Business Insider reports today that Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s first choice for Google CEO was Steve Jobs. How different both Apple and Google could have turned out got us thinking: would Google be a walled garden, or would Steve Jobs be an open source advocate?
Business Insider says: “The story goes that, after interviewing 12 or 13 candidates they didn’t like, Page and Brin happened to make something of a social visit to Apple and Jobs. After the visit, the Google co-founders met with investor John Doerr and asked him: why can’t we hire that guy?…he told Page and Brin something along the lines of, “are you nuts?”"
Other interesting titbits include the fact that Eric Schmidt attended the annual global hippie get together, Burning Man festival (which is based on ideas of “radical self-expression”) out in the Nevada Desert. This guy could have been Eric Schmidt once upon a time.
How would Google look if Steve Jobs was CEO? Click and tell, pick more than one answer, and drop us your own suggestions in the extra box…
