The End of Google’s Innocence?
Google was (and still is) the type of company that proud itself in being one of the few companies in the world where most of the management and strategic decisions are made bottoms up . . . by engineers and managers who are closest to cutting edge technology and users. This was so much so that when Eric Schmidt formed the “corporate strategy” group within Google, it was named Business Operations instead to quell concerns within the company that an elite group of ex-MBA’s and strategy consultants will instead determine the fate of a company that previously had been havens for engineers and alpha-geeks. (Biz Ops as the group is called internally is quite a cryptic set of meaningless words . . . if I saw that on a business card, I would have thought of customer service, IT, or some sort of project/process management group if I didn’t know better)
Only 12 month ago, Google was the type of company that went out and acquired relatively obscure technology leaders like Keyhole and Picasa. I bet those acquisition were driven by Google engineers trying to solve technical problems for a product they want to launch and eventually decide it would be better to acquire rather than build or buy. The idea then bubbled up to some executive who championed the purchase. Since the acquisition cost was relatively cheap, this model was entirely feasible.
Times have changed; however . . . Google is growing up rapidly in front of our eyes. Today these Biz Ops guys are stumping around the Valley, Virginia, Redmond, Beijing, Luxembourg and all across the world looking to put Google’s $100B (close enough) market cap to work. They are not talking some tiny hundred million dollar acquisition . . . no, these guys are rumored to be buying everything from Skype, AOL, to TIVO. . . really anything and everything. Whenever there is an auction for a technology or media company any where in world, these guys will be there waiting to give away some funny money. In short, they are no different than any other large company in the world run amuck with MBA’s trying to take over the world in one swoop and moving on to the next target with little remorse or thought.
The “old” Google is still alive and well, but “new” Google is growing stronger everyday . . . there really is no turning back. If Google wants to play with the big boys, this is the road they need to walk down . . . with the tacit understanding (resignation?) that innovation and product development will not get them where they need to be . . . that they cannot corner the market on talent and innovation, try as they may. That incumbent market share, experience, relationships, and knowledge still meant for something. That PageRank COULD be the only time in Google’s lifetime a disruptive technology they created turned an industry upside down. As most companies have learned by now, you stack the deck in your favor any way you can . . . and if that means using some stock to your advantage, then so be it. Google is a two headed beast now, even if they tried to hide one of them with some innocuous sounding business cards . . . it remain to be seen if the two heads will get along or the infinitely noble and envious bottoms-up culture and ecology will become the victim of Google’s own growth spurt . . . Really no different than every single start-up turned gorilla in the last 50 years . . .
You nailed it. This is the “third story” that not a lot of people recognize. In the media you hear that Google is either: 1. the most innovative company in the world that will continue to out innovate everyone until they own everything, or 2. a one-note company that is completely overvalued and will come crashing down. Your nuanced take on Google is that it is actually a company that has had one of the greatest one-note hits of all time which enables it to play in the next wave of innovation, but they might have to look a lot like a lot of other companies going forward. It seems the general media and the general public have a hard time understanding stories which are a bit more complicated and don’t fit into bucket X or bucket Y. (Hence why they completely missed the value on the IPO.)
I think it will be interesting to watch how the company manages the same dynamic that other companies have run into will respond and react. I think Google has done a good thing by incorporating innovative structures into their operations (20% innovation time) and my hope is that it will continue to reverberate throughout their organization and introduce many new management concepts in the world. My analytical self says that many of the fundamental principals of business are very well-known and that they’ll struggle with the fact that owning the Overture model doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily find the rest of the business world that easy.
Early indicators demonstrate that they may still have some cards up their sleeves (universal free wifi, home networking over powerlines, etc…). Their current valuation may actually empower them to make the investment to pull off such audacious plans.
For biz model wonks, it should be a fascinating story to watch.
Great post. Keep it up.
Comment by Jake Kaldenbaugh — November 11, 2005 @ 1:34 pm