Nikesh Arora Enjoys Wearing Many Hats at Google

Google’s Nikesh Arora wears a lot of hats at Google.

Holding the titles of senior VP and chief business officer, it’s Arora’s job to figure out where and when and how to start making money on the company’s various products. In a wide-ranging interview at our D: Dive Into Media event, Arora talked about everything from the future of online advertising to Google Glass to the company’s internal culture.

One of the biggest tipping points in online advertising, Arora said, will be when the majority of televisions are connected to the Internet.

Here’s some of what Arora had to say on a variety of topics:

On the need for television advertising to become targeted advertising:

“If I just bought a car last week, why would you want to try to sell me a car?”

On Google’s culture under CEO Larry Page:

“It’s fun … We want to do big things and change the world.”

On the Yahoo deal announced last week:

“We’re happy to partner with any company that operates on the Internet.”

On Chairman Eric Schmidt selling a boatload of Google shares:

“It’s called asset diversification.”

On where Google gets its search traffic, and where that traffic ends up:

“I think the number has stayed pretty consistent,” Arora said. About half comes from Google.com and half from partners. As to where those search queries go, Arora denied the notion that more and more is being steered toward Google sites, saying homegrown sites remain a small, single-digit percentage of results.

“I think most of it ends up on other parties’ sites out there, always has,” Arora said.

On whether he wants to be a CEO somewhere else eventually:

“I love what I do,” Arora said. “It’s almost like I get to work for multiple companies at Google, because we are in so many different businesses.”