Thanks for pushing back on this — fair question.

Thanks for pushing back on this — fair question. The "~75 candidates" figure traces back to John Doerr's own account of the 1999–2001 search for a Google CEO before Eric Schmidt was hired. It's referenced in:

Wired, "When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders" (2018): https://www.wired.com/story/when-john-doerr-brought-a-gift-to-googles-founders/

TechCrunch, "When John Doerr Met Larry Page" (2011): https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/04/doerr-page/

For independent corroboration, see this retrospective, which separately states that Brin and Page "reviewed more than 75 candidates between 1999 and 2001" before landing on Schmidt: https://simpleprogrammer.com/history-internet-eight-google-story/

I couldn't find a single definitive primary citation with that exact number tied to a direct quote, but two independent sources landing on the same figure suggest it's a real (self-reported) number from Doerr rather than an invented detail. For primary sourcing, Doerr's book Measure What Matters is probably the best place to start.