Page Can't Turn Back Clock At Google

rsmiller510 writes "As much as incoming CEO Larry Page would like Google to be as quick on its feet as a small company, when you're as big as Google, decision-making gets bogged down in the management structure, and it's hard to make the company something it's not."

Comments

Good luck ...

[gstoddart]

Having worked for a company which went from fairly small and agile, to being publicly traded and fully "corporate" ... it's a one way trip.

Once the accountants and management layers are in place, it's too late. Then, it's mostly becoming more bureaucratic and management heavy and filling out TPS reports.

Sure, if you try hard you can give some room to you engineering staff to actually do their jobs ... however, I have seen entire development teams grind to a halt as someone from finance gets everybody bogged down in paperwork and reports to explain what it is that we do.

Of course, nobody in finance was capable of recognizing that the labor costs of the people they'd derailed far exceeded the middle-level idiot who insisted that everything be done in the first place.

While I admit that these people actually do useful things, sometimes they can stop a lot of people from building the products just so their spreadsheets are up to date.

The search part of Google isn't that big

[Animats]

Google is smaller than it looks. The core search engine team was about 90-100 people as of a few years ago.

97% of the revenue still comes from search ads. Google has a huge array of money-draining services, some of which are labor-intensive. They're not generating much revenue. Mostly, they're defensive measures to ward off Microsoft. GMail, Google Docs, the free hosting service, etc. exist to threaten Microsoft. It's not like offering spreadsheets on line is a viable business. Even the whole Android phone thing is mostly there to prevent Microsoft from monopolizing that space. (It's also a threat to Apple. Google pays Apple $100 million a year to stay on the iPhone. If it weren't for Android, Apple might provide their own closed iPhone search engine.)

Google spends an incredible amount of money on non-revenue defensive measures.

Re:The search part of Google isn't that big

[fwarren]

Nobody wants to "own" music anymore. Its a chore. People just want to listen to music.

I take exception to that. I want to own music. A good part of my collection is made up of rare LPs CDs and Tapes that I have converted to MP3s. They are not offered by any service out there. I am worried that plenty of what they do have, will go away because it to much bother for them to keep it online.

The only way I know of keeping all the music I like is owning it. Even if I was willing to rent it, the major labels are not willing to be land lords.

Re:Corporate Structure

[JamesP]

You can do that internally

If he really wants to shake things up, create 'micro-startups' inside Google. Put it in a separate building, isolated area, whatever. Shoot any managers or bean-counters that approach the area

Worked for Apple

Re:Leave Page alone...

[Wyatt Earp]

Google
Revenue US$ 29.321 billion
Operating Income US$ 10.381 billion
Profit US$ 8.505 billion
Employees 24,400

Apple
Revenue US$ 65.23 billion
Operating Income US$ 18.39 billion
Profit US$ 14.01 billion
Employees 49,400

Financially they are playing catchup to Apple and M$

And in the all important Fortune 500 list, Apple is a Fortune 100 company, Google is a Fortune 200 company.

Just a self promoting blogger

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Looks like we have some joker promoting hits on his own blog with /.

Re:Corporate Structure

[Nerdfest]

I first read that as "Shoot any managers or bean-counters that approach the area or Worked for Apple". Seemed a tad harsh ... but still ... they are managers and bean counters. I can sometimes understand the attitude.