Larry Pages First Year as Google CEO - Case Study Example

? An Influential Leader 05-21 Larry Page Google, as we know today, is a blessing of efforts of many meticulous people who worked their way to make the world’s biggest search engine today. Of them all, Larry Page’s name tops the list. He is one of the co-founders of Google and is presently acting as the Chief Executive of Google. Having born to computer scientists parents, he was naturally born with computer skills. His father, Carl Vincent, taught at the Michigan University as a professor of computer science. Gloria Page, his mother, was also a computer programming professor at the same university. At an early age of six, he began interacting with all the computer stuff lying around him. As an adolescent, he became known to the idea that he is going to start up a company of his own. First, he earned Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering and Science from his family university, Michigan University and then did his masters from Stanford University. As he became friends with Sergey Brin at Stanford, they figured out something that interested both of them and contributed towards it, The Anatomy of a Large Scale Hyper textual Web Search Engine. Their first search engine was known as Back Rub, it later came to known as Google. They developed their first algorithm on which Google search results are provided even today. With $1 million investment in 1998, they begin their company Google Inc. During this time period, Page has been able to bring 200 employees to his company and also enhanced the profitability of the company. (Vise,2005) Today, Page is the chief executive of Google and is accountable for daily operations of the firm. He is also responsible for monitoring the technology strategy and product innovation. Larry Page was the first Chief Executive of the company until 2001, and then he handled the products under his president ship from 2001 to 2011. Larry became the CEO of Google on April 4, 2011 again as Google knew that Larry is the chief creative thinker of Google and Google needed Larry. Since he took over as the CEO of Google, he is practicing self governance at Google which is novel to the employees of Google. Page Larry has shifted the focus of Google from a search engine to a distinguishing product which faces threat from social networking sites most importantly the Facebook. Google is now not only a search engine, but offer maps and translations to varied ranges of product. Recently Larry has announced that they will be starting knowledge maps on Google. Page’s leadership is much more focused and dynamic. Employees will just relate to one name and that is Larry’s when it comes to Google. He is applying democratic style of leadership in his organization. He works through and with people. He knows precisely how to tackle his employees and their constraints which was the reason that he was the CEO for such a long time in the past and he became the Chief Executive once again. He is well liked by all employees at Google. (Page, 2007) Today, Google is Page’s organization now. When saying this, we are not disparaging Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and Larry’s assistance in the first 13 years of the company. But since the time that Page took over, independence is bestowed upon this new company. The hierarchy pyramid is removed from the organization where a single Chief Executive owns the company. The company today as we know is more unconventional. On one instance where Larry considers open of his employees, his democratic leadership style is more of a paternalistic one where he does delegate the tasks to his employees but want things done his own way. Googlers persistently shed the light to what Larry wants, what he thinks and what he believes. He acts like a father to all employees like he wants his employees to be competent in their tasks but will guide them towards that tasks. He will want them to achieve their targets the way he wants to pursue the objectives of the company. He will assist his employees to get the right kind of output from them. He is not much of a public speaker and what we know of him is mostly the opinion of employees in his organization. He is threatened by the idea that Google will come down by inactivity, or by social networking sites’ affect or the bureaucracy system. His first step was to rearrange his employees to shift their attention on the products. He brings together his top managers together every now and then so that everyone is up to date on others’ work. (Lowe, 2009) The most impressive part of Page’s reign is that there are some very early employees who were affluent enough to kick him out if they didn’t found his idea of autonomy worth it were satisfied by it and gave a lot for the new Chief Executive. He focused on the threat that has never been highlighted before in the first year of his regime- the historic failure of Google in the social networking arena. He made the bonus dependent on how the company pursues its objectives in the social space. Anxiety geared up in Page as he doesn’t want to come up with a simple product that contends with Facebook. Google is making perfect contributions as it takes in $38billion a year but Page is insistent that Google should be long term rather than short termed or yearly. Google is the world’s top search engine but Page still want to grow, grow into a big social DNA which covers videos, pictures, and what not. Page always thinks beyond the box. He is never happy with the growing yet stagnant immense growth of Google. He wants it to prosper and grow more and more so that it never collapse like other websites had have in the past because of incompetent leadership or short term vision. (The Wall Street Journal) Page works as if his life depends on Google. Working as your life dependent on it is good in various ways as it gives a huge mileage. Due to Google+ there are innovations, such as Google does not work with stylish things. Today, Google wants to know about you. The intimate relationship Google wants to build with its customers will endure certain problems to Google as it is not easy to figure out the write Search, Gmail, Docs, Maps and the list goes on. But, once the company knows about you better, it can serve you better-is the motto of Larry Page. People do wish to make use of individual products of Google and want to get acquainted with it and all of a sudden, engulfing everything together might be scary but Page is ready to take the risk. Google does share the profiles publicly as what music people like, what places they attended, and what books they like to read unlike the Facebook privacy option but do like sharing and when Google introduced this privacy, people were all excited to take it in, Page believes in personification of Google so they enjoy the most and receive the most relevant of all information. (Levy, 2012) Due to endeavors of Larry Page, Google was ranked in the Top 100 Search Engines and Websites in 1998. In 1999, Google also received The Award for Technical Assistance for advancement in Web Application. Google was awarded the award for Outstanding Search Engine in 2001. Also, under the surveillance of Page, Google received Most Webmaster Friendly Search Engine, Best Search engine, and Best Design award as well. Sergey Brin, along with Page, was awarded MIT Technology Review TR100 in 2002 as one of the leaders of innovative technology who are under age of 35 years. Page and Brin graduated with an MBA from the IE Business School for symbolizing the spirit of entrepreneurship and leading to the establishment of innovative businesses. Page is an exemplary leader. He was chosen as one of the Fellows of Foundation of Marconi at the University of Columbia. In 2004, both Page and Brin were awarded the Prize fo Marconi Foundation which is the best award in Engineering. Further he was chosen to represent the National Academy of Engineering. Page and Brin were called by ABC World News Tonight as the Persons of the Week. From the Michigan University, Page did doctorate in Honorary in 2009 during the ceremonies of graduation inauguration. Page is the eleventh affluent person in United States as of 2011 according to the Forbes magazine. He is also the twenty forth richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine. All this wasn’t possible without sheer hard work and diligence he put in his work. (Levy, 2012) Larry Page is keen, eloquent, and clear in his questions/answers session with his employees that he also answers the weirdest questions from his employees. He is open to any query from any employee at any time. He quickly addresses all the problems of his company, working delinquently with his staff and keeps moving forward. He is not the kind of sitting and just let the things going as they are; he believes in innovation, in novelty and he functions through it. But rush and hurry leads to impatience which is all evil. Google was black marked when it was found out that it played with the settings of Safari. In an aggressive attempt to work its “+1” ads to function correctly, under the guidance of Page Google wrongly implemented the real pinch, and thus led to a very serious exploitation of Safari settings. As being the biggest search engine of the world, Google’s every move is carefully watched and doing things in the right manner requires patience which is not a trait of Page. Page believes that it’s wiser to move fast and make errors rather than go on purpose and thus reduce chances. Larry Page is not a sluggish man; his aim is to go fast. He is a steady man and works on the principle that one should move fast. It is the way Google operates! But rapidness has a price and he does pay it. Today, people bear a perception that Google is controlling their lives Government officials and other websites are also endeavoring hard to put a negative image of Google in minds of common men and it gets tricky for Page to work in these circumstances. But his policy of moving fast does bring its benefits. He is not dull and does respond to all of these threats and pressures immediately, finding the solution to each one of them. Page is what Google needs and thus he is giving it all to Google. (Levy, 2012) Google- a search engine only has now evolved to a lot of other things today. But, Larry Page continues to follow the same motto of Google as it was at the time of its establishment. Google today is also a search engine where a huge amount of technology is there to assist people to make their lives more enhanced and improved, and to further improve the community. The mission today also stands out the same as to organize the information of the world in the most comprehensive manner where the information is easily available throughout the globe for everyone. As Google got bigger and bigger, Page has to work a long way to manage the administration of the company as talks between all the members of the company is crucial. He makes sure that co ordination is maintained between all the members and all the departments of the organization. Larry Page was inspired by Mayor Bloomberg that it is effective to inform the employees of the organization that they are going to meet up during the following time of the day and they will be assigned a team for the task assigned to them. He would just get hold of the people he need for his work and get the work done. Larry tries to put people together in a place and make them work. Larry knows exactly how to make people work. (Stone, 2012) Bibliography Vise, D. A., & Malseed, M. (2005). The Google story. New York: Delacorte Press. Lowe, J. (2009). Google speaks: Secrets of the world's greatest billionaire entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons Page, L., Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm), Films Media Group., & TED Conferences LLC. (2007). TEDTalks: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Inside the Google Machine. New York, N.Y: Films Media Group. Levy, Steve. (April 4, 2012). Larry Page’s First Year as Google CEO: Impatience is a Virtue. Epi centre [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/opinion-levy-page-first-year/all/1 The Wall Street Journal. Larry Page. [ONLINE]. Available at: http://topics.wsj.com/person/P/larry-page/374# Stone, Brad (April 4, 2012). Google's Page: Apple's Android Pique 'For Show' [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-04/googles-page-apples-android-pique-for-show#p2 Read More