Larry Page talks Motorola Mobility, Google+ & Google’s biggest obstacle

Google’s biggest obstacle is Google itself. At least that’s what CEO and founder Larry Page believes.

Page made the pronouncement at Google’s annual Zeitgeist conference for partners. He took to the stage to address the audience on the company’s future and was later joined by Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, for a round of questions.

Page addressed the company’s latest acquisition and assured the audience that the US$12.5-billion deal to buy handset maker Motorola Mobility doesn’t represent a new era of risk-taking for the search giant.

The 38-year-old emphasises that the acquisition is an example of Google making “significant investments” to drive growth of its business.

The deal which is currently facing antitrust review, Page says will double Google’s workforce but not its market capitalisation.

“While it’s significant, it’s not doubling our market cap as much as we’d like it to,” Page said of the acquisition, Google’s largest to date. “It’s relatively small in that sense.”

“We’ve always strived to take those risks,” Page said in reference to Google’s US$1.6-billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006, which he says “was a great acquisition” with more than 3-billion playbacks day.

“One of the interesting things that we’ve noticed is that companies correlate on decision-making and speed of decision-making,” Page said. “There are basically no companies that have good slow decisions. There are only companies that have good fast decisions. So I think that’s also a natural thing as companies get bigger, they tend to slow down decision-making. And that’s pretty tragic.”

Page also spoke about Google+, saying that he is “super excited” about the product and its potential.

Below is a video of the event.