The Google Way

Chapter 3. THREE ICONOCLASTS AT THE TOP

Had the leaders of Google followed the rules and undergone the typical venture capital rite of passage, they would have written a business plan that laid out a detailed financial model showing how they would make money and how long it would take to make a profit for their initial investors.

They did nothing of the sort. Instead, they started by creating user demand and only then did they consider how to generate income.

Is this paradoxical? Undoubtedly. Would this model be difficult to re-create elsewhere? Certainly. In fact, their venture was made possible only because, at the outset, they found confident investors who were willing to wait and because they were brash enough to make their search engine free ...