Another theme of The Idea Factory is relevant to this discussion. The Bell System was the hardest thing people tried to build in the 20th century, and it couldn't have been done without valve amplifiers, transistors, information theory, satellites, and masers. Perhaps Google's technical staff won't become that good unless Google sets out to cure cancer, end war, or something equally ambitious. And they don't have to do it out of altruism: if Americans had to pay a trillion dollars a year for a war avoidance system, they'd be silly not to.