[email protected] asks 'What's Google worth' and gets everything wrong. Read this article for an ironic but
killer example of exactly what makes Google so successful. It's dispensed with most of the theory - branding, finance, strategy - discussed in this article, and focused instead on providing things that people derive massive value from. And doing it again, and again, and again.
Yes, strategy really can be that simple - when your competitors aren't thinking, but playing value extraction games. That's what all the pop-ups, dubious search results, nonsense acquisitions, lack of focus, and lack of innovation by all of Google's competitors were about.
"...�The prime advantage of going public is access to capital,� says John Percival, adjunct professor of finance at Wharton. �It�s not clear, however, that there�s a necessity here for access to capital".
Nice theory. Try squaring that with the incentives of Google's VCs.
�There are lots of competitors in this space, and Google still manages to win, based on its technology and its brand,� adds Wharton legal studies professor Dan Hunter".
ARGH. Wrong. Google
isn't winning on it's brand. Think about it this way. Tomorrow, MS could buy Google, turn it into crapware, and everybody would just shift to using whatever the Google team made next. Google's value is in it's learning capability and it's resource in user-focused technology - it's a textbook example of how dominant technology often
isn't the most advanced, but the one users derive the most value from.
Sheesh. If Google was run MBA-style like this, it'd be...just like all of it's competitors. Lesson: never hire an MBA. Ever.