There's so much optimism these days surrounding the company, which blew away search engine rivals with one now-seemingly-simple formula for calculating relevant results: PageRank. Google's worth is expected to rise to $20 billion when it goes public in spring of 2004. Despite regular 12-hour work days, a thousand people a day apply for jobs there, and 20% of each employee's time is spent interviewing potential hires. Reminds me of my brief stint in the interactive department of the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in early 2000. Our staff of 25 or so also worked crazy hours, so our boss wrote down 35 open positions on a white board and said, "Help me fill these positions, and you won't be so overworked." When leaving JWT without a job lined up — because who needed one then? — I had to take the phone off the hook so recruiters wouldn't wake me in the morning.

Google is so essential to me that I would seriously pay thousands of dollars a year for its service, including the invaluable Google News, which is little more than a scientific formula applied to an enormous supply of news content — material that the authoring companies spent millions of dollars to produce. Never spend your own money — isn't that the No. 1 rule in business?

The Fortune cover story asks whether Google will be so valuable to me — or to anyone — in the future. A lack of "customer lock-in" means that something better could come along and render it irrelevant, a la Netscape. "Google has a lot of momentum, but its current position is probably not defensible," says an investor.

Other News Links:

• Dean's Campaign Now Gore-Powered — National Review Online contributor Clifford D. May writes that Howard Dean will assuredly be the Democratic nominee for president in 2004 and that "either Al Gore will be asked to be secretary of state in 2004, or Hillary Clinton will be asked to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. It's one or the other, it can't be both."

• Judge Orders Sports Illustrated Writer to Reveal His Sources — A federal judge orders Don Yaeger to reveal his source of information in a story that reported that Alabama football coach Mike Price had sex with two women in a Florida hotel room.

• The Best Stock Picker on Wall Street — My buddy Larry Carrel authors a SmartMoney.com profile of a man who has a record of 75% accuracy for upside moves. Not a bad guy to have dinner with, I assume. Hanging out with Larry ain't too bad, either.

• Flight Attendant Loses Sept. 11 Claim — A woman who changed an assignment that would have led to her death aboard Flight 93 is denied compensation for emotional distress, as an appellate court ruled that nothing happened to her while working that led to her condition, and that off-duty cops and firemen could also seek compensation.

• Gates Assassination Theme of Movie Released Online — A fictional murder of the Microsoft chairman is the theme of a controversial film available online for $5 viewings.

• Tardy Students Ticketed — A Whittier, Calif. school is slapping late-arriving students with $165 tickets. (Thanks to the lovely Shaune Bagwell for the tip.)

• These Sites Are a Shopper's Dream — BusinessWeek's feature on comparison sites that are making money by bringing buyers and merchants together.

• 425 Million-Year-Old Penis Found — If researchers look closely enough, they'll probably find a nearby stash of 425-million-year-old porn.