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For context, I work in robotics and have been for ~10 years now. Back in 2013-2015 I accidentally stumbled upon a lecture that Larry gave at Stanford on YouTube and my life changed completely. I dedicated every day since then to work towards building intelligent, autonomous robots and if there's one person that I attribute whatever modicum of success I have today, it is Larry Page.
Coming from a fairly conservative background, I would spend hours tinkering with electronics, programming in weird languages just so that I could imbue some amount of intelligence into robots. Watching Google Zeitgeist talks/interviews with Larry was my main source of motivation.
Throughout all these years I had a meta-goal, of somehow thanking Larry in person. I keep reading stories about how he's retreated to an island in NZ with his family, but I cannot help but think that the current generation of AI is exactly what he was dreaming about and trying to convey and steer Google towards.
I refuse to believe that he's reclusing in some island in NZ and even if he is I'm pretty sure he isn't just watching from the sidelines.
What really happened to him? I'd appreciate any insights, not the standard oh, he's a billionaire and decided to hand over the reigns to a corporate CEO-type and just retreated. I do not believe that Larry Page simply retreated into some bat cave in one of the most exciting eras in modern technological history.
-bansheeps
PS: In the off-chance that Larry sees this/lurks on HN, thank you. You've genuinely changed the trajectory of my life and I cannot thank you enough.