Larry Page

Rule 1 - Don’t Be Evil

“We have a mantra: don't be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone,” says Page. “So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.” From its search technology to its advertising to its own charitable foundation, Page and Brin have striven to create Google after the fashion of their own morals. The company refuses to place advertisements for hard liquor and donates 1% of its profits to charitable causes all in an effort to not “be evil”.

“It’s just a personal preference,” says Brin. “We don’t allow gun ads, and the gun lobby got upset about that. We don’t try to put our sense of ethics into the search results, but we do when it comes to advertising.” In 2002, British founder of the Body Shop Anita Roddick called actor John Malkovich a “vomitous worm” in her blog. She quickly found a text ad for her site yanked from Google. Roddick had violated Google’s policy of accepting ads for sites that are “anti-” anything. Brin offered to reinstate her ads in exchange for the removal of the Malkovich comment, but Roddick refused. Instead of giving in and accepting the revenues from Roddick’s ads, Brin stood by his principles and kept her ad off Google.

“Things that would normally be side issues for another company carry the weight of responsibility for us,” says Brin. “We have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good – always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, ‘Don’t be evil’ seems the easiest way to summarize it.”

Page agrees, arguing that Google’s success will come about as a result and not in spite of their desire to maintain high moral standards. “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served – as shareholders and in all other ways – by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains,” he says. “This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.”

In order to comply with their mantra, Page and Brin try to keep Google as democratic as possible. In its searches, Google ranks every web page by evaluating all of the sites that link back to it. Thus, Google’s page rankings are based on Internet users themselves and which sites they have deemed most relevant. No amount of money can buy a better page ranking. Page and Brin also make sure that all advertisements on Google are clearly identified as ads so as not to mislead Internet users. Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a “Sponsored Link.”

Google gives a number of advertising grants to nonprofit organizations, allowing them to receive free advertising on Google. Brin also notes that another social good is simply providing a free communication tool to everyone around the world. “A schoolchild in Cambodia can have a Gmail account,” he says. “We want our products to have positive social effects.”

Overall, Page and Brin want Google to continue to be a company that they can be proud of, not only because of its financial success but also because of its positive contribution to society. “We believe that believe that ‘Don’t be evil’ is only half of it,” says Brin. “There’s a ‘Be good’ rule also.”

Rule 2 - Look To the Future

“We are targeting innovation,” says Page. “The dream as conceived 25 years ago has not been achieved. Until software becomes the ultimate tool for collaboration, productivity, and efficiency, the work is not done. And there's nothing more fun than doing that work.”

Despite having created what can no doubt be considered one of the most successful Internet companies in history, Page and Brin are not content with their success. “It's clear there's a lot of room for improvement,” says Brin. “There's no inherent ceiling we’re hitting up on.” Google became an Internet giant by innovating, by looking into the future and anticipating a need. Today, the company continues to do just that, realizing that the door to greater opportunities is an ever-opening one.

“Your mind is tremendously efficient at weighing an enormous amount of information,” says Brin. “We want to make smarter search engines that do a lot of the work for us. The smarter we can make the search engine, the better. Where will it lead? Who knows? But it’s credible to imagine a leap as great as that from hunting through library stacks to a Google session, when we leap from today’s search engines to having the entirety of the world’s information as just one of our thoughts.”

When Brin and Page were first starting out, they realized the shortcomings of their competitors such as Yahoo! and decided to create their own cutting-edge technology. By creating a system that could not only organize and index web pages, but also evaluate their relevance and importance, Google had broken new ground. In order to maintain its position as one of the Internet leaders and visionaries, Google currently devotes much of its budget to exploration: 70% on core products, 20% on related products, and 10% on research.

“As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work,” says Brin. To this end, Google has made it possible to use its technology even when you’re away from your desk. Cell phones and PDAs are just two of the devices that can now be wired with Google technology. Indeed, wherever searches are valuable, Google seems to be looking for new ways to offer solutions. Google has also started to include web search results beyond html files, such as PDF, Excel and PowerPoint files.

Google has also started expanding its infrastructure overseas in order to meet market-specific needs. In the company’s annual letter to investors, Page writes, “Our business environment changes rapidly and needs long-term investment. We will not hesitate to place major bets on promising new opportunities…We will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects because of short term earnings pressure.”

Despite their lofty goals and their seemingly unstoppable ambition, Brin admits that there are limits to the achievements of Google. “We are currently not planning on conquering the world,” he jokes. With four out of five Internet searches taking place on Google, Brin and Page have however undoubtedly conquered their industry.


Rule 3 - Establish a Strong Vision

“Basically, our goal is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful,” says Page. “That's our mission.”

When Page and Brin first started out, they began with one simple idea: not all websites were created equal. They thus decided to build a better search than what was currently out on the Internet. It was a simple mission with a single goal, which to this day, remains at the heart of the company. No matter how many countries Google expands into, no matter how many products it stretches its brand to and no matter how large the company grows, their mission to create the world’s perfect search engine continues to be the driving force behind everything the company does.

“The perfect search engine,” says Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” Despite the significant advances achieved by Google’s search technology, Page admits that, “we're a long, long ways from that.”

Key to Google’s success has been the ability of Page and Brin to rally the company around a single vision, and to focus on doing just one thing extremely well. Page and Brin know that it is better to be the best at one thing than to be mediocre at many. “Google does search,” says Page. “With one of the world's largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better.”

Yes, Google has expanded its product line beyond its core search website. Gmail, Google Desktop and Google Maps are just a few of the examples of products that Google has introduced. But, not once has the company veered off course. It remains committed to improving search technology, and all of its products are offshoots of that single mission. “As we continue to build new products while making search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives,” says Page. “Our dedication to improving search has also allowed us to apply what we've learned to new products.”

It is to this end, to improving its basic search technology, that Google devotes all of its energy. The Google spell checker and the fact that Google search results can be refined in over 35 languages are examples of this. The need for information crosses all borders and Google is devoted to becoming the best at meeting that need.



“When you grow, you continually have to invent new processes,” says Page. “We’ve done a pretty good job keeping up, but it’s an ongoing challenge.” By establishing a clear and single vision and staying committed to this throughout the course of the company’s life, Page and Brin have allowed Google to become a leader in its field. Many Internet companies do many other things well, but none can do precisely what Google does as well as Google does it.


Rule 4 - Take Care of Your Team

“Our employees, who have named themselves Googlers, are everything,” Page explains to his company’s investors. “Google is organized around the ability to attract and leverage the talent of exceptional technologists and business people. We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled and hard working stars. We hope to recruit many more in the future. We will reward and treat them well.”

Despite being the brainchild of Page and Brin, they are the first to admit that the company’s significant growth is the result of the creative and hard working team behind it. One of the management’s top priorities is simply “to have great people working for us,” as Brin says. But, it is not such an easy process. Indeed, the hiring process is one that Google takes very seriously.

In order to attract the best of the best, Page and Brin put much effort into creating a highly desirable environment in which to work. “We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements,” says Page. “I don’t know if other companies care as much about those things as we do.”

To this end, engineers at Google are encouraged to spend up to 20% of their time on their own creative projects that might benefit the company. This has resulted in big successes such as Google News and AdSense. “In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters,” says Page. Employees are given meals free of charge, as well as onsite doctors and washing machines within the GooglePlex, which is decorated with lava lamps and large rubber balls.

“We are careful to consider the long-term advantages to the company of these benefits,” Page tells Google investors. “We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.”

Google also strives hard to maintain a flat organizational structure. “If you can run the company a bit more collaboratively, you get a better result, because you have more bandwidth and checking and balancing going on,” says Page. While the VP of engineering no longer gets 150 direct reports, few walls exist between programmers and management. Instead, Google thrives on its employees, who are all crammed together as efficiently as possible in order to create an energetic atmosphere. “Talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world,” says Page. “Google has large computational resources and distribution that enables individuals to make a difference.”

Page believes that it is because of the significant employee ownership of the company that has made Google what it is today. “Because of our employee talent, Google is doing exciting work in nearly every area of computer science,” he says. “Our main benefit is a workplace with important projects, where employees can contribute and grow.”

Rule 5 - Focus On the User

“Serving our end users is at the heart of what we do and remains our number one priority,” says Page. Despite being perhaps the only company in the world whose stated goal is to have its customers leave its website as quickly as possible, Google is no doubt committed to making those customers as satisfied as possible.

“From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible,” says Page. “While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site.”

To this end, Google has kept its user interface as clear and simple as possible and free from distracting and annoying advertising pop-ups and banners. It has created websites that load instantly and it ensures that all advertisements are labeled as such and are relevant to the user’s search. “By always pacing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web,” says Page. “And that growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.”

Page claims that the keys to user satisfaction are to make the entire package work seamlessly and to give the user instant gratification. “You want answers and you want them right now,” he says. “Who are we to argue?” This is why Page and Brin obsess about shaving every last excess bit from their pages and to increase the efficiency of its servers, claiming that they continue to break their own speed records time after time. “Others assumed larger servers were the fastest way to handle massive amounts of data,” says Page. “Google found networked PCs to be faster. Where others accepted apparent speed limits imposed by search algorithms, Google wrote new algorithms that proved there were no limits. And Google continues to work on making it all go even faster.”

From their own experience, Page and Brin have learned the value of questioning accepted practices and inventing the right ones for them. They are not afraid of trying new things and learning from the results, all in the name of improving user experience. “We’re trying hard to find user needs that aren’t being met at all,” says Page.

But, perhaps the most significant evidence that Google’s priority is on the user lies in the fact that it is the users themselves who determine the search results. In contrast to its predecessors, Google’s revolutionary technology prioritized websites based on the number of links that linked back to a website. Thus, Internet users were, in effect, able to lend their vote to Google search results. “In general we’re trying to use the web’s self-organizing properties to decide which things to present,” says Page. “We don’t want to be in the position of having to decide these things. We take the responsibility seriously.

People depend on us.”