Fortune takes a close, hard look at Google, ahead of its expected IPO:
[T]he worrisome news: Google has grown arrogant, making some of its executives as frustrating to deal with in negotiations as AOL’s cowboy salesmen during the bubble. It has grown so fast that employees and business partners are often confused about who does what. A rise of stock- and option-stoked greed is creating rifts within the company. Employees carp that Google is morphing in strange and nerve-racking ways. And talk swirls over the question of who’s really in charge: CEO Schmidt or co-founders Brin and Page?
There were probably similar questions being asked of Yahoo when it went public (or maybe not – those were the bubble days). I think Google has a very able leadership in Schmidt, Page and Brin – they want to show they can match up to the hoopla, and I am quite confident they will. The big challenges are yet to come. Everyone guns for the leader. Hopefully, Google’s management has learnt some of the lessons from history as it readies to do even greater battle with the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft.
