All entrepreneurs are bullish about the businesses they start, but some end up being more right than others.
John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins, has witnessed countless startup pitches throughout his storied career. But few left as lasting an impression as a 1999 presentation from two Stanford PhD students who had built a better search engine. What makes this particular recollection remarkable isn’t just the astronomical projection Larry Page made that day, but how confidently he delivered it—and how spectacularly accurate it would prove to be.
Doerr recalls the moment with vivid clarity: “They went through their slide deck. I still have a copy of it. At the end of the presentation, I turned to Larry and I asked him, ‘So how big can this vision of yours get?’ And he said, without missing a beat, ’10 billion.’ And I said, ‘Surely you mean market cap?’ And he said, ‘No, I mean revenue.'”
The audacity of that statement cannot be overstated. Here was a company less than a year old, operating out of a garage with just 40 employees, projecting revenues that would dwarf most established corporations. But Page wasn’t done. He provided the reasoning behind his bold prediction: “Back in 1999, John, you have no idea how crummy search is today and how much better it will get over time, and how important a contribution that is for every phase of human activity—to get all the world’s information immediately, instantly available and organized.”
Doerr’s assessment of Page’s prophecy is succinct but telling: “He was more than right.”
Indeed, Page’s vision proved to be conservative rather than optimistic. Google first crossed the $10 billion revenue threshold in 2007, just eight years after that fateful pitch. By 2023, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) reported revenues exceeding $307 billion. What Page recognized in 1999—that search was fundamental infrastructure for the digital age—became the foundation for one of history’s most valuable companies. His insight that improving search quality would unlock massive economic value presaged not just Google’s dominance, but the entire information economy that followed. The prediction stands as a masterclass in recognizing transformative technology trends before they become obvious to everyone else.