> The CEO puts his office in the G+ building. I see that as Page being the driving force behind this. No, that reads as Vic Gundotra being the driving force be

> The CEO puts his office in the G+ building. I see that as Page being the driving force behind this. No, that reads as Vic Gundotra being the driving force behind this and Page buying in fully. If Page was the driving force, Gundotra would have put his office by Page's. > Page had to have bought into the idea independently (assuming he is independent). I don't think Page was independent. He was a brand new (in some sense) CEO with a lot to prove to shareholders and he had to make a big splash. Although his leadership has improved and he clearly came back to power with a vision to unify Google's services, he still had a vibe of being a bit unsure. My perception of the management at Google is that they mostly come from the engineering side and don't typically do things like overhype themselves or their projects—they generally call the importance of their projects as they see them. So along came Gundotra, who had spent 15 years at Microsoft in the most political meat grinder on the planet and was wayy more politically savvy then the rest of the management—and sells Facebook as an existential threat and G+ as salvation with unflinching confidence, plus a little bit of brown-nosing that would go a long way with an insecure new CEO. Feeling this versus the even-keeled/mildly pessimistic reporting styles that the rest of his engineering management had, I think Page bought into it hard, and G+ was history. Although it's circumstantial evidence, the conditions inside the G+ team were insanely political versus other Google orgs. I think this is a mirror of Gundotra's style. > The G+ push/force was still in full-swing on the consumer side through 2014. Really? Everyone knew it was dead. I perceived that as merely consolidating the unified logon/identity system they'd build in G+.