Comments on: Has Google Bitten Off More Than It Can Chew?

By: earl

earl — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:38:53 +0000

agreed Chris. Who’ve dared to keep the Investors away from decisions on company’s growth, resisting them strongly when asked for returns on their money, can definitely be ready to face such adversities !

By: Chris Lindgren

Chris Lindgren — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:55:50 +0000

“The fact that they hire geniuses and give them 20% of their free time to work on whatever they want is not nearly as important as the fact that they were in one of the fastest growing markets in the world at a time when it exploded.”

You really missed the mark with that statement, ASK.com Yahoo.com and thousands of others can vouch for that fact. Google is more productive. There is no reason to believe they will not be more productive in other areas they enter. Microsoft is Microsoft. Google is Google. You have no idea how they can or cant handle the complexity they will face.

By: laurence haughton

laurence haughton — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:12:28 +0000

Does regression to the mean apply? How about Parkinson’s law of bureaucracy? How about hiring smart people who are “extinct volcanos” as the best universities do? The trick is not predicting that Google has feet of clay but knowing when the hobbling will come.

Joey I would love to find out more about Adwords’ ROI. Are their any good resources doing the sums?

By: Regret

Regret — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:28:19 +0000

Well, of course they won’t grow to the sky… no company ever has or ever will. And you don’t need to be a MENSA member to understand that.

By: joey

joey — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:42:46 +0000

I believe that Google is out of control. I do really hope that they crash and burn and I have been praying that MSN or Yahoo can develop a semi decent share of the search traffic. Google has way too much powerful, the ROI on Adwords advertising is horrible.

I think that they have a good thing going but I can’t wait for it to crash and burn. As a website owner I have paid a lot to advertise on google, and struggled for years to get good listings with their engine.

Remove your Google Toolbars, never click on an Adwords Ad, Support MSN and Yahoo. That is the only way.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:58:46 +0000

David, Excellent link. Thanks.

Wally. Agreed. I joined MENSA a few years ago and, truth be told, the people at the meetings don’t impress me. I think there is even a tendency among highly intelligent people to avoid decisions and actions which might call their intelligence into question. I know I’ve been hit by that before.

By: Wally Bock

Wally Bock — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:28:03 +0000

Good post, Rob. It seems to me that when people start suggesting that the laws of nature, human nature or economics have been repealed, they’re headed for trouble. In Google’s case, so far, most of that language has been by observers, but if Google-heads start to believe it, they’re in for a rough ride. Even Mensa-types make mistakes, it’s part of humanity. That’s why I like my dad’s line that “life is the art of new and better mistakes.”

By: david foster

david foster — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:17:20 +0000

I share your concerns. The ability to deal with technical complexity is not the same thing as the ability to manage business complexity, and it remains to be proven that Goog knows how to balance decentralization and control to achieve the latter.

Plus, I’m not sure the obsessive focus on being “smart” is very smart. This study should raise some caution flags:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_photoncourier_archive.html#5984082311870275848