專訪谷歌CEO拉里?佩奇:為何霸主級科技公司會走向衰敗
????谷歌(Google)已經站在了行業的巔峰,該公司首席執行官拉里?佩奇正在追尋越來越多充滿野心的“探月計劃”,這些前沿項目有望改變運輸、醫藥、互聯網以及其他行業。佩奇懷抱的堅定信念,以及谷歌傲人的財務業績,讓他成為今年的《財富》(Fortune)年度商業人物。(請看2014年12月1日《財富》封面故事:《拉里?佩奇——全宇宙最有野心的首席執行官》。) ????在文章發表前就一系列話題接受《財富》專訪時,佩奇暢談了為何霸主級的科技公司會走向衰敗,谷歌準備如何避開這一命運等問題。以下內容摘錄自這次采訪,為了表述清晰,文章進行了一定的編輯。 ????為何霸主級的科技公司會失敗? ????谷歌最初僅有100位員工,一路走來,我一直在詢問一個問題:“我愿意為谷歌工作嗎?”我想總體來說,我的答案是:“愿意。”而我關注的重點之一,就是要確保我們為那些愿意問這些問題、想要保持好奇心和創業精神、并且希望做些事情來改變世界的人營造一個良好的環境。 ????如果去看看大部分我覺得已經達到瓶頸,甚至已經開始衰敗的科技公司,我想我的答案都會是:“不愿意。”對懷抱上述理想的人來說,這些公司并不是好的歸宿。一般說來,這類公司總是在重復同樣的事情,他們可能想竭力擴大規模,但并不適合那些真正想不斷做大事的人。 ????谷歌如何把自動駕駛汽車、診斷癌癥的納米顆粒這類前沿項目納入公司的規劃? ????和以前做的事情相比,我沒覺得這些計劃有那么特別。我記得當我們啟動Gmail項目時,每個人都對我們表示了疑惑,包括公司的同事,他們會問:“我們為什么要去做電子郵件?我們是搜索公司。”最初做Gmail時,我們公司只有不到250人,而甚至在那之前我們就開始討論這個計劃了。考慮到當時公司的規模,我認為那真是雄心勃勃的計劃。 ????現在我們已經有4萬人了(編者注:實際上谷歌目前有5.5萬員工),所以著手做自動駕駛汽車,在我看來并沒那么雄心勃勃。 ????如何抓住移動產品的機遇? ????我認為作為首席執行官,就是要推動所有谷歌人不斷前行。看看我們公司移動部門的員工比例,他們并不占公司全部員工人數的100%,當然這個比例也不應該是100%。但是移動部門的員工比例應該比現在更高些才是。 ????我想如果你問華爾街的人,他們最擔心的應該是怎么通過移動產品掙錢。而我覺得我們在這方面做得很棒。我們總有很多事情可以做。我認為搜索與移動產品契合得很好,在搜索引擎中植入廣告的效果很棒。 ????不過,這個階段的工作在本質上可能更具顛覆性。我們真的需要說:“好吧,如果你使用移動設備,也許你打電話會更方便,或者可以更容易地拜訪某地,或者做這些事的時候能更輕松地獲得幫助。”所以,廣告也許要看起來有所不同,或是應該采取不同的運行方式。 |
????Google is at the top of its game, and its chief executive, Larry Page, is pursuing a growing number of ambitious “moon shots” that could transform transportation, medicine, the Internet itself, and more. Page’s intensity of purpose and his company’s GOOG 1.13% stellar financial results earned him recognition as Businessperson of the Year in Fortune. (See the cover story of our Dec. 1, 2014 issue, “Larry Page–The most ambitious CEO in the universe.”) ????In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the article’s publication, Page discussed with Fortune why dominant technology companies fade and how Google hopes to evade that fate, among other things. Here are a few excerpts of his words from that interview, edited for clarity. ????On why dominant tech companies fail: ????I’m always asking the question, as the company has grown from a hundred people, “Would I want to work for Google?” I think in general the answer is “yes.” Part of my focus has also been making sure that we’re creating an environment for people who want to ask those questions and want to be curious and want to be entrepreneurial and want to do things that are really impactful for the world. ????If I look at most of the tech companies that I felt have kind of reached a plateau or have generally atrophied or something like that, I would say “no,” they weren’t a good home for people who wanted to do those things. In general they kind of kept doing the same thing, kind of eking out a little bit more scale but not really being a place where people want to continue to really do impactful things. ????On how Google’s fabled moonshots—self driving cars, nano-particles for cancer detection—fit into the arc of the company: ????It doesn’t feel all that different than it’s felt before to me in the past. I remember when we started Gmail. Everyone was upset with us, including people in the company, like, “Why are we working on email? We’re a search company.” [We were] less than two hundred and fifty people I think when we started Gmail, and we were talking about that even before that. I think that was pretty ambitious, given the scale of the company. ????So given that we have forty thousand people now [Google employs about 55,000 people, actually. —Ed.], the fact that we’re working on the [self-driving] car doesn’t feel that ambitious to me. ????On seizing the opportunity in mobile: ????I think my job as CEO, it’s always to be pushing people ahead. If I were to look at the percentage of people [working] on mobile, it’s not 100% in the company. And nor should it be 100%. But it should probably be larger than it is. ????I think externally if you asked people on the Street, they’re going to worry mostly about monetization [on mobile]. And I think we’re doing pretty well there. There’s always more work to be done. I think that search is working well on mobile, the ads on search are working well on mobile. ????But the work at this stage is probably more disruptive in nature too. We really need to say, “Well, if you’re on mobile, maybe it’s easier to call someplace, or it’s easier to visit the place, or it’s easier to have help with those things.” So maybe the ads should look a little different or work differently. |