Here's Why Google Goes After So Many Projects At Once

Getty / Justin Sullivan

The Allen & Company Sun Valley conference has almost the same handful of speakers every year: the Bloomberg, Buffett, Bezos types.

This year, however, Google CEO Larry Page strayed from the usual topics of leadership and strategy and talked straight Google.

In an onstage interview with venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, Page explained the reason Google goes after so many different projects at once, admitting it can't keep up with hyper-focused companies like Apple, so it prefers to go after multiple areas of interest, The Information reports.

This falls into place with some comments Page made a few months ago during a TED talk, where he said he questions the company's age-old mission statement to "organize the world's information."

"People always say, 'Is that what you guys are really still doing?' and I always think about that myself and I'm not quite sure," Page said in March.

While it might utilize organized information to get the job done, Google's self-driving car hardly contributes to that original mission statement. Under this new lens, the company's high-profile new project makes a little more sense. The self-driving car market has no competitors, so Google, even as a Jack of all trades, is free to wreak with technology.