

WSJ: A Very Gloomy Picture Of Larry Page's Short Tenure As Google CEO - chugger
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576536521984562128.html
Challenges have piled up for Mr. Page since he assumed his post in April. They include a broad U.S. antitrust probe of the company's practices; the settlement of a long-running criminal investigation into Google's advertising business; and shifting industry forces that led him to make a deal to buy mobile-device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings..
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m0th87
In his short tenure, he's shipped Google+, coordinated the redesign of several
Google properties and reorganized the entire company [1].

Even if he wasn't focused on these long-term projects, it would be foolish to
judge him this early on. This piece speaks more about the cynicism of WSJ than
of Page & Google.

1:
[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/exclusive...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/exclusive-
google-ceo-larry-page-completes-major-reorganization-of-internet-search-
giant.html)

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chugger
I absolutely agree with you but unfortunately, none of those you mentioned are
currently creating "value" for shareholders, which is what these short-sighted
Wall Street analysts are looking for.

In fact, two things that "destroyed" value (at least in the short term)
happened under Larry's watch. 1) 12.5 Billion acquisition of Motorola 2) $500
Million settlement with the DOJ.

Read my other comment below for more details.

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mindstab
Ha they dropped 9.1% compared to the market's 8.4%? So the only dropped 0.7%
below market average. That's really not so much. Sounds like they are trying
to make it seem larger by phrasing it that way. The whole article seems a
little sensational. A lot of this stuff doesn't have so much to do with him.

~~~
ramanujan
This whole article is quite silly. It puts a negative spin on his tenure as
CEO by downplaying the single most important fact: under Page, Google+
actually shipped, and was actually good! Gundotra and Horowitz led the
operation, true, but it's hard to believe Larry Page wasn't heavily involved
with that.

All the rest is short term ephemera. 9.1% vs. 8.4% is, as you note, nothing.
The Motorala deal is for the patents, and they'll probably spin off the
hardware end after the deal closes. Expensive but well within Google's budget.
As for the $500 million payment, the federal government is suing every company
it's not bailing out. Nowadays some sort of federal shakedown is just a cost
of doing business in the US, unfortunately. Heck, some guy even recently tried
to get Dropbox in trouble with the FTC. You get big enough and you're just a
target for all kinds of this stuff.

In his short tenure, Page cleaned house, fired tons of nonperforming "VP
Bizdev" types, and catalyzed nothing short of an engineering renaissance at
Google. Google+ in particular is tremendous for internal company morale and
has stemmed the tide of defections to FB. Page knows what's important, but
Amir Efrati, the author of this Journal piece, clearly does not.

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ansy
I think the jury is still out on the Motorola deal. That is a lot of money
just for patents. Even for Google's checkbook. And if Google intends to spin
off the hardware business expect it to take an even bigger loss on its
investment.

If Google+ stemmed defections to Facebook that is a good thing. But hopefully
a lot more is in store than what Google+ delivered. It was not nearly enough
to undo Facebook's market dominance.

Eric might have found another solution to the Motorola merger if he was
heading the company. But who knows if it would have been better. He already
passed on both Palm and Sun. Together they would still have been much less
than Motorola and probably twice as useful.

~~~
joebadmo
From a blog post[1] I wrote:

 _Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent.

MMI: ($12.5B - $5.5B (cash and assets)) / 14,300 patents = $489,510.49 per
patent.

Plus 6,700 patents pending.

Plus a hardware company._

It was a lot of money. But it looks like a pretty good deal against the market
rate, if the Nortel deal was any indication.

Schmidt is still executive chairman.

[1]: [http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9026076073/google-motorola-
an...](http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9026076073/google-motorola-and-patents)

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smoody
If you don't subscribe to WSJ (like me), then you can pull the full article by
clicking on it from a google search results page:
[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=For+Google+CEO+Larry+Page%2C+a+Difficult+Premiere+Role)

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andrewljohnson
Doesn't work for me... probably have cookies?

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nickgeiger
I deleted all WSJ cookies then clicked the link from the Google search results
and it worked.

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jbooth
So, apparently the order went out, and with typical news corp subtlety the WSJ
is going after Google. Last week the piece with them and Apple, now this.

So who wants to speculate on motivations: Murdoch business interest? Or a
sense that Google and Obama are friends?

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saturdaysaint
It's always been easy to point out a few Google products that essentially own
their category and a few more that are dying quietly on the vine. What would
really worry me is if that culture of calculated gambles goes away.

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yuvipanda
That didn't sound gloomy to me at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

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abbott
sensationalist (headline, article, author, etc.).

