AdWords was doing just fine before DoubleClick. That's how they got the money to buy DoubleClick in the first place. The problem was specifically DoubleClick

AdWords was doing just fine before DoubleClick. That's how they got the money to buy DoubleClick in the first place. The problem was specifically DoubleClick management, who then got inserted in high levels within the Ads organization, forcing out the very technically & economically savvy people who were there before. This is a recurring problem in large organizations. People who spend their time learning to be politically savvy will be...politically savvy, and be at an advantage when playing power politics that determines who is in charge. The effort needed to become politically savvy usually comes at the expense of domain/technical/economic knowledge required to actually get the job done. Eventually the organization becomes very good at playing political games and very bad at getting stuff done, until it collapses.