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Business / Internet / Technology08.05.2014

The Untold Story Of Larry Page’s Incredible Comeback

One day in July 2001, Larry Page decided to fire Google’s project managers. All of them. As at most startups, in Google’s first year there were no management layers between the CEO, Page, and the engineers. But as the company grew, it added a layer of managers, people who could meet with Page and the rest of Google’s senior executives and give the engineers prioritized orders and deadlines. Page, now 28, hated it. Since Google hired only the most talented engineers, he thought that extra layer of supervision was not just unnecessary but also an impediment. He also suspected that Google’s project managers were steering engineers away from working on projects that were personally important to him. For example, Page had outlined a plan to scan all the world’s books and make them searchable online, but somehow no one was working on it. Page blamed the project managers.

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Business / Internet23.02.2014

“I Don’t Want to Create a Paper Trail”: Inside the Secret Apple-Google Pact

Documents filed in conjunction with the litigation, first reported last month by PandoDaily's Mark Ames, offer a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of interactions among the likes of Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt, and Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell. In early 2005, the documents show, Campbell brokered an anti-recruitment pact between Jobs and Schmidt, confirming to Jobs in an email that "Schmidt got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple." On the day of that email, Apple's head of human resources ordered her staff to "please add Google to your 'hands off' list." Likewise, Google's recruiting director was asked to create a formal "Do Not Cold Call List" of companies with which it had "special agreements" not to compete for employees. A few months later, Schmidt instructed a fellow exec not to discuss the no-call list other than "verbally," he wrote in an email, "since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?"