Ken Auletta on Larry Page's Challenges as Google CEO

New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, as qualified as anyone to give an intelligent take on what's going on with the Google management change (Google it, if you don't know):


"It was always assumed that one day Page would be C.E.O. Now that he is about to be, he will have to change. He is a very private man, who often in meetings looks down at his hand-held Android device, who is not a comfortable public speaker, who hates to have a regimented schedule, who thinks it is an inefficient use of his time to invest too much of it in meetings with journalists or analysts or governments. As C.E.O., the private man will have to become more public. And he will have to rid himself of a proclivity most engineers have: they are really bad at things they can’t measure. Like fears about Google’s size, and privacy and copyright and how to deal with governments that are weak at measurement but rife with paranoia."

Ken's take has consistently been that the Google guys' Achilles heal is their inability to deal with the softer, more emotional sides of the business. His analysis here might be right. Page may, as Schmidt said, be ready to lead. Perhaps that really  is a factor in Schmidt's moving to his new role as Page assumed the helm.. And I'm not sure if one can put such an important management change on one factor, such as the Google moves in China. But Ken's take is worth looking at.


News Desk: Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google? : The New Yorker:

My Baby Wrote me On Twitter

The Takeaway asked for songs that'd be different if there weren't phones, and we were in this age. Here's a joking lyric I did to the tune of the old Clearance Clearwater song "My Baby Wrote me a Letter."

Give me a ticket for an airplane
Ain’t got time for a fast train
Lonely days are gone
I’m a goin home
My baby wrote on Twitter

She wrote me on Twitter and said she couldn’t live w/out me no more
But in 140 letters I didn’t learn very much more
Anyway

Email and Texts tell me what she do
Facebook and Foursquare give me more of her news
Lonely days are gone
I’m a goin home
My baby wrote on Twitter

A little bit of levity on a busy and otherwise serious day.


Others from The Takeaway

"Text Me"


"I Just Facebooked to Say I Love You"


"Jenny I've Got Your Email (sted number)"