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GQ on Google's Road to Riches
prostoalex writes "John Heilemann writes the untold story of Google IPO in GQ magazine (out of all tech publications out there). It's a story about Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google CEO Eric Scmidt and Silicon Valley venture capitalists that guided Google in the startup phase to take it public later. The article answers many questions that readers perhaps had about Google. Why go IPO when your earnings are just fine? How much power do Sergey and Larry have inside the company? What's the reason for so much secrecy? One interesting episode describes an engineer squatting CEO's office seeking solutide from the noise surrounding him in the cube area."
"Why go IPO when your earnings are just fine?"
It'll be interesting to see them answer this without saying "because it made us an assload of money."
Yeah... there are days that I wish I could squat my ceo's car... in protest of... umm... not owning one?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
why the salaries of the amazing engineers at Google aren't too high, even after the IPO.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
"Journey to the (Revoltionary, Evil-Hating, Cash-Crazy, and Possibly Self-Destructive) Center of Google" quoth the article headline.
Revol(u)tionary? Well, the original Google was just a very slender search engine. Nothing revolutionary, just a basic idea that people liked.
Evil-Hating? If you search for "Do no evil" you get their philosophy page. As the article states, "Evil is what Sergey says is evil", and I think they know how not to piss off their users.
Cash-Crazy? They have to be cash-crazy; they're a company, and as a company making money is their only aim. Being happy and good just seem to be side-effects for Google.
The only interesting one is "Possibly self-destructive". Skimming the article, I don't think this is what they are really saying - it says that Google has become so big that Microsoft cannot cut off their air supply à la Netscape, and the only thing that could ever possibly stop them is themselves. And by the looks of things, that does not look likely to happen any time soon.
TFA is interesting, and is quite good to read if you have the time (very long) but I was not really sure what it was getting at.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Who don't wan't a bank account filled with a lot of money that can realize that dreams that simple people can't.
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There can be multiple reasons.
- Your investors want their 10x (or whatever factor the VCs expect) money back. VCs expect a huge multiple return on their initial investment, not just their money back. Remember that only 1/10 VC-funded companies are successful; therefore, on average, a VC expects 10x from whichever company does succeed.
- Your initial employees, whose sweat went into the company in the early stages, now want a big payoff; the IPO does that.
- You want to grow your company fast and need a large chunk of cash (this was the traditional reason for IPOs). This cash can be used for acquisitions, equipment (huge data center near Portland?), etc.
The IPO is not for operating expenses, which would appear to be the thinking behind the question.---
Does MSN censor search results?
This article is nothing but a fluff piece. No new information at all, except perhaps the bit about the poached eggs at the Nasdaq launch.
And to think the entire empire was based on one simple fact: if you make the ads appear to be contextual and related to the rest of a page, a large majority of users (over 80%) will not recognize they're even looking at ads, and thus will be more likely to click.
That's the fundamental genius of Google. They've fooled most of their users. Btw if you don't believe the part about most users being unable to recognize text ads, here's the story about it from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4201343.stm
Surely, Google is entitled to some attention for entering the game late, innovating, and then succeeding. Pick up a copy of this month's Wired magazine and see how Yahoo stacks up. Certainly, Google is the darling of the computer saavy, but they still have lower viewship and less profit then the Stanford project turned internet gold. I use Google, and in fact, use many of their beta programs (which seem to stay in beta for years), but Yahoo has the "computer as a tool" market for those that don't follow the latest meme. Impressive start, yes, useful features, definitely, but Google is still not number one despite all the free publicity it gets on a daily basis.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
would be the correct link. :-)
"Why so much secrecy?"
Um, out on a limb here but-
It's better to keep trade secrets than give them away. Then they are not secrets.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
They want an exit strategy. After having their money tied down in Google gor years they want to realize their nice gains and invest in new companies. Staying private would've supplied VC-s with a nice flow of cash, but that's just not their business model.
That's the fundamental genius of Google. They've fooled most of their users.
As far as I can see, the text ads appear on the right of the page, under the title "Sponsored Links", and the search results on the left. Honestly, I'm not sure what Google more could do to distinguish text ads from the search results.
If users cannot distinguish between the left and the right, the problem lies between the chair and the keyboard, and not with Google
But seriously- you're a slashdot reader. you are not an average user. Average users think differently from you and I and everyone else here.
Just read that BBC article. This goes in the category of something that is so obvious in hindsight, but almost impossible to see as it is happening.
I googled "security", a very highly-valued keyword, on both IE and Mozilla. There is a very clear blue line between the ads and the results.
In fact, this is simply good design. The line does not over-awe the rest of the page, keeping Google's design plain, simple and highly efficient. As for the colors, webmasters are free to use CSS, to make it more apparent. A site I frequent puts Google ads in its own panel. If webmasters cannot follow clean UI designs, how is that Google's fault?
In any case, the grand-grand-parent insinuated that Google fools users, when it is in fact the users who fool themselves. Even in the BBC article, it just mentions that users can't tell the difference, but does not fault either side.
I only dislike ads when they promote things I have no interest in. Slashdot's banner ads, for example, often interest me and do not seem intrusive.
That said, I love those Microsoft 'Get the Facts' ads :)
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Say that fast five times in a row.
Everybody who read the WHOLE article... raise your hands...
Wall street is the manic-depressive bitch public companies are married to: unlimited praise when you do right, kicks you hard when you are down, and takes cheap shots when you can't defend yourself
When you have what everyone wants, you can rewrite the rules and change the way business is built. But you still have to put on the funny hats and dance at the party according to the customs.
Jounalists always talk out of both sides of their face. The paragraph at the end is just a free open ticket for the journalist to write another article later about the failures of Google.
Nothing matters more than the right people with the right ideas and the will to execute those ideas.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I don't know the source of the information for it, but http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/19/202024 8 says the average salary of a Google employee is $60,000.
And, I know that personally, I'd sacrifice the higher salary in exchange for the honor of working for Google, but I'd never want to leave the place, so I'd never have the need to put it down on a resume.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
then i guess you'd like it even better if we just took it one step further and let the content itself be the advertisement?
Why don't we have story about gmail being down on slashdot.org AKA googlesbitch.com
The myth of "Google Boys of Company G" continues. The GQ article manages to talk to everybody but the boys, which tells you how Page and Brin know the art of "Robert Redford PR Strategy" -- clam up and keep everyone guessing. My take is that Google's success, so far, has one fundamental basis -- the products it offers are free and, by and large, not sources of headaches, as opposed to the products of often-compared Microsoft which cost consumers money and much grief (horrible security, to name one). Google and Microsoft get roasted frequently in this space, but one notices that only the latter receives genuine wrath -- many Slashdotters are so mad at Microsoft that they simply switch to Linux or Firefox, but I bet only a few would ditch Google altogether. Eric Schmidt, the "playground supervisor" of Google, shines in this piece. I got a kick out of reading that Schmidt stopped the boys from going into low-cost space launchings and banning telephones in a new building. On the other hand, what's wrong with "Google Spaceship"?
Sun and Fun
GMAIL is DOWN ./ google?
and has been for over an hour
is this a good time to start panicking
did y'all just
-- Avishalom is usually vish
Had you read the fine article, you would have read this:
But if the history of the technology industry teaches us anything, it's that no one is ever that lucky--at least, not for long. Every important high-tech company has at some point stumbled and fallen on its face. Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Sun, Apple, Cisco--all have made severe mistakes, paid a price, and then survived in large part because they understood what being a public company is about. They learned that Wall Street matters. That investors like transparency. That "trust us" isn't enough. When crisis eventually comes to Google-- and it will--the company's fate will depend on whether they have absorbed a handful of lessons that apply as much to life as they do to business: Adulthood happens. You can't make all your own rules. And everyone fucks up. This is just the beginning for Google. How well they handle adversity will tell us how strong the company, and its management model, truly is.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I think most people can tell the difference between ads and search results on google. My wife drives me crazy with how non-computer literate she can be, but she can tell the difference between ads and content, even on google where they are subtle. I think the real reason that google is so successful with users is that they do a really good job, both with their search results and their sponsored content.
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That article is a bit light on details like the actual questions used. It also suggests that not just Google was covered. Can I tell what is an ad on Yahoo or MSN ? Hell, no.
I'm no Google fanboy, but I think their success is in part due to making it clear what are ads and what aren't, and making those ads things the searcher is likely to want to see.
They went public because corporate law requires if you have over 500(?) shareholders and a corporate value of more than 10 million you must file your quarterly/annual reports with the SEC and make them publicly available.
Since you cannot convince those other stockholders over the base amount to sell back to the company, you might as well go public and get a shitload of cash anyway.
The only thing I don't understand is when a person makes over a billion dollars why the hell they don't retire. I don't mean quit working but separate yourself from the company because it will be changing once it's a public entity.
On a side note: I have my company setup as an S-Corp and have already used some of my Estate credits (you get a set value for life and can use them at any time, even before you're dead) to transfer my company into a living trust so on the off chance it does get big there will be no inheritance tax! My guess is WWI has been paid off already.
That's an interesting claim. The problem is, the article you present as evidence does a poor job at supporting it.
First, the article isn't about Google. It covers a general poll about search engines. Trying to apply all results to Google specifically is misleading. The possibly relevant parts of the article:
According to this survey, your claim of "over 80%" is actually 62%. That is, assuming this group of users can always be applied to Google - the data says otherwise.
Of course, the issue over what search engines are being used might be less important than I'm implying. Doing a search for "security" (a suggestion from another poster) on each of the listed search engines shows remarkably similar layouts. The odd thing is that they're all mimicking Google - or at least a previous version of Google. So does this all get applied squarely on Google in a round-about way? Not at all.
Indistinguishable ads were hardly Google's innovation. At the time Google came out, there were already search engines who mixed paid-for results in to their normal output with even less, if any distinction.
Google offering "sponsored" results was hardly new. An interesting distinction was Google's separating those results from it's content. And doing so rather distinctly with various visual clues.
So where does this 62% of unaware respondents come from? From the poll:
While being aware of the ads would certainly help identify them, it doesn't mean that those ads are unidentifiable. Nor does it mean users are clicking them. If you look at my sample search at Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo , you'll note an interesting distinction between Google and its competitors. Google has long done away with the sponsored searc
http://www.googlesbitch.com just re-directs to Slashdot.org.
EDIT: It seems that the site is getting slashdotted as we speak.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
What seems obvious to me is that Larry and Sergey are geeks at heart, not businessmen. The fact that they are young may not be the point. There's a lot for a company to gain by being geek-friendly (ask Microsoft). Yahoo, really, is cooler, MSN is richer (and has the OS advantage). Google will probably maintain their current status as an established Internet company, but I don't think they are a future Microsoft. There is nothing left to disrupt :-P
This is a bit off topic but does anyone know anything about their GWS/2.1, you can see it their response headers. Is it open source or is it entirely home built? There is nearly nothing on the web on this server software?
Don't be evil, pay someone to do it for you.
Or does this article look hideous in firefox? (runs off into the background so its unreadable)
And your user name is "GOOG is god"?
A funny but true fact is that he met all of their requirements (PHD, experience, laid back, etc.) but had also gone to Burning Man. The felt that any 'suit' who had gone to and loved Burning Man would understand and respect their unorthodox approaches to various aspects of running and growing the business.
I am sure that Larry and Sergey are smart fellas. But they don't know everything. Nobody does. John Doerr is a very smart guy and when he says something about how a business should be ran, smart people listen, I bet even Bill Gates does.
Doerr also has many stories when genius inventors completely fucked up their companies based around revolutionary inventions. Segway flopped primarily because Dean Kamen ignored everything that Doerr said. And that included Kamen's obstinate desire to micromanage everything and to prevent the CEO from doing his job. In its short history Segway has already lost 3 CEOs, two presidents and three top marketing execs!
CEOs are people who run businesses. If your company has several thousand people working for it and is worth a few billions dollars, you need a CEO, and you need to give him the authority to do things. Otherwise you will fail.
If Larry and Sergey do not grow wiser, the company will fail, PageRank or not. You can't build a business on technical ideas alone.
Note: Yes, I know that there are lame overpaid CEOs. And hiring a CEO doesn't necessarily mean changing the corporate culture.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Part of the title of this article is "Will Larry and Sergey ever grow up?" If one reads the article "growing up" according to the author of the piece means handing control of the company from the people working at the company over to people who don't work at the company, and whose main long-term interest is expropriating profit (dividends) from the wealth created by the people who work at the company. So let's impose that idea on all companies and society: immaturity is when workers have control over their own work, maturity is when control of the workers work is handed over to people concerned with expropriating dividends for themselves from said worker.
One sentence of the article says "Corporate-governance mavens pilloried the dual-share structure, which seemed starkly at odds with the populist tone of Larry's letter." Thus populism is not control of the company being in the hands of those who work at it, but being in the hands of the controlling investors. Controlling investors being a group in the US who, according to the Federal Reserve's SCF reports, is totally within the richest 1% of Americans. "Populism" is when control is in the hands of the richest 1% of Americans, who, like Paris Hilton and the Hiltons of the Hilton Hotels Corporation, do not have to work at said company, or have to work period. They just get hefty dividend checks due to what I assume would be their "maturity".
"When crisis eventually comes to Google-- and it will--the company's fate will depend on whether they have absorbed a handful of lessons that apply as much to life as they do to business: Adulthood happens. You can't make all your own rules." The tone of this whole article is numbing. Don't rock the boat. Give control over your company, your work and your life over to rich people so they can start demanding you hand over large piles of wealth you create to them. And so on and so forth. This whole thing is a depressing load of bullshit.
It's an excellent article, except that it always calls the Google founders "boys" - actually they are probably the mosty clever and smart founders since long.
It's interesting to read that even those smart founders had to accept an external CEO - pushed in by anxious venture capitalists. Nevertheless, it's good to see that they managed to stay in control; what is expressed as "pet CEO" in the article.
Personally, I think that firms that are lead by a small group are mostly always better managed than those who have an UberCEO. Wish that Google stays that way.
And, most of all, I wish that venture capitalists will accept that founders need to stay in control - not necessarily in the daily operations (CEO), but at least in the kind of decision group such as at Google. Unfortunately, I am not too confident about this.
You got it. I think this guy is thinking of the Overture ads that run on Yahoo and MSN that are almost EXACTLY like the search resutls except with a little teeny bit of gray text thats says "sponsored links" and a header rule seperating them from the rest of the results.
And why Google is doing better? For the exact reasons you described-- they made it clear what are ads and what are not (earning trust from it's users) and made those ads relevant to the searcher (earning loyalty from it's users).
I think the grandparent is confusing the issue with Google's Adsense program where anyone can run Google ads on a webpage and get paid for them- some people haxor them up to appear as if they were part of the content of the page (or in some cases, the ads ARE the only content in the page at all!). I also think the grandparent is confusing Yahoo & MSN's Overture powered ads with Google's ads. Otherwise his post just doesn't make sense.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
You may take it for granted, but Google's Pagerank system is what made their search engine revolutionary. It's what made their engine able to cut through the spam and deliver relevant results to the users. The slender interface you make reference to is just part of the Google way of doing things and isn't what TFA was talking about. It's really Pagerank that made them who they are today.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
What would be great is a website that portalizes Google, so that the search engine cannot associate your IP with certain searches.
Basically, aggregate peoples searches and spread it among certain IPs so that Google can't do something truly evil and 1:1 match searches to IP.
Any takers?
It's true, he loves the cock.
It seems that the new version of the Google toolbar is evil, featuring "Autolink", basically the same as M$'s uproar-causing page-modifying "Smart Tags" that thankfully got dropped.
(Although I still see fit to put <meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" /> in the head of every site I build, thanks to that nasty scheme, just in case they ever change their minds.)
Anyway, if true, this is a real bitch to website owners. I really hope Google haven't turned to the dark side, but I have noticed that it's taking longer and longer to get new website content properly indexed these days, so in a way, I'm wishing for something to come along and put a bit of competition back into the search engine world, because Google ain't what it used to be.
How long before the Google toolbar is considered spyware? Last I checked, modifying page content was a tactic that well and truly belonged to spyware... and Microsoft.
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