“That paragraph came out of the distance between what the N.S.A. was collecting in terms of metadata, basically the Snowden leak, a relatively paltry amount of data compared to the rather large amounts of data we are willingly giving up — or unwillingly giving up by clicking the ‘I accept the terms box’ — to these very powerful corporations,” he said in a phone interview. “And my feeling is, you look around at who is powerful in the world now, and, yes the U.S. government still has drones and a nuclear arsenal — it has some might — but in terms of power over people’s daily lives, I think it’s shifted to the private sector.”

Later, he added: “I think it’s appropriate always to resist concentration of power in the hands of too few. There is bound to come a point where that becomes dangerous.”

Google’s power is predicated, of course, on the enormous volume of information at its disposal. Its competitors, as I noted in my profile, have accused the company of abusing its dominance in the search space to steer consumers to Google services over theirs, and the European Commission seems to agree.

But Mr. Page has also used his own power — through an unusual share structure, he and co-founder Sergey Brin control the company outright — to isolate himself from Wall Street’s demands. In the 16 years I’ve been covering business I have met countless C.E.O.s who describe their jobs in almost academic terms, using phrases like “fiduciary duty” to dodge questions about what kind of role their company has to society.

In public comments, Mr. Page goes out of his way to say the opposite, describing Google more in terms of a nonprofit than a gigantic corporation. During a 2014 interview with Charlie Rose, he said he wished there were a vehicle for people to donate money to their company so that it could be used for projects that had some kind of social purpose.

These are some of the ideas I tried to get at in the article, but of course I would love to have included an interview with the man himself. There is a popular image of reporters as a pack of pushy cold callers who will stalk anyone to get their story, and while that is true at times, I can tell you from experience that it is really awkward and emasculating to try to interview someone who doesn’t want to talk. You feel like a big dork.

In total, I have encountered Mr. Page three times for a total of five minutes or so. Once was at an off-the-record gathering where nothing interesting happened, and another was at a press event where he politely shook my hand before heading in another direction.