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																						<h3><a href="http://www.appleoutsider.com/2011/01/21/google/">Changes at Google</a></h3>
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					<p>Following a blowout quarter and entering a year where most expect Android to take over the world, Eric Schmidt is out at Google. It&#8217;s a bombshell that raises a ton of questions and speculation.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s no question in my mind that Schmidt was no longer welcome — perhaps also no longer comfortable — as CEO. Nicholas Carson says he was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-and-sergey-didnt-always-tell-eric-schmidt-about-googles-acquisitions-2011-1">not always in charge anyway</a>.</p>
<p>Why is this happening at all, let alone now? A lot of us wonder if this will result in Google being more or less &#8220;evil.&#8221; I don&#8217;t know enough about the company or its leaders to decide that right now, but I do believe that Google has finally become image-conscious, and the &#8220;evil&#8221; controversies of late play into that. I also think the founders are concerned enough about the company&#8217;s focus and direction to make this change.</p>
<p>2010 was a rough year for Google&#8217;s image. As head of the company, Schmidt was beyond unapologetic, and borderline obtuse when discussing Street View, your driving privileges, and your privacy in general. PC World has <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/217313/">a nice recap</a>, nearly all of it from the last ten months.</p>
<p>Even Schmidt&#8217;s <a href="http://twitter.com/ericschmidt/status/28196946376130560 ">parting words</a> were eye-opening until reading Scott Austin&#8217;s flashback. In the worst case it&#8217;s just another awkward comment from a Ph.D. with a history of making awkward comments. Either way, I find it representative of Google&#8217;s current PR problems, no thanks to the CEO.</p>
<p>And what of Sergey? The <a href="http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.html">announcement</a> says he &#8220;will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products,&#8221; but features no quotes from him. While it&#8217;s not unusual for technical folks to roll their sleeves back up, this arrangement strikes me as what I&#8217;ll call &#8220;the Wozniak treatment&#8221;: thanks for getting us here, now go play in your lab and don&#8217;t worry about anything else.</p>
<p>I think focus has become a big issue. Google is an engineering-driven organization that publicly announces more doomed products in a year than most companies do in their lifetimes, all ostensibly in the name of research and creativity. Perhaps the stated goal to &#8220;streamline decision making&#8221; refers to inefficiencies at a lower level that led to these failures. To me, Google&#8217;s decision making needs more no&#8217;s; I haven&#8217;t decided whether or not this is what they mean by &#8220;streamline.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the meantime, the flagship product is suffering. Bing is rapidly gaining share (<a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110114/yahoo-search-is-down-two-months-running-while-microsoft-bing-gains-again/ ">at Yahoo&#8217;s expense</a>&#8230; for now) while Google search <a href="http://www.marco.org/2617546197 ">takes shots</a> on quality and relevance. <a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101129/googles-groupon-offer-5-3-billion-with-700-million-earnout/ ">The Groupon incident</a> suggests that Google is starting to get uncomfortable with its one-dimensional cash cow: yesterday&#8217;s earnings report shows advertising steadily hovering around 96% of annual revenue. It would seem that way too many hours are being wasted while there&#8217;s real business to be done.</p>
<p>Is Google in trouble? Hardly, as the quarterly results tell us. But I don&#8217;t think Larry and the board believe everything is right either, and I don&#8217;t think they want to wait until the trouble is big. If that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re seeing here, then I think it&#8217;s very good for Google&#8217;s future.</p>
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