A well-written 6,026 word essay on Google at the New Yorker. The first half of the essay describes Google's increased focus on Washington (by necessity):
The modest one-man operation in Washington has expanded considerably
and now includes about thirty people, among them Robert Boorstin, a
former speechwriter for President Clinton; Johanna Shelton, a former
senior counsel to Representative John Dingell, chairman of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee; and Pablo Chavez, a former chief counsel
to John McCain. In October, 2006, the company established its own PAC, called NETPAC,
and since then it has hired three outside firms to lobby on its behalf:
the mostly Democratic Podesta Group; King & Spalding, where Google
works with former Senators Connie Mack and Dan Coats, both Republicans;
and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which hired Makan Delrahim, the
former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Bush Justice
Department’s Antitrust Division.
“We’ve been under the radar, if you will, with government and
certain industries,” David Drummond, a Google senior vice-president,
observes. Drummond, who is based in Mountain View, oversees all the
company’s legal affairs. “As we’ve grown, we’re engaging a lot more.
We’ve had to put a lot more emphasis on engaging.” Google’s Washington
office reports to both Drummond and Elliot Schrage, the vice-president
for global communications and public affairs, who is also based in
Mountain View, and one of its immediate tasks has been to address the
privacy issues raised by the proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.
“Privacy is an atomic bomb,” a Google executive who does not want to be
identified says. “Our success is based on trust.”
The essay distinguishes itself from the usual monotony in the latter half. I find the interactions between Brin/Page and Schmidt fascinating:
The youth of the founders (Brin is thirty-four and Page is
thirty-five) leads to jokes that someone like Schmidt, who is
fifty-two, was essential to manage Google. “It borders on insulting to
say that Eric provides ‘adult supervision,’ ” Elliot Schrage says. “It
is insulting to both.” Yet there are times when Schmidt does supervise.
One day, I asked him how he felt about the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which
gives the government broad powers—including wiretapping and reading
e-mail—to investigate terrorist suspects. “I’m not a big fan,” Schmidt
said. “I’m offering you my personal opinion as a citizen.”
Later, at a press lunch attended by the founders and Schmidt, I
asked about Google’s position regarding the government’s use of the
Patriot Act. “I’m not an expert on the Patriot Act,” Brin said. “But
it’s certainly a long-standing issue prior to the Patriot Act—”
“Can I?” Schmidt interrupted. Not waiting for permission, he
proceeded: “The best way to answer this question is to say it’s the law
of the land and we have to follow it.”
“Or, in some cases, we fought it in court,” Brin said, referring to
Google’s successful challenge of a Justice Department request, in
January, 2006, to hand over search data to aid the Bush
Administration’s defense of an Internet-pornography law. The company
accused prosecutors of a “cavalier attitude” and said that the
government was “uninformed” about how search engines work. Again,
Schmidt interrupted, saying, “We fought it legally, and we followed the
law, and we won in court.”
“Every once in a while he does this unintentional condescending
thing, and he does it in public settings,” a Google executive says of
Schmidt. On Tuesdays, Brin, Page, and Schmidt hold product-strategy
meetings, which are dominated by engineers. I was permitted to attend
one, on the condition that the product, and the engineers, not be
identified, but the tenor of the meeting was clear enough: Page and
Brin had wanted an upgrade of an existing product, and they were
unhappy with what they were hearing from the engineers. At first, they
were stonily silent, slid down in their chairs, and occasionally leaned
over to whisper to each other. Schmidt began with technical questions,
but then he switched roles and tried to draw out Page and Brin, saying,
“Larry, say what’s really bugging you.”
Page said that the engineers were not ambitious enough. Brin agreed,
and said that the proposals were “muddled” and too cautious.
“We wanted something big,” Page added. “Instead, you proposed something small. Why are you so resistant?”
The head of the engineering team said that the founders’ own
proposed changes would be too costly in money, time, and engineering
talent.
Schmidt—the only person at the meeting wearing a tie—tried to
summarize their differences. He noted that Brin and Page wanted to
start by deciding the outcome, while the product team focussed first on
the process, and concluded that the engineering would prove too
“disruptive” to achieve the goal.
“I’m just worried that we designed the wrong thing,” Brin said. “And
you’re telling me you’re not designing the optimum system. I think
that’s a mistake. . . . I’m trying to give you permission.”
The product team went on to make a slide presentation, but everyone
there realized that the issues would not be resolved that day. Schmidt
told the team to report back with a detailed design “that is responsive
to Larry and Sergey’s criticism,” and to clarify “what it takes to
build a good product,” and what it would cost in time and money.
However, he balanced this with praise: “But this is very well done. I
love it when people show me the flaws in our products.”
In meetings such as this, Page and Brin are like a tag team, taking
turns as they chide employees for devising something that is merely a
“cute” solution, not a fundamental one. Schmidt says, “They think about
what should be, and they assume it is possible.” Brin and Page also
introduce a measure of what Schmidt refers to, affectionately, as
management “chaos.” Neither has an assistant. Executives check Google
Calendar to learn if Brin or Page plans to attend a meeting. Sometimes,
Schmidt says, the founders show up, unscheduled, for the wrong meeting.
Sometimes they simply disappear—flying off on their Boeing, for
instance, or indulging their newest sport, kite surfing.
I love to see the interaction between founders and management; between technologists and business people; between the young and the old.
The concluding point is the most illumined and effective:
What sets Google apart, Schmidt told me in another conversation, is
that although people like him always assumed that “Google would be an
important company, the founders always assumed that Google would be a
defining company.” He remembers a day in 2002 when he walked into
Page’s office and Page started to show off a book scanner he had built.
“What are you going to do with that, Larry?” Schmidt recalls asking.
“We’re going to scan all the books in the world,” Page replied.
Eventually, Google began to do just that.
It hits at the heart of, I think, what every entrepreneur wants. Not to just build and "important company", but rather a "defining company".
