[Animats]

"How Google Works" by Eric Schmidt is a good place to start.

A bigger question is why was he brought in? Does he need to do a turnaround? Has something gone badly wrong?

What stage are they at? Is there a user base? Do they pay, or is this ad based? Who's the competition? What do you have that they don't? First look at the business from a user perspective, then the technology used to service it. If they're not doing something technically hard, the technology end is about keeping the users happy, scaling and not screwing up.