I’ve finished John Battelle’s Search and there is room for one last comparison of Google and Microsoft. Battelle dedicates a chapter (or two) to Google’s IPO and the fallout associated with it. In the end, Battelle suggests the organization would have done at least a few things differently to avoid the blowback from observers that thought the company and its leadership had no respect for the process on Wall Street.
Sounds like 1998 on Capitol Hill when a young Bill Gates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee (without a jacket) and talked about the technological revolution in a way that left all Senators on the Committee feeling disrespected. Gates didn’t follow the rulebook and people were pissed. Google wanted to do things differently with its IPO, and people were pissed.
In both cases, critics used words like “arrogant,” “ignorant” “ill advised” and “”young.” Getting people to understand the world that you live in is hard, at least in part, because they are always trying to get you to do the same. In both of these cases, there were powerful forces on both sides and everyone was trying to tell their story. And who has the best story to tell. The wonderful inventors/creators or the guardians of Wall Street and Capitol Hill? So much for change.
