Meet the boss: Liz Reid of Google

Economist Podcasts

The Economist

News & Politics, News

4.4 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For Season 2, we’re releasing an extended interview alongside each episode. This week: Who needs search engines when chatbots can answer every query for you? That’s the question confronting the head of Search at the world’s most popular website.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Over 1,800 international businesses, including 14 of the top 15 US technology companies,
0:06.1	have established operations in Ireland, creating one of the world's leading innovation hubs.
0:11.3	These businesses have invested in Ireland because it delivers skills, support, stability,
0:16.0	sustainability and significant returns.
0:18.6	IDA Ireland, the National Investment Development Agency,
0:22.2	can help you tap into the same talent pool and support system
0:25.3	and hit the ground running.
0:26.9	Learn more at IDA Ireland.com.
0:34.1	The Economist.
0:37.7	All right, I'm going to open my laptop and Google with my one-fingered typing.
0:46.0	How much money does Google make from advertising?
0:53.8	And what we see is that at the top of the screen we have something
0:57.3	being generated called the AI overview and it says Google generates the
1:02.4	majority of its revenue from search advertising. In 2024 Google's revenue from
1:06.9	search and other advertising was $198.1 billion.
1:12.7	That's quite a lot of money.
1:14.6	It's also the reason why its business model is under threat.
1:19.8	Because if AI can generate an answer to my question,
1:22.9	and I don't have to click on all those sponsored links,
1:25.8	how's it going to make money?
1:27.1	Why should I go to Google at all?
1:33.3	When I joined in New York, there were about 10 people in engineering in the office there.
	...

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