The two of you are looking at their success from opposite directions. You're looking Google from day zero and asking, "Why were they successful at all?" The fir

The two of you are looking at their success from opposite directions. You're looking Google from day zero and asking, "Why were they successful at all?" The first answer looks at their mammoth success and asks, "How did they avoid becoming a smaller company as they grew?" The answer isn't as simple as the initial design of Google, or how they managed investors. They took hundreds of great small steps in the beginning that made them number one. Cultural ones, such as free food, "don't be evil," and hiring the best people. Technical ones, like BigTable, MapReduce, the Google File System, and their obsessive focus on operations. Business ones, like the terms of their IPO and their managing of VCs. And entrepreneurial ones, like 20% time, acquiring lots of startups, and awarding employee bonuses by product usage. "In the early days" is a fuzzy measure, but these are all decisions that Google has made to continually grow their company in value