Google: The world is not enough


So I was talking to Squirrel Boy yesterday and giving him some shit about this alternative energy initiative that they just announced. I was like, Dude what won’t you guys try? Jesus. It’s starting to look pathetic. And what’s the point? You pretty much own the Internet. You made three billion dollars in net profit last year. This year you’ll do four billion. You’re printing money over there in Mountain View. That’s not enough for you? Now you want to own the radio airwaves for cell phones, and the hard drives where people store all their data, and the software that runs their phones, and their word processors and spreadsheets and photo software and email and social networks and every book and magazine and newspaper that was ever printed. And now on top of that you want to own our fucking electricity too? Jesus fucking Christ, dude. What’s next? Greeting cards? A toy company? A chain of donut shops? Are you going to put Tim Hortons out of business? What would be enough for you assholes?

Eric did his little Dr. Evil laugh and said, “Nothing will ever be enough, Mr. Powers. Don’t you realize? We’re not going to just own the Internet. We’re going to own (dramatic pause, turn to camera, pinkie in corner of mouth) the entire world. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Then he said, “Seriously, Steve, you think this search monopoly is going to last forever? Have you ever read Andy Grove’s book, the one about how everybody wants to kill you? Our industry is full of companies that used to be great. Look at Sun. And Novell. They used to be huge but they couldn’t invent a second act for themselves and now they’re dog shit.”

I’m like, Dude, didn’t you kind of run both of those companies?

He’s like, “Next question. Fact is, if Google doesn’t come up with something else, we’ll be road kill too.”


Well I’d never looked at it that way. But maybe he’s got a point. The fact is, Google might seem rich and powerful, but in fact they’re in danger. They’ve got a CEO with a wobbly track record and an army of high-IQ oversexed teenagers with severe ADHD running wild in a Montessori pre-school of a campus. (See AdWords “leadership skills exercise” at right.)

Sure, they’ve created lots of billionaires and centimillionaires. But those are the folks who got in early. What about the new kids? How are they ever going to afford a jumbo jet of their own? What new business can Google create to keep these super-bright prodigy kids challenged and interested and working like hamsters in a wheel?

More on that in an upcoming post.