Google's Annual Report
2012 Update from the CEO
VELOCITY, EXECUTION AND FOCUS
Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people’s lives and, hopefully, the world. And in the decade-plus that’s followed, we’ve been constantly delighted by the ways in which people have used our technology—such as making an artificial limb using old designs discovered online.
But we’re always impatient to do better for our users. Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous.
So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world.
Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up.
In April 2011, I began by reorganizing the management team around our core products to improve responsibility and accountability across Google. I also kicked off a big clean-up. Google has so many opportunities that, unless we make some hard choices, we end up spreading ourselves too thin and don’t have the impact we want. So we have closed or combined over 30 products, including projects like Knol and Sidewiki. In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look.
I
A BEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE EXPERIENCE ACROSS GOOGLE
Creating a simpler, more intuitive experience across Google has been another important focus. I have always believed that technology should do the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers! That means making our products work together seamlessly. People shouldn’t have to navigate
Google to get stuff done. It should just happen. As Sergey said in the memorable way only he can, “We’ve let a
VELOCITY, EXECUTION AND FOCUS
Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people’s lives and, hopefully, the world. And in the decade-plus that’s followed, we’ve been constantly delighted by the ways in which people have used our technology—such as making an artificial limb using old designs discovered online.
But we’re always impatient to do better for our users. Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous.
So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world.
Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up.
In April 2011, I began by reorganizing the management team around our core products to improve responsibility and accountability across Google. I also kicked off a big clean-up. Google has so many opportunities that, unless we make some hard choices, we end up spreading ourselves too thin and don’t have the impact we want. So we have closed or combined over 30 products, including projects like Knol and Sidewiki. In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look.
I
A BEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE EXPERIENCE ACROSS GOOGLE
Creating a simpler, more intuitive experience across Google has been another important focus. I have always believed that technology should do the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers! That means making our products work together seamlessly. People shouldn’t have to navigate
Google to get stuff done. It should just happen. As Sergey said in the memorable way only he can, “We’ve let a