Once in a century does a company come that takes the world by storm and changes the way people live. After that invention of the printing press, if there is one invention that has rapidly changed the way we consume and share information, then it has to be the phenom called Google. In as span of a decade Google has become the most powerful and recognizable brand ever, beating brands like Microsoft, GE and even Coca-Cola who have been present for a considerable amount of time. Google has a market value of 147 Billion dollars and their major source of revenue is advertising. So what makes Google tick? What is it that they have and the others don't have?
On the top of my head I can think of the following:
The management:
The three people at the helm of Google, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the CEO Eric Schimdt make a powerful team and have their roles chalked out very clearly. With Page looking into the developments of various products and Brin, who is supposed be to be an excellent at making and negotiating deals, managing the Business aspects of Google both take on deversified yet important roles in shaping Google's present and future. Eric Schmidt looks after the day-to-day at Google which has helped in Google growing so rapidly yet without losing its focus and speed.
The infrastructure:
Google boasts of an infrastructure which only few companies can even think of building. Google has inexpensively built out its computing infrastructure by using thousands of "commodity" servers, instead of fewer high-end, and high-priced, machines. These servers deliver instant search results to millions of internet users across the globe. The company also wrote its own file system, called Google File System, which is optimized for handling large blocks of data.
The culture:
Though Google has grown rapidly both in revenues as well in number of employees, it has tried hard to maintain the feel of a startup. The workplace at google still is supposed to be quite similar to that of a grad school. At the Google Headquarters recreational amenities, snack rooms are scattered throughout the campus. Also they have 80-20 work culture whereby an employee works 80% of his time on google projects and 20% of his time on projects that interest them. One of succesful projects coming out of this is the massively popular social networking site Orkut and the email service Gmail.
The people:
Of all the factors mentioned above its the quality of people at google that makes google what it is today. At the time of the dot com bubble when all companies were firing everyone in Silicon Valley, Google was smart enough to hire these computer genuises and build up a strong foundation in terms of brain power. And today the brain power that google has at its disposal is something that every tech company envies.
Even if Yahoo!, Microsoft, or some unknown upstart manages within the next few years to unseat the reigning giant of search engines, I doubt any will be able to replace the mystique and the niche that Google has achieved. Google has managed to fascinate everyone from the homeless at your local public library to presidents. Some people mistake it for the Internet. And nearly everyone has their favorite Google story. There seems to be no end in site to Google madness, mimicry, or mutation. All we can do is sit back, click, and enjoy it.
On the top of my head I can think of the following:
The management:
The three people at the helm of Google, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the CEO Eric Schimdt make a powerful team and have their roles chalked out very clearly. With Page looking into the developments of various products and Brin, who is supposed be to be an excellent at making and negotiating deals, managing the Business aspects of Google both take on deversified yet important roles in shaping Google's present and future. Eric Schmidt looks after the day-to-day at Google which has helped in Google growing so rapidly yet without losing its focus and speed.
The infrastructure:
Google boasts of an infrastructure which only few companies can even think of building. Google has inexpensively built out its computing infrastructure by using thousands of "commodity" servers, instead of fewer high-end, and high-priced, machines. These servers deliver instant search results to millions of internet users across the globe. The company also wrote its own file system, called Google File System, which is optimized for handling large blocks of data.
The culture:
Though Google has grown rapidly both in revenues as well in number of employees, it has tried hard to maintain the feel of a startup. The workplace at google still is supposed to be quite similar to that of a grad school. At the Google Headquarters recreational amenities, snack rooms are scattered throughout the campus. Also they have 80-20 work culture whereby an employee works 80% of his time on google projects and 20% of his time on projects that interest them. One of succesful projects coming out of this is the massively popular social networking site Orkut and the email service Gmail.
The people:
Of all the factors mentioned above its the quality of people at google that makes google what it is today. At the time of the dot com bubble when all companies were firing everyone in Silicon Valley, Google was smart enough to hire these computer genuises and build up a strong foundation in terms of brain power. And today the brain power that google has at its disposal is something that every tech company envies.
Even if Yahoo!, Microsoft, or some unknown upstart manages within the next few years to unseat the reigning giant of search engines, I doubt any will be able to replace the mystique and the niche that Google has achieved. Google has managed to fascinate everyone from the homeless at your local public library to presidents. Some people mistake it for the Internet. And nearly everyone has their favorite Google story. There seems to be no end in site to Google madness, mimicry, or mutation. All we can do is sit back, click, and enjoy it.
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