Lawrence Page was born on 26th March 1973 and co founded Google, along with Sergey Brin, in the year 1998. He was the CEO of the company until 2001 and in the last year has again taken over the role. He is the inventor of the Page Rank Algorithm which is at the heart of Google's Search Engine. As of now his net worth is $ 20.3 billion and ranks at no 5 on the top business leaders of today list by Forbes.
Larry lead the company as a start up and grew it to over 200 employees and made it profitable. Under his current leadership
- Google has undergone a reorganisation and has also scrapped and redesigned its products.
- Pushed the multi million dollar deal to acquire a cell phone manufacturing unit
- In the last two quarters the revenues rose by 32 and 33%
His management style is something most people who are starting up or planning on beating the competition can learn from. Some of these learnings are as follows
Spirit of a Start Up
Even though Google has been successful Larry has brought in a vigour which can be related to the spirit of starting up.
Strong Focus on Innovation
In one of his speeches, Page urged people to "Talk about the future". He believes that it is the really audacious ideas that can change the world. What is better is that if no one else is crazy enough to do it then you have a little competition to worry about.
Concise Descriptions
Page believes that if the idea is really compelling then it can be described in under 60 words and can have an impact so as to decide whether to be kept alive or not.
Perseverance
Page has shown tremendous perseverance throughout his life at Google. Quite a lot of projects undertaken by Google took time to start running(for eg- Google Maps and Google's Book Digitization Project)
Importance of Incremental Change
Even though he is responsible for revolutions within the internet domain Page continues to see Incremental change as an important tool for innovation. The android platform made by Google is updated everyday and the improvements are very visible.
Teams over Bureaucracy
Even though some of the early employees of Google have left the company to start their own ventures most others are still working with Google. It is amazing to note that these people are very rich and need not work there but they are still very committed to their roles. This is so because Larry has a very strong focus on his team. Even though most firms talk about team building very few are actually able to do it and retain their employees.
