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Agreed that Google's facing a serious threat and that a CEO approaches things differently in that situation than when everything's booming. I'm not sure about
by jdp23 16y ago
Agreed that Google's facing a serious threat and that a CEO approaches things differently in that situation than when everything's booming. I'm not sure about the peacetime/wartime stuff though. First of all if you want to use military analogies, Google has been at war with Microsoft since 2005 or earlier, and with Apple for a few years as well; now they've got another major front with Facebook -- and they're losing. It's a very different situation than Intel's, so the CEO may need to have different skills and attitude.
And then the list of differences between a wartime and peacetime CEO is just silly. "Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture" ... hmm, seems to me that George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Winston Churchill all did a lot of culture defining, and so did Andy Grove.
It's interesting though to look at the list in light of his self-description that "One could easily argue that I failed as a peacetime CEO, but succeeded as a wartime one." To me it seems like he's describing the CEO he became, and arguing that it was optimal to become that way because they were at war. And quite possibly it was optimal for him and his company in that situation. But going from there to "these are the characteristics a CEO needs when at peace/at war" is over-generalizing.
- JanezStupar 16y agoI agree that FB is a threat to Google, but the notion that Google is loosing just due to the inane valuations and hype Facebook has received seems a bit far fetched.
- jdp23 16y agoFacebook's got over 500,000,000 users. None of Google's social efforts so far have been particularly successful and some have been disastrous. So even though I agree Facebook's over-hyped and the valuations are optimistic, I still think Google's losing in social.
- gms 16y agoGoogle should stop caring about 'social' so much. It's not in their DNA. They should focus on the types of problems more suited to the company DNA.
- albertcardona 16y agoA company lacks DNA. What it has is cash flow. Look up for example what did Nokia sell before selling cell phones. Or look into what PG says about his recruits: that he chooses the individuals, not the specific application proposal, and that generally the focus of the company is completely different by the end of the YC school.
- JanezStupar 16y agoTheres a big difference between losing in social and losing. Remember when MS was losing the internet? Edit: Fixed the loosing typos. Not a native speaker here - so I'll blame the spellchecker :)
- orangecat 16y agoAaaargh. Lose. The misused "loose" has come out of nowhere in the last 5 years, and for some reason really annoys me.
- guygurari 16y agoThis, this, and again this.
- jdp23 16y agoand a decade later, Google's been making billions of dollars each year, and despite massive investment Microsoft is barely breaking even. so true, MS still has the Windows, Office, SQL/Excahnge, and XBox businesses. but its failures in the internet mean that it's not seen as a leader, and its stock price is justifiably suffering.
- JanezStupar 16y agoYes and it was hit hard and to make matters worse - it only have itself to blame. However they are still far from where one would write them off completely.
- vessenes 16y agoAt stake for Google is the question of whether it can achieve an additional 'generation' of growth, not survival. It's easy to imagine that it should have been able to get this growth, watching Facebook, and I think this is tantalizing, both to investors and people inside Google. If it can't, it will go the way of Microsoft. What is that way? That way is the way of IBM. What is that way? Billions of dollars in earnings, dominant market positions carved out, buy over build technology decisions. So, yes, it's nice (for some) to imagine Google doing it 'again', but they don't have to do it again, I wouldn't say. Just like Microsoft getting crushed by Google really just ended in Microsoft's growth slowing, and their earnings increasing, Google getting crushed by FB, or some new wunderkind is unlikely to evaporate all those billions of dollars in cash, assets and projects.
- entangld 16y agoPeople questioned Page's decision to base bonuses on 25% social. Ben makes a clear argument that wartime CEO isn't about making people happy, it's about getting people focused.
- jdp23 16y agoI think tying bonuses to social is a great idea (more at http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2374&cpage=1#comment-140615 http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2374&cpage=1#comment-... ) but getting people focused on key corporate goals is important for any CEO, wartime or peacetime.