Posts Tagged ‘CEO’

Out With The Old, In With The… Wait, Is Anything At Google Old?

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

schmidt-and-page.jpg
credit: loiclemeur

Businesses need experienced leaders to succeed. Businesses need young talent to succeed. So what happens when there’s only room for one CEO?

  • Internet companies like Google have traditionally been small, nimble, and young. But Google has grown up. A lot. So much so that the size of its bureaucracy (read: paper-pushers) has started to limit how fresh and creative it can be.
  • So Eric Schmidt, the guy who has been CEO and providing “adult supervision” is being replaced by Larry Page, a Google co-founder.
  • Many Google employees, frustrated by business issues getting in the way of innovation, are hoping the executive switcharoo will be just what the company needs to ramp up its new product development. But can the founder run a company with more than 20,000 employees?

Facts & Figures

  • Larry Page is responsible for the algorithm that made Google the most powerful search engine on the net
  • He also oversaw the development of Gmail and Google’s Chrome browser
  • He was CEO for the 5 years after Google was founded in 1998

Best Quote

“Larry’s style is going to be different [than Mr. Schmidt's], but he has amazing instincts around developing products and is a tireless champion for improving users’ experience.” – David Scacco, Chief Revenue Officer, MyLikes, former Google employee

What do you think?

Do you think you could do a better job than your boss or parents? Is a new CEO enough to make an established company compete with new successes like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr?


CEO Of The Decade (According To MarketWatch): Mr. Macintosh

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is allegedly a nightmare boss, but that hasn’t stopped him from changing (or taking over) the consumer world.

  • Jobs pioneered touch-screen technology with the iPhone, and triumphantly pulled Apple from the bottom of the pile to the top of the world. He also ran Pixar Animation (Toy Story, Up, Ratatouille) until 2006.
  • But Steve’s prickly personality has been problematic (that’s part of the reason he was forced to leave Apple in 1985), and there are some serious questions about Apple’s corporate compensation and governance practices.
  • The most important question on investors’ minds is this: Can anyone possibly fill Jobs’ “rockstar CEO” shoes when he’s gone?

Facts & Figures

  • $1,000 of Apple stock purchased in 2000 is worth almost $43,000 today
  • Apple has earned $47.7 billion in iPod sales alone
  • Apple is currently valued at $285 billion; Microsoft is $220 billion

Best Quotes

“He is not somebody [who] any one of us would want watching our kids, but, in terms of running the company, he’s excellent.” – Rob Enderle, President, Enderle Group

“The resurrection of Apple is just the most astounding story that’s probably happened in business in at least a decade — you might be able to go further and say it’s a half-century. It’s on par with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell in terms of its total impact.” – Roger Kay, President of Endpoint Technologies

A CEO is…

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

A CEO is the Chief Executive Officer of a corporation; hired by the Board of Directors, the CEO is the person who is in charge of the strategic direction, management of operations, and financial results of the company.