Last week, Alphabet chair and former Stanford University president John Hennessy joined former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on the stage of the Computer History Museum to discuss leadership and to promote Hennessy’s new book, Leading Matters: Lessons from My Journey. I’ve interviewed both a few times in the past, and they generally lean toward being outspoken—even blunt–so I thought there was a fair chance that the discussion would turn provocative.

In that, I was mainly disappointed. Mayer (who recently founded tech incubator Lumi Labs) read from a list of questions and only rarely interjected with personal comments; Hennessy’s responses seemed rehearsed. (I don’t think he reviewed the questions in advance, though I heard speculation about that from audience members; the stories he shared onstage were generally ones he’d told before.)

However, in a few responses scattered throughout the evening, Hennessy did hint at some of the issues on his mind when he’s wearing his Alphabet/Google hat. (In addition to that job, Hennessy also holds a teaching role at Stanford.) Putting those responses together makes it clear that, in the current business climate, figuring out how and where to steer Alphabet is more challenging than ever.