John Battelle’s analysis of Google’s S-1 filing — and particularily, the charming-but-stilted founders’ letter — is fascinating and insightful:
The letter states, among other things, that
- We don’t need to do this for the money
- We have no plans to run our business to satisfy Wall Street’s need for smooth earnings predictability
- We plan to give no earnings guidance, not at least as it’s understood on Wall St.
- Don’t ask us to do so, we’ll simply decline the request
- We’ll do odd things that you won’ t understand
- We will make big bets on things that may not work out
- We run the company as a triumvirate, so there will not be clear leadership from one person like most other companies
- We bridge the media and tech industries (interesting), which are in flux, so we’ve chosen a two-class stock structure similar to the NYT, WashPost, and NYT that helps us avoid being taken over by those forces
- We plan using an auction model, as it feels fairer and we understand auctions from AdWords
- Don’t invest in us if this scares you at all, or the price feels too high
- Don’t even think about asking us to cut expenses with regard to our employees
- We believe in the idea of Don’t Be Evil
- It’s evil to pay for placement or inclusion (a swipe at Yahoo)
- We hope to bridge the digital divide through Gmail type free services and a foundation with at least 1% of profits and equity to help make the world a better place
- Betting on Google is a bet on Sergey and Larry (this was said multiple times, making me wonder if there wasn’t some odd future blame being assigned here by the VCs or bankers)
- This letter is our way of answering the questions we can’t answer in the coming months due to the IPO quiet period.