Every person in the world is curious, but not all of them are blessed to translate that curiosity into a well-articulated question.
Words found on the source page on Nov 6, 2026.
More from Aravind Srinivas
PodcastLex Fridman Podcast #434: Aravind SrinivasJun 19, 2024
But at the end, products need to be having some magic to them and the magic comes from letting you be more lazy.PodcastLex Fridman Podcast #434: Aravind SrinivasJun 19, 2024
I think of Perplexity as a knowledge discovery engine, neither a search engine. Of course, we call it an answer engine, but everything matters here.PodcastLex Fridman Podcast #434: Aravind SrinivasJun 19, 2024
In fact, I feel the primary difference of Perplexity from other startups that have explicitly laid out that they’re taking on Google is that we never even tried to play Google at their own game.PodcastLex Fridman Podcast #434: Aravind SrinivasJun 19, 2024
We would rather take a more dramatic position, that the best way to actually make a dent in the search space is to not try to do what Google does, but try to do something they don’t want to do.PodcastLex Fridman Podcast #434: Aravind SrinivasJun 19, 2024
What is the weakness of Google is that any ad unit that’s less profitable than a link, or any ad unit that kind of disincentivizes the link click is not in their interest to go aggressive on, because it takes money away from something that’s higher margins.
On the same topics
PodcastCheeky Pint with John Collison and Elad Gil: The history and future of AI at GoogleApr 7, 2026
If I fast-forward, a lot of what are just information-seeking queries will be agentic in Search.TalkAlphabet Q4 2025 earnings call remarksFeb 4, 2026
Search saw more usage in Q4 than ever before, as AI continues to drive an expansionary moment.InterviewStratechery interview with Ben Thompson, on GoogleMar 27, 2025
But business models also have shelf lives, and sometimes it’s very hard to disrupt yourself with a model that might not make any money when you’re making $200 billion on that model.InterviewStratechery interview with Ben Thompson, on NeevaMar 27, 2025
We absolutely were taking on the right problem probably two to three years too early.InterviewStratechery interview with Ben ThompsonMar 27, 2025
So I would say Search is under siege from both sides, from both the common things that you want simple answers to, and the complex things where you can apply very different techniques from what you have done before.PodcastTraining Data podcast (Sequoia Capital), on the business of searchOct 8, 2024
Consumer choice is fiction in a whole bunch of things that we do. We eat what’s put in front of us and we will search with the default search engine that came in our browsers.
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