In Search Of The Real Google

Google has one other big challenge: itself. Are 100 "top priorities" too many to keep track of? Or has Google created a system that can handle it all? So far, it has managed to innovate fast enough to justify all the hiring and, arguably, even the sky-high share price. And along the way, a lot of people have become very rich. (Brin and Page are probably worth about $10 billion apiece.) But the annals of Wall Street are littered with tales of brilliant founders who created successful companies, then branched into too many areas, only to see it all come crumbling down or, just as bad, to see new guys in suits come in to run things. Schmidt's guiding hand and the 70-20-10 system are supposed to ensure that that won't happen. Brin and Page also brought in Bill Campbell, the chairman of Intuit, as a trusted management adviser.

Yet Google may also have to adapt to its new identity. It's hard to stay quirky and beloved when you're the $100 billion gorilla in the room, especially if you make unsavory deals with Beijing. And that wasn't Google's first p.r. hit. A reporter for tech-news website CNET last year set out to discover how much personal data she could find about CEO Schmidt by googling him. She uncovered his net worth, street address, whom he had invited to a political fund raiser--and put it all online. Google went ballistic, declaring it would boycott CNET for a year. After intense criticism, it dropped the ban.

Ultimately, Google's business proposition is about trust. It retains loads of our data--what we search for, what we say in our Gmails--so we need to know it won't be evil with them. That's why Google declined that U.S. government request. That's also why, unlike Yahoo!, Google doesn't want to create its own content in any significant way. Once you do that, Brin and Page reason, people will start to wonder about the search results, whether they are skewed to help Google's bottom line. And once people wonder about that, the whole model--of this innovative, seemingly trustworthy company--is compromised. Do the Google guys pay attention to what people think? You bet. During our interview, Brin pops out to look for the December copy of Wired. In 2004 the magazine had put him and Page on the cover with the adoring line GOOGLEMANIA! The recent cover, by contrast, includes the line GOOGLEPHOBIA: WHO'S AFRAID OF SERGEY? (WHO ISN'T?), touting an article about the enemies Google is making as it expands. Brin picks up the issue and shakes his head in dismay. "I find it surprising," he says. But that's what happens when you're No. 1, even if you're trying to be the good guy.

With reporting by Laura A. Locke / San Francisco