What Cheek!
Tony Perkins, whose request to "Help Make Tony Rich" is really quite a cheeky bastard. Here's the next email he sent out:
Googled. That is the title our members chose for the book we are blogging into creation. The working tagline is "The pre-IPO prospectus on the hottest company on the planet." The goal is to finish the book in the next 60 days, speed-produce it, and get it to market before the Google IPO, to complement the company's red herring prospectus. At this point, our best guess is that Google will go public in April 2004. More detail on that subject will be in my next post.It is important for AO members to know that we have no direct inside information confirming the IPO date, whether or not Google is going public, or any specific financial information on the company. Furthermore, given the strict SEC regulations surrounding IPOs, we do not expect to get any off-limits information from company 'insiders' prior to the company's IPO.
We want to make this clear up front, to avoid giving the impression that anyone within the company is giving us financial or other information they shouldn't. The last thing we want to do is jeopardize or delay Google's IPO for no good reason!
With that important disclaimer out of the way, here is the draft of our table of contents. This outline may move around a bit, based on member input, but we at least wanted to put a few stakes in the ground.
The Google IPO and the Comeback of Silicon Valley
Why the Google story is a harbinger of good things to come.VC Royalty Wins
In an unprecedented deal, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital team up and back the 12th [AO members, I'm guessing the number—does anyone know for sure?] search engine company to come to market. [Ed - Tony, you're not even going to do the basic friggin reseearch on what # search engine the company was? That's some balls.]David, Jerry, Sergey, and Larry
They all went to Stanford to study engineering and all ended up starting billion-dollar companies before they graduated. They even helped each other along the way. Who are these geeks anyway? And how will they fare as fierce competitors?Geeks Gone Wild
The three geeks who run Google have implemented their own unique… well, geek culture. Many observers say that beside its brand, this culture is Google's biggest competitive advantage.The Search and Buy Economy
Google facilitates over 200 million searches a day, serves 100,000 advertisers, and generates a billion dollars in annual revenues. Net/net: the 'search and buy' economy is here to stay.Is it all just in a brand?
Since technology gets easier and cheaper every day, is Google's primary value proposition its brand value? If so, how secure is the company's most cherished asset?Enter Microsoft
"Google" is not recognized in Microsoft Word's spell-checker. Need we say more?Terry, Barry, Jonathan, and Meg
No smart competitor is going to sit around for long watching Google print money. Here are just four characters (besides Bill and Steve) we'd think want some too.About Eric Schmidt
Ultimately, Yahoo shuffled the first gun it hired for a Hollywood star. Can a really smart leader of geeks continue to build and leverage Google's global brand, or will it take an outsider like Terry Semel?Google Is Us
Google has become more than just a new verb—it is a cultural phenomenon. 75 percent of all Website referrals originate from Google's algorithms. Mapping those inquiries could tell us exactly what the collective always-on world is thinking.The Google Bet: The next eBay or a glorified Netscape?
Here are the choices: either ride huge profit margins to long-term success, or stumble and sell. So far, Google looks like the next eBay.In the following weeks we will approach these and other subjects in this column, and eagerly await any and all feedback.
