[Google’s CEO Larry Page released a rather boring letter](http://investor.google.com/corporate/2012/ceo-letter.html), but there are some sentences in this long letter that really make you scratch your head. Actually they make you wonder: a CEO said that?
The following is a list of my favorite lines from Page’s letter.
Page, begging for followers on Google+:
> I strongly encourage all of you to follow me on Google+—I love having this new way to communicate and share with all of you!
Page taking a dig at Twitter and Facebook for not partnering with Google:
>And privacy considerations certainly limit the information that can be shared between platforms—even if the third parties hosting it were willing to work with Google, which hasn’t always been the case.
I am really not sure why he even included this bit when talking about Google Wallet:
>No more claiming you left your credit card at home when your friend asks you to pay for lunch!
Pro tip: don’t accuse *your* user as being the schmuck that is mooching off of his friends.
Page claiming that Chrome is great and basically telling people that his software is never the problem — no your computer is probably the problem:
>I promise it won’t take too long to install, and if it does you probably need a new computer.
Pro tip: just don’t ever say that.
Page on making money off some of the projects coming out of Google:
>People rightly ask how we’ll make money from these big bets.
Ok so that sentence isn’t that funny, but he goes on to explain how much more money they are getting from advertising on mobile — never does he actually answer the question, instead just pointing to Google’s successes and thinking that should be enough evidence that their projects will pay off. Pro tip: when writing a letter don’t ask yourself a question that you don’t have a good answer to.
Page winning the award for best parenthetical in a letter from a CEO of a major corporation:
>That is a mighty big check (actually lots of smaller checks!) and I’m delighted we’ve been able to support our partners with that much resource.
Page showing his math skills:
>One thing I’ve learned is that if you keep doubling things, it really adds up fast!
Page giving an example of a bigger project that failed, but still made Google money:
>The team failed at understanding the Web, mostly, I think, because they were distracted by their work making advertisements amazingly relevant.
Pro tip: if you are a web company, it’s probably not a good idea to say that you “failed at understanding the Web” in a letter to investors.
Mostly this letter taught me that Page really loves a good exclamation point!