Xoogler Nips Googlers on Value
September 24, 2010
I read “Gmail Creator: Facebook Has the Potential to Be Worth More Than Google” and thought “Wow.” If memory serves me, Mr. Buchheit, the Xoogler, allegedly coined the “Don’t be evil” catchphrase. If true, Mr. Buchheit certainly has a knack for putting words that matter on a needle and shoving it through the fabric of the Web.
Here’s what TechCrunch said in its remarkable story:
Buchheit is an angel investor and co-founder of FriendFeed, the social aggregation and conversation service that Facebook acquired last year (he now works at Facebook doing well, something). But he’s perhaps best known as the key person behind the creation of Gmail for Google. He also had a hand in the creation of AdSense/AdWords as well — you know, the way Google makes all their money. Point is, when he compares Facebook to Google, it’s worth listening to. And that’s exactly what he did a couple days ago on Quora. “I believe many people were (and still are) significantly undervaluing Facebook equity. It has the potential to be worth more than Google,” Buchheit wrote
.
Set aside the actual value of Facebook. Ignore the big numbers implicit in the billions bandied about. The point for me is that Mr. Buchheit has pointed out something that I have sensed since mid 2008. The Google rocket ship may be struggling against gravity. Facebook, as Mr. Buchheit’s comment makes clear to me, is not hampered by the same forces that tug on the Google vehicle. Mr. Buchheit seems to me to be giving voice to an aspect of Google I don’t hear much about, albeit in an interesting way via Quora.
Search has huge capital costs and the ad sales system has made massive investments easy to digest. Google continues to get caught in pesky nation states’ idea of what is in bounds and what is out of bounds. The most recent example is the issue Google has with the Czech Republic.
Facebook stumbles but seems to be able to regain its balance, continue to attract high powered employees, and achieve the kind of visibility that once was Google’s alone.
Now, who should do no evil? A Xoogler at Facebook with a wordsmithing knack?
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2010
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It seems Google has reached a plateau in terms of innovation and being a behemoth makes it difficult to be agile.