The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power Highlight

Page was haunted by the example of the brilliant but impoverished scientist Nikola Tesla, who died without ever benefiting financially from his inventions. “You need to do more than just invent things,” Page reflected.61 Brin had his own take: “Honestly, when we were still in the dot-com boom days, I felt like a schmuck. I had an internet startup—so did everybody else. It was unprofitable, like everybody else’s.”62 Exceptional threats to their financial and social status appear to have awakened a survival instinct in Page and Brin that required exceptional adaptive measures.