Edible Apple

With Eric Schmidt out and Larry Page now in as CEO of Google, Business Insider spoke to a number of current and former Googler’s who were anything but bashful in revealing their opinions about Page. There is, of course, no denying that Page is as sharp as they come, but as with any brilliant personality in Silicon Valley, that level of intelligence tends to come with an unlikeable attitude.

Described as both rude and brilliant, Googler’s speaking to Business Insider also described Page as an “intellectually honest person” with a “vision stronger than arguably anyone in the industry.”

One ex-Googler says Page is “kind of a jerk, but everyone respects [him] because he is, again, the most intellectually honest person you will ever meet.”

Page is an “ego-maniacal asshole,” says another source.

Now, before you write Page off as a misanthrope that’s going to ruin Google, remember: People used to say the similarly awful things about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Each are arrogant, unfriendly geniuses with little respect for Wall Street and traditional “business.” But each have also changed the world with beloved products – and created billions of dollars of wealth for themselves and their shareholders in the process.

But hey, at the end of the day you want someone with balls running your company. If that entails working under a CEO with a brash attitude then so be it. There are company’s to run, and in the rough and tough and uber-competitive landscape that is Silicon Valley, you better be ready to play hardball.

And indeed, Page doesn’t seem the type to back down from a fight.

In July of this year, the Google co-founder accused Apple of re-writing history in the wake of Steve Jobs insinuating that Google released Android and went after the iPhone out of malice.

“We had been working on Android a very long time,” Page explained, “with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace. I think that characterization of us entering after [the iPhone was introduced] is not really reasonable.”

On a completely different albeit interesting topic, Page’s father Carl was a Computer Science Professor at Michigan State who is touted as being a pioneer in both Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence research.