Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
at $85 per share. The IPO was handled via a revolutionary online auction system specially
assembled by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, who jointly underwrote the deal from
which Google came away with a market capitalization of more than $23 billion. The vast
majority of shares remained under the control of Google and its staff, most staffers becom-
ing overnight millionaires. (Ironically Yahoo!, even though a competitor, made money as
well, having provided support which resulted in its owning 8.4 million shares before the
IPO.)
Google has branched out from search to providing productivity tools (such as Gmail),
enterprise products, news delivery, eBooks, the open-source Android and Google Chrome
operating systems, the open-source
Chrome
web browser, and cloud services. As of this
writing the firm is preparing to launch
Google Wallet
for wireless payments from mobile
devices.
For a good ten years early in the life of Google (2001 - 2011), Page and Brin acquiesced
- largely due to demands from their venture funders - to seasoned manager Eric Schmidt as
CEO. Under Schmidt - who ruled in something of a troika with Page and Brin, with Sch-
midt's being the most dominant voice - Google became the third largest tech company in
the world - growing from less than $100 million in revenues to nearly $30 billion. As of
2011, Page has (amicably) reclaimed the CEO position.
"Page is
sui generis
and could potentially have the kind of impact Bill Gates and Steve
Jobs have had," writes Steven Levy. "Nobody better encapsulates Google's ambitions, its
ethics, and its worldview. At the same time, Page can be eccentric, arrogant, and secretive.
... Google's 2004 pre-IPO filing with the SEC included a note from Page to prospective
shareholders. In it, he famously warned that 'Google is not a conventional company. We do
not intend to become one.' In the ensuing years, Google made good on that promise. But
under its ruling troika, Schmidt helped balance the founders' idiosyncratic urges with more
traditional practices. With Page taking the helm, no one is sure how - or if - that delicate
balance will be maintained. Now the company is in the hands of a true corporate radical."
The firm's corporate culture is informal and pleasant. Google's corporate philosophy
advances such fundamental principles as making money "without doing evil," and that
work should be both challenging and fun. To encourage out-of-the-box thinking, Google
has invented a program called "Innovation Time Off" wherein engineers may spend up to
20% of their time on whatever might interest them, rather than on formal projects in de-
velopment. This innovation program has led to some of Google's most profitable offerings,
including Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and especially AdSense, from which so much of its
earnings come.
However, Orkut actually represents a signal failure not of innovation, but of corporate
vision. This social network was actually launched in 2004, well before the dawn of Face-
book. "My dream was to connect all the Internet users so they can relate to each other,"
recalls Google engineer Orkut Buyukkookten as quoted in Steven Levy's
In the Plex.
The
