Google's become so big and so successful that many would see your concerns about Microsoft's size as ironic.
We had a debate about this a while ago, and it had nothing to do with Yahoo. The question was how to prevent what happened at Microsoft from happening at Google. Consumers have had more choice on the internet. And we have a set of policies that we follow—entrenched inside the culture—the most important of which is that we won't trap user data in proprietary systems. So we have a rule: You have to make it possible for people who don't like your service to get out. If I don't like Google, I can switch to Yahoo, Microsoft, or whatever. This has another impact that's not as obvious. It serves as a check and balance on poor-quality teams. They can't prevent users from fleeing bad products. It also helps us with this question of becoming too big and powerful.

But you already dominate the market for Web search and online advertising, and now you're trying to buy DoubleClick, which is huge in display advertising.
I don't think that DoubleClick has much to do with that argument. We decided that we wanted to work in this new space called display advertising, where we are not the leader—the leader is Yahoo. That's not the same thing as text ads, which is our primary business.

The other issue that the DoubleClick deal has raised is privacy. And what we've done there—in response to U.S. and European governmental concerns—is make a series of commitments about privacy, which is very reasonable and which we should have done anyway.

So you're saying that the concern about the DoubleClick deal was a good thing.
To some degree. When you're inside a company, you have your own belief system. It's always good to get a look at how your company is perceived versus what your self-perception is.

Google recently registered slower earnings growth. If the economy continues to worsen, how might that affect your business?
Well, we don't know. There's evidence that more-measurable advertising does better than unmeasurable advertising during a slowdown. People only want to spend money on stuff that they can prove is effective. Ours is the most measurable of all the advertising systems in the world. We did well in 2001, 2002, in that recession, because people wanted measurability.

You've gone through tremendous expansion, and the company is still growing. Does a slowing economy put any of your employees at risk?
I think that's unlikely. The company had been hiring on the order of 100 people a week. That's a ballpark number. We hire people right out of college, so there’s a bubble in the spring, which is amortized over the year. We expanded so fast internationally that we have a lot of countries in which the oldest person by tenure has been there a year.

The New York Times is under pressure to sell. Blogs are abuzz with the idea that Google ought to buy it, because it’s in your interest to keep the quality of journalism high.
I'm not aware of a proposal for us to buy the New York Times, but I'd never rule anything out. So far, we've stayed away from buying content. One of the general rules we've had is "Don't own the content; partner with your content company." First, it's not our area of expertise. But the more strategic answer is that we'd be picking winners. We'd be disenfranchising a potential new entrant. Our principle is providing all the world's information.