Google and Its Third Circle of L: Dante, It Is Searchatory

December 17, 2011

“Exclusive: Google CEO’s Inner Circle: Meet the L Team” is to some a bomb shell. Me? Not so much. The “exclusive” asserted:

In the revamping of the group earlier this year, Page swapped out several of the executives who previously had seats at the table and brought in managers spearheading key initiatives. Among the new members of Page’s cabinet are social networking head Vic Gundotra, Android mobile chief Andy Rubin and YouTube head Salar Kamangar, according to people familiar with the matter. Page meets regularly with the team, which also includes Google’s top finance and legal executives and is now internally called the L Team, to discuss, evaluate and approve their plans, from acquisitions to new products.

Good group. Know what I noticed? Search is not what most of these folks think about. Implications? In my opinion, three:

There is an implicit assumption that search is “just there” or not where it is at.
The focus is shifting to services which create different technical hurdles for Google. Example: fragmentation and consumerization.
From a business point of view, Google is not just navigating in rough waters. Google may not have the fleet it needs to complete its journey to $100 billion.

What the “L”? No search.

Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2011

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.