[synnik]

Not to nitpick, but founding Google doesn't automatically qualify you for a job at any large company, as the article states.

Not that I would refuse him a job... but it would require the same interview process as anyone, because I need to find out what he knows about my industry, what his current skills truly are, learn his philosophies, and find out how he would fit culturally.

Even brilliant people are sometimes crappy fits for the specific roles a large company may have to offer.

[0x12]

I'd give him his 20% time and hope he'd come up with the next big thing in search.

Some people you fit to the company, others, you fit the company to them. Brin is in the latter category. Rare, but they do exist.

[silverbax88]

I tend to take the advice of people who have run more companies than I have, and they would not agree:

"I used to fall in love with everyone I interviewed and I'd say, 'We can make anybody successful' or 'We can find a job for any talented person.' And that's just completely wrong and a really bad idea. HR people should figure out job descriptions. God forbid I should ever do that."

- Howard Tullman, founder of Experiencia, Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, The Cobalt Group and Tunes.com (Tullman sold his first company in 1987 for $100 million)

[zwischenzug]

I have to spend a good few weeks beating the phrase "he seems like a really nice guy" out of my trainee interviewers.

"That's lovely for you and him - it's just _not relevant_. Can they do the job?"

[nycruz]

agree.

[silverbax88]

Yes, sort of like Michael Jordan playing baseball.

[andrewtbham]

jordan actually could have been a great baseball player. there is a documentary about it and people who were initially very skeptical eventually changed their mind. he would have gone to the majors, but there was a strike. this example is more in the camp of hire great people if you can.

[silverbax88]

That's really overstating Jordan's future as a baseball player. Jordan was never seriously considered a major league player.

He's much closer to being a pro golfer than a major league baseball player.

[detst]

This is getting way OT but I can assure you the odds of him becoming even an occasional PGA Tour player are not even remotely as good as they were for him to make an MLB roster (of course, at the time he retired from basketball). If the GP is overstating, you are massively overstating his golfing abilities.

[silverbax88]

Ha ha you guys are killing me with this. I don't even know what to say, but, yeah, it's way OT at this point.

[itswindy]

That's the risk every entrepreneur takes. Next time you need a job you have have a 10 year 'gap' in your resume.

Other than founding Google, their supposedly big ideas are just on gambling shareholder's money and make more money via Google in suspicious way. Search still makes 97% of their money, Android was * from others and market share is being lost to Microsoft.

[0x12]

Search makes no money at all. But adsense does.

[itswindy]

Search makes no money at all. But adsense does.

Adsense relatively makes little since they pay most to site-owners, whatever they call the ads on Google make the money. After 11 years has, Google has what, other than search?

[joe_bloggs]

Yep! What have the Romans ever done for us?

[itswindy]

Google can disappear tomorrow and Bing, Blekko and DDG can take over. Webmasters will get more traffic since all have way less ads than Google, and that's about it. You know what happened after the fall of the Roman empire, do you?

[cooperadymas]

Uh.

YouTube. Android (their market share isn't declining). Likely the most popular cloud office suite. GMail. Picasa. Google+. Analytics.

Just to name a few.

I'm pretty sure AdSense accounts for around 30-35% of Google's revenue.

[victorantos]

In an interview Erik said about 90% of revenue is from adsense

[cooperadymas]

I'm not sure, but if he said something like that he probably meant AdWords.

You can see their Q4 2010 earnings statement at http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.... . Here is the relevant portion for AdSense:

"Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion."

If publishers are paid 68%, this means Google's share is roughly $650mill for that quarter.

[itswindy]

Without Google, Ytbe would be sued to oblivion, and if it's making money it can't be that much.

Android would last a couple of hours without Google's tens of billions in protection. Isn't it free anyway?

Revenue vs earnings matter on Adsense. Their pay and inventory is linked to the power of Google.

So in the end Google has, search.

[itswindy]

Sorry, I mean search market share was declining. Gmail is # to Hotmail and Yahoo, despite all the hype.

Can G out-Microsoft Microsoft in Office? I doubt it. Analytics and everything else is subsidized by search.

[nmridul]

I would hire him just for the publicity. It will be worth every advertisement dollar ever spent..