Google’s Grand Plan

How has Google changed in the year since Larry Page returned as CEO? From the outside, Google seems to have become a totally different company under Page. Where the search company once seemed chaotic and experimental—a firm that launched so many different overlapping initiatives that you wondered if there was anyone in charge—it’s now disciplined, aggressive, and to a lot of people, scary.

Page shut down dozens of projects that were not central to Google’s mission. At the same time, he launched a new social network, Google+, that he’s pushing to become the central repository of all Google users’ personal data. Page also altered Google’s privacy policy to allow the company to use information it gleans from one Google product to serve ads to you in other products. And with the purchase of Motorola Mobility, Page put Google in the smartphone manufacturing business, making it a direct competitor to other companies that use its Android operating system. By every measure, Google is now a bolder, more disciplined, more ferocious combatant in the Valley’s tech wars. Under Page, the pace of Google’s purchases hasn’t slowed down, but the nature of the companies that Google is interested in has changed.

• Google operates seven businesses (search, advertising, social networking, Android, Chrome, YouTube, and local mobile commerce). It’s not starting new ones anytime soon.
• Google wants to add “depth” to its products.
• The Justice Department is slowing Google down.
• Larry Page wants results.