Google On The Brain

I am not sure what to make of this but a lot of my CEOs are thinking about Google these days.

Do they have Google IPO envy? Are they getting caught up in the hype leading up to the biggest IPO in 5 years? Or are they trying to understand the lessons of Google's success and looking to apply it to their business?

If its the first two, then I am in trouble. You've got to keep your eyes on the road if you want to drive the car. If its the latter, then I am OK. Watching, learning, and thinking are great virtues in a CEO.

One of my readers Hugh Macleod posted this comment on my "Why CEOs Fail" post and I loved it, so I'll repeat it here:

Thanks for the post, Fed. I'm suspecting that the subject of failure is much on your mind because the tech economy is heating up again, things are starting to buzz, and you don't want the insanity of "Dotcom '99" to rear its ugly head a second time. All symptoms of well-justified caution etc.

You got that right, Hugh.

Comments

[hugh macleod]

Thanks for the mention, Fred (not "Fed"). Heh.

[Gregg Smith]

I saw this first hand when a competitor's IPO valued them at a couple of billion in 2000 (no names, but symbol is NIKU). We rushed a filing, changed our biz plan twice (infrastructure--no, no ASP..now back to software!) all based on a now-defunct bank's advice and walked around high as a kite counting our billions until kaboom. What a 3 month period. Looking back, it feels like it lasted 2 years.

[Gregg Smith]

Sorry for the poor Comment etiquette by posting twice, but another semi-related comment.

Seems like a lot of the IPO buzz we are hearing is related to the salesforce.com filing. Google seems to "out there". At least salesforce has a repeatable model in different verticals and applications. Any comments/buzz on this one?

[EsmeV]

The salesforce.com model sounds great, if you are a customer. But it is not that difficult to start something like a salesforce.com in every vertical. What's preventing your competitors from starting something similar? As for IPO envy, it's my opinion that a lot of CEOs and senior managment types are just drooling about all the millions and billions they're going to make. It's human nature. They're already dreaming about the post-lock up period. I was General Counsel of a pan-European portal that postponed an IPO twice in 2000 and ended up selling the company to a larger competitor. During the IPO preparations, I had my own post lock-up fantasies - going to a nice beach somewhere for a year and just reading books. My colleagues had more exciting plans. The VCs were right in the same boat with us. Eye on the ball? Please. Not even the VCs had their eye on the ball. They were also thinking about seaside villas and Cartier bracelets. Unfortunately, my beach fantasies did not come true and I'm just an enterpreneur now.