Google's Mission and Values, an Analysis
Introduction 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).
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).
References: Google Incorporated. (2010), Quick Profile, Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://www.google.com/corporate/facts.html. Google Incorporated. (2009), Our Philosophy, Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html. Viney, D. (2008). Search Engine History - Web Search Before Google, Retrieved November 19, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Search-Engine-History---Web-Search-Before-Google&id=823256. Richelson, J and Evans, M. (1999). National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 16 Tiananmen Square, 1989 The Declassified History. Retrieved November 21, 2010, from http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/. Penny, J.. (2010). What Would Google Do? [review of the book What would Google Do?]. Personnel Psychology, 63(3), 809-812. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Complete. (Document ID: 2129960751). Google Incorporated. (2010), Google Wave labs, Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://wave.google.com/about.html. Google Incorporated. (2010), Google Buzz, Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://www.google.com/buzz. Forbes. (2010), The FTC Forgives Googles wifi Sniffing, Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2010/10/27/the-ftc-forgives-googles-wifi-sniffing/.