Netizen

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Chairman Larry (Chairman Mao): Larry Page's Dramatic Corporate Overhaul

This is awesome. Other than the fact that Indians are clearly taking over the world, I must say the Google corporate structure and culture are pretty impressive inventions in their own right. And this just adds to the genius of it. I am not sure you can call this overhaul. It is more like the cactus flower popped up open.

THE INVENTION OF ALPHABET IS THE ULTIMATE LARRY PAGE MOVE

ONCE YOU GET YOUR HEAD AROUND IT, GOOGLE'S MIND-BENDER OF AN ANNOUNCEMENT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. ........ It has long been obvious that what got Page excited wasn't sitting in meetings about incremental improvements to Google search, Gmail, or YouTube. ...... wants to boil new oceans, such as transportation, connectivity, and life itself. ..... Page has been grooming Pichai to be Google's CEO. ...... The key thing is to have the right mix of projects, and to think about, "Maybe I can take on more projects." ...... Page has been contemplating the move he announced today for years ..... The Google brand is among the most resonant ones on the planet, and Page says that Alphabet won't even be a consumer brand. ...... And when Larry Page does the kind of things that Larry Page does, nobody's going to describe his behavior as "Alphabet-y." Whatever the name of the company he runs, he will continue to define what it means to be Google-y.

G is for Google

From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have. ..... We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about. ..... We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant. ...... In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. ...... We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We'll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole. ......

Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now
..... frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. ........ Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure. ...... Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.

With Google as Alphabet, a Bid to Dream Big Beyond Search

Google’s expanding universe of products, which are as varied as operating systems, a web browser, email, cloud storage, self-driving cars and, yes, even a search engine. ...... Mr. Page’s announcement on Monday that Google will restructure its operations into a General Electric-like conglomerate called Alphabet, of which the search company will become just one division. ...... By creating a half-dozen (for now) adjacent companies that are each dedicated to solving a technological problem, the structure allows for both tactical narrowness and strategic breadth. ....... it is peerless in the industry as an exporter of corporate culture. Google pioneered what has become the archetype of the modern Silicon Valley company — an engineering-driven culture in which internal hierarchies are suppressed, empirical evidence is prized and people are given wide leeway to work on problems that excite them, even if they seem far removed from a central corporate mission. ....... Tech founders increasingly argue that every sector of modern life, including health care, transportation, media and education, will be improved by the liberal application of computing technology.

Google Creates Parent Company Called Alphabet in Restructuring

Google said Monday it had created a holding company, Alphabet Inc., that will manage each of its growing cast of businesses, including those building robots and self-driving cars, helping to cure disease, developing nanoparticles and extending Internet connectivity via balloons. ..... a structure similar to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ...... Mr. Page said he looks to Berkshire Hathaway as a model for running a large, complex company, according to people who were at the meeting. ...... Google has jumped into dozens of new businesses in recent years, but it remains primarily an advertising company, generating most of its revenue and nearly all of its profit when people click ads in search results. Researcher eMarketer estimates that

Google ends up with one in 10 dollars spent on advertising globally, about $53 billion this year after paying back its partners.
...... Non-Google units will include Nest, the connected-home business run by Tony Fadell; Fiber, Google’s fast Internet service; Calico, the health research lab headed by Art Levinson; Google X, the company’s research lab that pursues long-term risky projects like the self-driving car; Google Ventures, its venture-capital arm; Google Capital, a late-stage investment unit; and Sidewalk, a recently formed urban technology project headed by Dan Doctoroff.

Elon Musk: Myths And Legends: Be That As It May

Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth

The idea that particular individuals drive history has long been discredited. Yet it persists in the tech industry, obscuring some of the fundamental factors in innovation. ...... usk is the CEO of Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars; the CEO of SpaceX, which makes rockets; and the chairman of SolarCity, which provides solar power systems. A self-made billionaire, programmer, and engineer—as well as an inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies—he has been on the cover of Fortune and Time. ....... Scholars are “eager to identify and give due credit to significant people but also recognize that they are operating in a context which enables the work.” In other words, great leaders rely on the resources and opportunities available to them, which means they do not shape history as much as they are molded by the moments in which they live. ...... Musk’s success would not have been possible without, among other things, government funding for basic research and subsidies for electric cars and solar panels. Above all, he has benefited from a long series of innovations in batteries, solar cells, and space travel. He no more produced the technological landscape in which he operates than the Russians created the harsh winter that allowed them to vanquish Napoleon. ...... the man’s repeated “willingness to tackle impossible things” has “turned him into a deity in Silicon Valley.” ...... Born in South Africa in 1971, Musk moved to Canada at age 17; he took a job cleaning the boiler room of a lumber mill and then talked his way into an internship at a bank by cold-calling a top executive. After studying physics and economics in Canada and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he enrolled in a PhD program at Stanford but opted out after a couple of days. Instead, in 1995, he cofounded a company called Zip2, which provided an online map of businesses—“a primitive Google maps meets Yelp,” as Vance puts it. Although he was not the most polished coder, Musk worked around the clock and slept “on a beanbag next to his desk.” This drive is “what the VCs saw—that he was willing to stake his existence on building out this platform,” an early employee told Vance. After Compaq bought Zip2, in 1999, Musk helped found an online financial services company that eventually became PayPal. This was when he “began to hone his trademark style of entering an ultracomplex business and not letting the fact that he knew very little about the industry’s nuances bother him,” Vance writes. ............ When eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, in 2002, Musk emerged with the wherewithal to pursue two passions he believed could change the world. He founded SpaceX with the goal of building cheaper rockets that would facilitate research and space travel. Investing over $100 million of his personal fortune, he hired engineers with aeronautics experience, built a factory in Los Angeles, and began to oversee test launches from a remote island between Hawaii and Guam. At the same time, Musk cofounded Tesla Motors to develop battery technology and electric cars. Over the years, he cultivated a media persona that was “part playboy, part space cowboy,” Vance writes. ...... Those who survive under Musk tend to be workhorses willing to forgo public acclaim. ..... Musk’s success at Tesla is undergirded by public-sector investment and political support for clean tech. For starters, Tesla relies on lithium-ion batteries pioneered in the late 1980s with major funding from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Tesla has benefited significantly from guaranteed loans and state and federal subsidies. In 2010, the company reached a loan agreement with the Department of Energy worth $465 million. (Under this arrangement, Tesla agreed to produce battery packs that other companies could benefit from and promised to manufacture electric cars in the United States.) In addition, Tesla has received $1.29 billion in tax incentives from Nevada, where it is building a “gigafactory” to produce batteries for cars and consumers. It has won an array of other loans and tax credits, plus rebates for its consumers, totaling another $1 billion

Be that as it may. But there is something to Elon, and there was something to Steve Jobs. One example. Americas' original mission is a total spread of democracy. The Internet can help. Just beam the Internet everywhere and you have it. But the US government is not doing it. Elon is.

Elon Musk is no Isaac Newton. But there is one theory that says Calculus would have showed up around the time it showed up, with or without Isaac Newton. What does that take away from Isaan Newton? One trait of the entrepreneur is to be in his/her time but also beyond it. The entrepreneur floats in the time dimension, and helps us do the same.

The entrepreneur has a role. The receptionist has a role. The receptionist can always drop out and become an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is not CFO, or COO, or an engineer. Like someone on his team once asked Steve Jobs, "What do YOU do?"

"You play musical instruments, I play the orchestra," he replied.

This is not to say government is not important. And it is not just about cutting edge research it funds (and it, in turn, is funded by the people). It is also about basic law and order. And that is no small thing. There are a lot of countries out there that don't have that. It is about things like free speech. And that is a really big thing.

China did double digit rates for three decades. But America has always had the free speech advantage. China has been playing catch up. To dream up the industries of tomorrow, you need a culture of free speech. That is political innovation.

I have said somewhere, if India is to some day surpass America, it will be because India beat America at free speech and diversity. But first it has to do the China thing of getting the basics right.

Just like there are 100 Senators and one Barack Obama in Washington, there are 1,000 entrepreneurs and one Elon Musk in Silicon Valley. Technically he is in LA.

The entrepreneur is the life force inside a company. And there is no one else right now who is attempting the big sweeps.

And glory is to government R&D. Let's double that budget. And let's keep the pickpockets away.

Oracle was an itty bitty company, and then it snatched a contract from the CIA, and then there was no looking back for Larry Ellison. Elon Musk was dead, almost dead, and then NASA called with a billion dollar check. And he lived to see another day. Who says government does not have a role? Of course it does.

Also, Elon was a grown man when he showed up in America. He has said only in America is this even possible. How many times does he need to say that? Once is enough. Now on to Mars.