"Google is not a traditional company. We also don't intend to become a traditional company." When Google went public in 2004, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said in a letter to shareholders.
Google, which accounts for nearly 95% of the market share in the mobile search field; it has many 1 billion products, such as Android, Chrome, YouTube; there are companies such as Waymo, DeepMind... These companies have grown from Small Bets to a market value of 100 billion yuan; it is the earliest entrant in almost every field...
Interestingly, Google founder Larry Page, is extremely low-key compared to other technology giants in Silicon Valley .
Larry Page has always regarded himself as a loyal believer of Jobs , but many media believe that he is more like an enhanced version of Bill Gates . Google has a more ideal business model than , Microsoft and , Apple . It is a combination of both organizational and cultural aspects.
How exactly did this happen?
Chaos Innovation Experience Teacher Cui Xiaoming believes that Google's success is not due to the implementation of the strategy but the realization of the mission. One problem that all managers always face is to learn to transfer individuals to the company, truly start from the corporate mission, and re-understand the company's strategy, organization and culture to form a huge cooperation system.
From this perspective, Larry Page's entrepreneurial path is worth learning from.
This Saturday, Teacher Cui Xiaoming brought the course "Google as Google: How Google uses mission to redefine the company", exploring the underlying logic behind Google's business system from a new perspective, exploring the consistency core of Google's development, and bringing new inspiration. The director of the Chaos Course at
said that this lesson allows you to truly understand Google with one mind.
is the course notes (limited by space, this article is only one-tenth of the course, please go to Chaos APP to listen to the full course!)
teaching teacher | Cui Xiaoming Chaos Innovation Learning
Editing | Chaos Business Research Team
Support | Chaos Frontier Course
Borderless Google
) Google encounters the troubles of growth
Shortly after the founding of Google, at the request of investors, please come to Schmidt as the company CEO.
By 2010, Google encountered growth troubles. Its data is very beautiful, with a market value of 180 billion, 24,000 employees, and a 90% market share in the entire search field... But Larry Page found that in the decade Schmidt took charge, Google has not launched great products anymore.
At the same time, Facebook has become the new favorite of Silicon Valley. Amazon cloud has begun to rise, while Google first gave birth to the concept of cloud, but its business has not developed. At the same time, bureaucracy and innovation have also stagnated.
Larry Page feels we are not doing something really influential. He decided to return to the company.
In 2011, Larry Page returned to Google's important CEO. 2011-2015, during these four years, Larry Page reconstructed the strategy, innovation, organizational system of the entire enterprise, etc.
) Larry Page return: From "two Googles" to focusing on
return, Larry Page faces a very big problem - the company has two Googles, one is Google, which focuses on search, and the other is Google X Lab, which mainly conducts high-tech exploration.
In May 2011, Larry Page visited Jobs and asked Jobs about a question: What are the secrets to be a good CEO?
Jobs said, what I emphasize is two words "focus".
"To think clearly about what kind of company Google wants to become when it matures. Now there are many stalls, so what are the 5 products you want to focus on? Throw away the others because they will drag you down, resulting in the products you produce meeting the requirements but not great."
Larry Page returned to Google and ordered a 100-day task for himself, focusing, focusing, and focusing.
) Result of the change: Google was upgraded to Alphabet
On August 11, 2015, Google was upgraded to Alphabet, and the literal translation of Alphabet means alphabet . Google's business already covers everything from A to Z.
Everyone thinks that Google seems to have done a big thing, but what is the logic behind it? Did the establishment of Alphabet mean that Google has begun to diversify?
We need to analyze the businesses in Alphabet to see what their relationship has to Google.
"Tabletleries" project: It believes that the global power network is too complex, which makes no one truly understand the power network and cannot better allocate power resources.
So it collects the world's power network data information to understand and learn. Help people better allocate their original power network resources and achieve maximum effective use of energy.
"Minerals" project: It thinks that our understanding of soil and environment is too simplified now. It simply divides land into several categories, and does not establish an understanding of the complex information of the entire geographical environment.
So the core job is to collect information about the soil environment in various places, then integrate and judge, and help people make agricultural decisions.
…
There is a common pattern behind such businesses. On Google, this pattern is called DIKW—Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom.
Data collects the most original data.
Information, these data are sorted into information,
Knowledge, information can only be wisely judged under the structure of Knowledge knowledge,
Wisdom, and finally.
No matter what you do, you collect enough data and information to help and support people to make better judgments based on learning existing human knowledge.
At the 2013 Google Developer Conference, Larry Page once said that the relationship between Google and X is similar to the relationship between the information world and the physical world. We try to apply Google's patterns and technologies to various fields of the physical world in a vertical way.
Google X is part of search, not the so-called next-generation search.
is limited by space,
content in this article is only one-tenth of the course, how can
evolve into the next generation of search, and what is the way Google's innovation? What is the 720 principle of resource allocation for
Google?
For more content, please click on the poster to listen to the class!
Create the perfect search
After this change, Larry Page straightened out the relationship between the two Googles and strengthened Google's mission, "Integrate global information, and then use it for everyone to benefit everyone." The establishment of
Alphabet seems to have a complex and diverse business from A to Z, but this series of efforts has only one purpose, and double the effort to focus on only one thing, search.
Larry Page said that Google has become a must-have tool in our lives, but we are still very far from the search engine in our dreams. How to build a perfect search engine in
?
) Step 1: Integrate information and arrange it fairly
Larry Page said that the reason why there is hunger in the world is not because there is not enough food in the world, but because the food is not well organized and distributed. The situation in the information world is similar.
Many people enjoy rights in the information world, but you must understand the responsibilities you really bear.
Google and Baidu started their business at the same time, and did the same business, and the technology used behind it is almost the same.
's first generation search engine is to judge the number of keywords, but many companies will take advantage of this vulnerability to advance the ranking. Ultimately, they cite a concept “index” from the academic circle. If the web page contains keywords and is cited a lot, it means that the web page has the best quality. This constructs the definition of search engines by Baidu and Google at the beginning of their entrepreneurship.
But then, Baidu and Google embarked on a completely different path:
A. Baidu is doing traffic business, Google is doing knowledge graph
Baidu is doing encyclopedia, Wenku, Baijiahao, Tieba, Know... When you search for a keyword, you will find that you stay in its ecosystem and invest a lot of time. Then it can use time and traffic to conduct advertising business.
Google also does content, it makes two very interesting content, one is called Books and the other is called Scholar. Books electronicizes all physical books in the world, and Scholar electronicizes academic papers in the world. This is an essential difference from Baidu, and these contents do not seem to be popular among the people. What role does
content play in Google's strategy? Back to DIKW:
Books and Scholar are the crystallization of human wisdom all over the world. We must be able to arrange this information fairly, make it a knowledge graph, and then become the basis for information integration and judgment.
All the development of Google lies in the information engine to the knowledge engine, and perhaps in the future to a smarter engine. The core hub of the entire link is the knowledge graph.
B. Google: From knowledge graph to knowledge panel
The evolution of knowledge graph is the knowledge panel. When you search for a keyword, in addition to traditional web page sorting, a new integration will appear on the right side, displaying relevant information recommendations and knowledge recommendations.
Google gave way to the knowledge panel the most core 70% of the advertising space. This is a major commercial sacrifice.
So when the knowledge engine was released, it published an open letter called Things not strings. The knowledge engine is the thing we want to do, the subject of the matter.
So how do you understand Google?
Google is essentially a search plus recommendation. It uses search as the entrance to understand users, integrates the logic of information with knowledge, and then uses knowledge panels to construct knowledge.
) Step 2: Exhaust all information in the world
Google aims to systematically draw a map of all human knowledge. How to do it? From two dimensions:
The first dimension, the physical world is digitized. Google Books and Maps, including its efforts in the physical environment, marine environment, soil environment, and electricity environment, are all about digitizing the physical world.
The second dimension, make everything based on the web as much as possible.
For example, if there is a huge piece of information, like an island, that exists in every PC. Microsoft wants to take advantage of this to lead search to the desktop. It has done a lot of applications and has launched a heavyweight product WinFS, which can structure files and enable you to quickly search for files. On Windows with network operation, WinFS can allow all information to be truly concentrated in the Windows system, but WinFS eventually fails.
Google tries every way to make everything run on the web; it makes an open operating system, which is Android.
So when Jobs accused Google of plagiarizing the iOS system and making Android, Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said that Android's success is not so much a stroke of magic, but rather a result of strategic deduction.
Larry Page said we have been working on Android for a long time. …I think it is unfounded to blame us for following them into the market.
) Step 3: Let users easily obtain information
We have already understood Google’s mission, so what is its vision? It is one click to access new world information. To realize their vision, they did two things:
A. Making a more popular device
PC is already a very popular device, but there are still many people who do not have the conditions to apply PC. Therefore, Google needs to use more popular devices to make it easier for more people to obtain information.
B. Solve the "keyword" problem
search quality depends heavily on the accuracy of keywords, which is a huge threshold. Larry Page said. How to understand everyone's real needs in a more natural way and return everyone's needs relatively quickly and steadily is what Google has always pursued.
So starting with the knowledge graph, the first important product Google makes is to use the drop-down menu to give search suggestions to help you find keywords.
To this day, the most important job of Google AI is to understand natural language. When you ask questions in spoken language, when you read them all, even though your question is not very logical, it can still understand what you want to express and help you get information.
) Step 4: Let people benefit from information
The core of Google is information, but information must not be the end point. On the Google search page, there is a button called I'm feeling lucky (I'm lucky), which has existed since Google was founded.
You output the question, I give the answer, no filtering is required.
A Google spokesperson once said that less than 1% of searches are done through this button, but for this 1%, the investment cost is very high. We all know that Google's page advertising revenue is a button that allows you to skip all pages, reaching the critical problem, and also skipping all advertising businesses.
In 2010, Google lost $110 million in advertising revenue. But Google has been working hard to improve this feature. It wants to convey that benefiting people is my ultimate goal.
) Evolve on the basis of mission
In the process of explaining Google's mission, we clearly see how it has created a perfect search engine:
Effectively integrate information → fair arrangement → Knowledge graph Quantum computing
Exhaust worldly information → Unlimited information → Webization, Android, cloud
Simple to obtain information → Simple to obtain → Smart assistant family center
Effectively solve problems → beneficial decisions → deep learning vertical service
These efforts have gradually derived the Alphabet we understand today, which is a state of continuous evolution on the basis of a real mission.
Google's current CEO Sundar Pichai (Sundar Pichai) said at the 2019 Google Developer Conference that to this day, our mission is as important as ever.
redefines the company
) Background: Google's competition with Microsoft
In late 2003, Gates first realized the vulnerability of Microsoft. He said we have to do anything that involves search. In 2005, Microsoft launched an offensive against Google, and Steve Ballmer said in an internal briefing that I must kill Google.
Google directors wrote an email hoping that Google management would propose a comprehensive business plan to compete with Microsoft.
Larry Page's reaction was unexpected, saying that we don't have to make longer-term plans, whether in terms of concept or demand.
He said, which team has ever seen the performance of surpassing the established goals?
Have your team developed a better product than the one planned?
If so, what is the point of the plan?
The book "Redefining the Company" tells the story of one of the biggest reasons behind Google's success is that the plan we handed over to the board of directors on that day in 2003 was not a real plan at all.
only talks about one thing, how should Google focus on users, how to provide excellent products, and how to constantly try and iterate in the process of focusing on users to promote the company's growth.
In Mintzberg's theoretical system, strategy is a core and thoughtful consideration. Another important step in the emergence of a real strategy is to continuously iterate feedback in action and learn in action.
Google is actually the company that implements this concept the most thoroughly.
) Google Revelation: The essence of OKR
GoogleIteration feedback mechanism is OKR. OKR is not an upgraded version of KPI, but a tool for strategic alignment and strategic learning.
Many people who learn from Google have not really touched on this.
If we understand what OKR is in the essential sense, we must grasp a few points:
. Always align our mission and always align your core values.
. Construct a collaborative relationship, OKR is public and constructed by everyone. It is essentially a collaborative relationship and a collaborative network. Everyone should constantly evaluate the OKRs of everyone together, how to truly form a strategic approach to their mission, and what roles and relationships I play in the entire OKR collaborative relationship.So the complete expression of OKR should be MOKR - under the guidance of the mission, calibrate the challenging goals of ten times the speed and measure them through key results.
uses a case to deepen understanding:
In 2019, Baidu shifted from a KPI system to an OKR system. Its previous mission is similar to Google, called "using technology to make a complex world simple." But the O they proposed is to create an unprecedentedly prosperous and powerful Baidu mobile ecosystem. There was an inconsistency between
M and O. M is to make people more simple and convenient to obtain information to solve problems. But O, I hope everyone can enjoy more products and services here.
What should be the O and KR of a search engine look like?
The best way for search engines to improve product value should not be through the user's usage time, but should improve user efficiency and thus increase user usage frequency.
Let’s take a look at Google’s earliest version of MOKR:
M is to integrate global information for the public to use and benefit everyone.
Under the guidance of the mission, O is to create a perfect search, allowing people to have more information, leave faster, and solve problems more quickly. Its first KR has a coverage rate of 95% of the web information; the second KR is called the click rate of the second page to be less than 5%; and the third is the frequency of user usage increases by 5%.
Each system is truly matched into a MOKR system, and the top level represents the strategy, and at the specific operational level, it can be refined into specific behaviors.
Schmidt once said that OKR has truly changed Google's development history forever, and it is a simple tool that enables companies to institutionalize strategic alignment and strategic iteration.
) Google's enlightenment: Organizational structure change
This idea of focusing on the core and iterative feedback is also vividly reflected in Google's organizational structure.
Larry Page's idol is Jobs, and he is also a scholar, so he has been swaying, wanting to learn the organizational structure of Apple, and also wanting to learn the organizational structure of an academic community like Stanford.
In July 2001, 28-year-old Larry Page decided to fire all Google project managers. He learned about Jobs completely childishly. Bill Campbell told him, you must understand the difference between a cool enterprise and a smart enterprise:
(1) Apple has its own full-time managers, not without managers
(2) Apple has a minimalist functional organizational structure, which requires charming leadership
(3) The advantages of university organizations lie in their professionalism and autonomy in their respective fields
(4) The disadvantages of university organizations are the lone heroes and synergy of each individual fight
space limited,
Content in this article is only one-tenth of the course,
What exactly is the organizational management model suitable for Google?
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Larry Page's personal growth
) The huge challenge Larry encountered: Geek's enthusiasm vs. the market needs
Before Elon Musk , Larry Page was actually called the most ambitious CEO in the universe. How did this guy who is a little introvert get this title?
You can think about it: Who is Apple’s number one competitor? Who is the number one competitor of Microsoftml4? Who is Facebook's number one competitor? Who is the number one competitor of Amazon?
Google has always emphasized that you must ask big questions. Larry Page once said that when you don’t know where the opportunity lies, go and look at UN Sustainable Development Goals .
This is no joke. On Google X's official website, he expressed this goal in a relatively gamified state, allowing people to truly think about those big issues.
When answering these big questions, Google also faces a huge challenge: it has so many technicians, such as Larry Page and Sergei , who are all tech geeks themselves, and these people are extremely prone to fall into their personal enthusiasm for certain cutting-edge technologies, making it impossible for them to truly gain a foothold in the market. Big problems become fantasies.
) Jobs taught Larry how to crack it: Start with one
In fact, in 2011, Larry Page went to ask Jobs for advice. It also represents that he gradually began to transform from a scientist to a qualified product manager and a world-class CEO.
Larry Page once reviewed this moment and said:
This is an extremely painful growth process for me, suppressing my great enthusiasm for cutting-edge exploration, and turning around and re-examining myself from a universal perspective.
He learned to imitate Jobs at all levels, but what really had a big impact on him was "Start with One, Invent for Many. (Start with One, Invent for Many.)" said Larry Page, based on i, For Everyone changed my mindset. A big strategy that truly affects one billion people often begins with an understanding of one person.
What does Google do?
It makes cheap netbooks and $30 phones. These phones have only one simple feature, which is networking. Because it allows people in remote areas to enjoy the convenience of information network connection.
Larry Page returned to Google and made a plan called Google's bulletin board plan. He said, I think we need an "Internet" that my grandmother can use, and also get the information and knowledge she wants.
He made a simple wooden bulletin board. For those who do not have the ability to use a PC or connect to the Internet using a mobile phone, that is their computer.
You can imagine how big a challenge a tech geek gave up the coolness of technology and instead used the traditional bulletin board as a weapon of his mission.
But when he completes his turn, let the mission and reality combine, and begins to change the world truly. Only when his dream of focusing on everyone and creating a world shared by everyone truly unfolds slowly.
Google is not a regular company
The whole case today, we have shared four parts:
. By analyzing the relationship between Google and Google X, you will find that Google is not becoming more and more complex and diverse in business, but achieving an opposition and unity. Often, the more you focus on the core, the more you can burst into diversity; the more you pursue diversity blindly, the more likely you will lose your core in the end.
. The most important core for Google is information and search. Of course, its business is far beyond search now, but the mission of creating a perfect search can show the entire Google business and innovation process very concretely.Richard Feynman, there is a famous article called "The Value of Science", which has a huge impact on Larry Page.
The value of science has changed people's concept of the world.
When the high-speed rail was born, the concept of distance was changed; when technology appeared, the concept of information was born; when those technologies for space exploration appeared, people's concept of the world would undergo a huge change.
For Larry Page, this is his real passion.
If we summarize today's case, we still have to return to this sentence. Google is not a regular company, and we do not intend to become a so-called regular company.
is limited by space, and the content of this article is only one-tenth of the course. Please click on the poster to listen to the complete course!
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