“Nah, who needs another search engine?”

Consider the opportunity of being one of Google’s first employees. Imagine for a second being able to go back and have Sergey Brin or Larry Page offer you the opportunity to join a new search engine, maybe even get stock options. You’d say “yes” without hesitation right? Right.

For one developer, Ka-Ping Yee, that moment actually took place and is understandably now one of life’s biggest regrets.

Ka-Ping Yee met Larry Page at a party hosted by a Stanford friend in 1998. Larry gave Yee his business card which was apparently just “a flimsy bit of paper obviously printed by bubble jet” and said “we’re hiring”.

Yee’s response?

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“Nah, who needs another search engine?” and he left to graduate school.

What makes this story even more iconic, Yee still has the card.