What defines Google?

I think nothing does it better than this:

"What sets Google apart, Schmidt told me in another conversation, is that although people like him always assumed that 'Google would be an important company, the founders always assumed that Google would be a defining company.' He remembers a day in 2002 when he walked into Page's office and Page started to show off a book scanner he had built. 'What are you going to do with that, Larry?' Schmidt recalls asking. 'We're going to scan all the books in the world,' Page replied. Eventually, Google began to do just that."

Hat tip to Google System and New Yorker