Google is a 21st century company even though it was founded in 1998 with a simple mission statement; “Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google Inc, Quick Profile, 2010, ¶ 1). Google has one vision: to accomplish it mission by providing the best web based services to its end users. According to the Google on its corporate website, there are ten things they (Google) “know to be true” that are the keys to their success (Google Inc, Our Philosophy, 2010, ¶ 4-17)
1.Focus on the user and all else will follow 2.It’s the best to do one thing really, really well. 3.Fast is better than slow. 4.Democracy on the web works. 5.You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. 6.You can make money without doing evil. 7.There’s always more information out there. 8.The need for information crosses all borders. 9.You can be serious without a suit. 10.Great just isn’t good enough.
What does all this mean in relation to the espoused values and vision of the company? This question requires a closer look. History What a grand endeavor founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin undertook when they founded Google. Google’s mission statement seems almost untenable.
Both the founders are brilliant engineers and in light of the advancement of technology and their pension for understanding algorithmic math, they built the first Google search engine. Little did they know how the grand ideals encapsulated in Google’s mission statement could really change the face of the world in which we live, based on the computer coding to search the web more efficiently, but how did that happen? Before Google, from 1994 to 1997 web search was hit or miss using such services as MOSAIC, Wandex, Webcrawler, Infoseek, Lycos, Altavista, Magellan, Excite, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves, Northern Light & Snap, Yahoo, and other smaller search engines. In 1998, that changed with the Google algorithm (Viney, 2008).
Once Google was unleashed into the wild of the World Wide Web, it quickly took its place at the top of the search engine services as the best. To give credence to this fact the very name of the company has become a verb. Very few that live in a “wired” world have not heard the phrase “Google it” in relation to finding an answer on the internet. Google was so far ahead of its times even James Jenny, reviewer of the book by Jeff Jarvis What would Google Do? states “I realized I was reading a glimpse of the future” after gaining an understanding of Google’s grand goal, its mission, organizing the world’s information… (Penny, 2010, pg 810). Philosophy
Google’s founders simply had an understanding of what could be and found a means to try to accomplish it. They idealized that the world would be a better place if everyone, yes everyone, had access to the same information. A capitalism comparison seems appropriate here since it is based on the precept that the best minds can create the best product and that product will win the market. Google did just this in its creation and it has not only revolutionized the world of internet search, it has begun to see it mission statement to fruition.
In the minds of the founders, free information leads to better ideas and actions for all of humanity. Better ideas that will lead overall to a better planet lead by the best thinkers that have the most influence over the direction of industry, politics, and other world opinions, all based on the precept of an unlimited worldview of information that is unlike the education systems in place today in most classrooms. Google espouses the possibility of an education that is not myopic from the point of view of a country’s agenda as can be seen in the teaching of Tiananmen Square in China where none of the textbooks and public media will show the atrocities that happened that day in 1989 as just one example (Richelson and Evans, 1999). Analysis
So how has Google fulfilled its vision, mission, and the edicts of it company’s culture? The answer is not simple and it would require a PHD dissertation to delve into Google’s proposed failures, but even longer, to qualify and quantify its impact of the good it has brought to the world as a whole. It does seem prudent to quickly point out a few of it missteps. A couple of examples are:
1.Google Buzz a Twitter like clone had unintentional consequences for Gmail users because it shared personal information by default with everyone in the users contact list without the consent of the Gmail user. 2.Google Wave was an attempt to redefine email. However, recently Google decided not to continue development due to lack of interest by its end users.
All of this has been possible due to Google’s corporate culture that encourages its employees to communicate freely, innovate constantly, and requires that 20% of every employee’s work week be spent working on personal projects without the direction or oversight of management. Gmail came from this directly as did Buzz and Wave. Even Google’s communication with the rest of the world is open and direct. In a recent blunder by Google’s street view project, individuals’ personal information was collected by Google which in some cases included entire emails, passwords, and other data that was inadvertently broadcast by individuals’ unsecured wifi routers. In response to this Google admitted in earnest that it had done so, but that it did not mean to do it and made every attempt to correct the problem. They were up front enough that even the FTC “forgave” Google for this unintended trespass after they investigated the issue (Forbes, 2010). Conclusion
Overall Google has lived up to its mission and values, both internally and externally. It allows its employees to spread their wings, work in an open environment that promotes ingenuity, and encourages open communication. Google also communicates openly with world governments and humanity as a whole. Even in the wake of Google becoming a public company, it has not lost sight of what makes it special. Google indeed lives up to the ideals it espouses in all respects.