'I thought I was the next Steve Jobs': Google founder's 'mindset' lesson for students
Google co-founder Sergey Brin revealed a key lesson from the Google Glass failure: rushing innovation can be detrimental. He emphasized that students, like his past self, often feel pressured to deliver before readiness, mistaking speed for progress. True success, Brin suggests, lies in allowing ideas and skills adequate time to mature, rather than performing readiness.
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Success stories in tech are often told as clean arcs. An idea forms, a product launches, the world follows. But for students trying to understand how innovation actually works, the more useful lessons often come from what did not go to plan.During a talk at Stanford University marking the engineering school’s centennial year, Sergey Brin, co founder of Google and Alphabet Inc., spoke about one such experience. Brin reflected on why Google Glass failed and what he would do differently.The audience included students eager to build their own companies. One of them asked Brin what mindset aspiring entrepreneurs should adopt to avoid repeating earlier mistakes.His answer was unusually direct. “When you have your cool, new wearable device idea, really fully bake it before you have a cool stunt involving skydiving and airships,” Brin said, Inc. reports.
When speed outpaces readiness
Google Glass launched in 2013 as a consumer smart glasses product. It allowed users to view notifications and smartphone functions through a small display positioned in front of the eye. The launch was highly visible and positioned as a glimpse of the future.Within two years, Google discontinued the consumer version.Looking back, Brin said the problem was not the idea itself but the timing. “I think I tried to commercialise it too quickly, before we could make it as cost effectively as we needed to and as polished as we needed to from a consumer standpoint,” he said, as quoted by Inc.
The product struggled with cost, design and public discomfort around privacy. The nickname “Glassholes” became shorthand for how quickly novelty can turn into resistance when users are unconvinced.For students, the lesson here is not that failure is inevitable, but that momentum can become a trap. Moving fast can create pressure that limits careful thinking.
The danger of believing your own myth
Brin was also honest about his own mindset at the time. “I sort of jumped the gun and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m the next Steve Jobs, I can make this thing. Ta da,’” he said, according to Inc.For students exposed daily to founder success stories, this admission matters. Confidence is celebrated, but unchecked confidence can blur judgement. Brin’s story shows how even experienced founders can be pulled along by expectations attached to their own reputation.The comparison to Steve Jobs reflects a wider cultural issue. Iconic figures are remembered for their breakthroughs, not for the long periods of refinement behind them.