At a TED conference in early 2002 in Monterey, California, five months before the offering, we sat at a table in the conference center late at night and talked about the future of Google. Page was much more open and reflective in those days and, as smart as he was, knew what was coming was something he did not quite understand. While Schmidt loved the attention of being at the hottest tech company of the moment—glad-handing just about anyone who passed him in the tony crowd and forever flirting—Page avoided such gatherings and only appeared when he had to. He had nearly no filter.
