiquitous, but it's also powerful and now real unlike it was back then because it's ubiquitous. So let's go make it worthwhile.

But the amazing thing was when I was reading that book, I just had this epiphany. And I realized, years of experience and knowledge had gone into this little device in my hand, and I could read that in a few hours and gain the benefits of that experience and knowledge. And I thought, “That’s incredibly powerful. Why aren’t people reading books all... See more

I discovered a technology that could take me out of there (my small town) for periods of time. It was combination of a form of time travel and mind reading that allowed me to tap the knowledge and ideas of people who are much wiser than anyone I thought was around me and learn amazing things. Of course, this technology was books.

Here's the formula if you want to build $1 billion Internet company because I know that's what people come to XOXO to learn. It's simply this, identify a human desire, preferably one that's been around for a really long time. We often think the Internet enables people to do new things, but people just want to do the same things they've always done.... See more

I came to think about, why did this work, why was blogging important, why was this democratization of publishing important? And the way I described it at the time was, it's not about Blogger, about blogging. It's really about the realization of this great promise of the Internet, this idea that is about the democratization of knowledge, of ideas,... See more