Ten years ago, Google co-founder Larry Page gave up his role as CEO to an executive who had more experience with fast-growing technology companies: former Novell CEO Eric Schmidt.
This week, Page took back the reigns of power at the company he helped create. On the surface, Page seems to be inheriting a company in great shape. It still controls two-thirds of the search market, its Android mobile OS is rapidly growing, and it has an array of successful products like Gmail, Google Docs and YouTube.
When you peel back the layers though, Google is a company that has many looming challenges. Facebook’s skyrocketing growth seriously threatens Google’s supremacy on the web, and its big attempts to enter the social space have flopped spect acularly. It also faces pressure from Apple, now the world’s second most valuable company, and Microsoft, whose relaunched search engine simply won’t go away.
If Page is to successfully navigate Google through these choppy waters, he needs to hire a COO that will complement his own strengths and handle many of the day-to-day affairs required to operate a company of that size.
To explain why, all you need to do is take a look at two of the search giant’s biggest rivals: Apple and Facebook.
Jobs and Cook
From left to right: Tim Cook (COO), Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller (SVP Marketing)
As I argued in a previous edition of this column, Google needs its own Steve Jobs, a visionary CEO who can create new products that take off in the face of fierce competition. It took Jobs’s vision and relentless pursuit of great products to bring Apple from the brink of bankruptcy to the incredible success it enjoys today.
Jobs d idn’t do it alone,...
