Google, The Worlds Most Powerful Ten Year Old
Just 10 years ago Google consisted of two college guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page in a dorm room trying to download the whole world wide web. They didn't have more than their ingenuity, four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet search engine could change the world.
Now Google has a gigantic computer network, nearly 20,000 employees and a $150 billion market value to redefine media, marketing and technology.
Perhaps Google's biggest test in the next decade will be finding a way to pursue its seemingly boundless ambitions without triggering a backlash that derails the company in terms of eventually facing some challenges from the government and rivals.
Google's expanding control over the flow of Internet traffic and advertising already is raising monopoly concerns.
There's a chance U.S. antitrust regulators will challenge Google's plans to sell ads for Yahoo Inc., a fading Internet star whose recent struggles have been magnified by Google's success.
If rules that restrict Google's data collection are implemented, it could make its search engine less relevant and its ad network less profitable.
To protect its interests, Google has hired lobbyists to bend the ears of lawmakers and ramped up its public relations staff to sway opinion as management gears up to conquer new frontiers.
In the latest example of its relentless expansion, Google has just released a Web browser to make its search engine and other online services even more accessible and appealing. Not every peripheral step has gone smoothly, though; several of the company's ancillary products have flopped or never lived up to the hype.
Extending Google's ubiquity to cell phones and other mobile devices sits at the top of management's agenda for the next decade.
But their lengthy to-do list also includes: making digital copies of all the world's books; establishing electronic file cabinets for people's health records; leading the alternative energy charge away from fossil fuels; selling computer programs to businesses over the Internet; and tweaking its search engine so it can better understand requests stated in plain language, just like a human would.
Page and Brin, both 35 now and worth nearly $19 billion apiece, have never left any doubt they view Google as a force for good — a philosophy punctuated by their corporate motto: "Don't Be Evil."
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