It didn’t take long for Larry Page to fulfill my predictionthat he would figure out that being more public with his plans and thoughts would bring benefits to him and Google. Yesterday he did an interview with Businessweek. And now he has posted a detailed memo (on his Google+ stream, natch, via a link to Google's Investor Relations site) titled "Update From the CEO 2012," where he explicitly sketches those plans and thoughts.
If you read my post yesterday -- headlined "Impatience Is a Virtue," you won't be surprised at his prelude: "We’re always impatient to do better for our users," he says. "Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous. So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world. Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up."
Of course that's a mighty challenge when your company has a headcount upward of 30,000 and is about to expand by 20,000 more, when the Motorola Mobility purchase goes through.
In his memo, Page makes his case for a single user experience with social built in. While he admits that Google+ may never become as popular as Facebook, he ticks off its strengths, including the Circles feature and its integration with other Google products. He likes one advantage so much -- the service encourages more high-quality comment threads than its competitors do -- that he puts this observation in boldface.
He also puts a positive spin on the recent changes to Search, including a deeper focus on personalization (answering criticism about the Search Plus Your World update) and Google's efforts to provide answers instead of links to websites that give answers (something that some Congress critters worry might be an abuse of Google's market dominance).
To Larry, it's all about better results delivered speedily.
Though he mentions the Motorola Mobility acquisition, he still is keeping mum about his specific plans until the purchase is officially approved.
The latter half of the memo more squarely addresses his critics. To those who would cry that Google's recent moves don't make sense, he reminds people that when he and Sergey started the company, people dismissed their efforts to build a service around the "solved" problem of search. "Today it feels like we’re watching the same movie in slow motion over again," he says. (And if there's anything Page hates, it's slow motion.)
Then he lashes back at those who say that Google has abandoned its "Don't Be Evil" standard. "We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love," he writes. After insisting that Google is still devoted to that difficult standard despite its size and competitive pressures, he even invokes the e-word: "We have always believed that it’s possible to make money without being evil."
Even though Google doesn't always get things right, he says, it's trying hard and doing a good job. And when it makes mistakes, he says, it explains what went wrong -- this is the one part in my quick reading of his statement where I'd like more supporting data. I still don't feel Google has answered all the questions raised by several major blunders of the last couple of years.
Page finishes the letter by addressing what clearly is in his heart — the belief that technology can put the impossible within our grasp. (I describe this core value of his in detail in a profile drawn from my book that Wired ran last year.) Recent Google accomplishments like allowing a blind person to drive a car and enabling video chat from the Great Barrier Reef exemplify the "magic" he hopes Google brings to the world -- and also acts as a recruiting carrot to those considering working at Google -- or staying there once they are hired.
Though the memo of course puts Google in its best light, it does have a sense of authenticity, as it accurately reflects the values and thought process of its author.
Welcome to the conversation, CEO Page. And please click that "public" button more often when you share to your circles.
