Will harsh glare of shareholder equity kill the Google dream -- or will it be the one that survives going public?

The Wall Street Journal headline read, “Google filed to go public, setting plans to raise as much as $2.7 billion and giving investors their first look at the secretive company's revenue and earnings.”

Secretive? The boys from Stanford have been on the cover of every news and information magazine I’ve seen lately. They have taken full advantage of a rightly deserved 15 minutes of fame. No offense, but I was starting to worry that I would one night curl up with my latest issue of FHM only to see… never mind. So, what’s the secret?

Revenue? Earnings? What’s the big secret? Talk to any Google employee -- you needn’t read the prospectus to have the answer. It’s scary, contrarian and rebellious: freedom of information for everyone. That’s the dream, right? Doctors will find cures faster, teachers will be able to teach better, lawyers will serve the law more efficiently, and everyone will be smarter, better people as a result.

Enter Wall Street

The channel changes from Star Trek to CNN. Now you are public, and I own a piece of your backside, buddy. You are now officially praying to shareholder equity, and it will be time for a reality check. Drug companies control doctors -- and they don’t want you better, they want you on the mend and taking more drugs. Teachers are too broke to buy their own computers, lawyers serve themselves, and the only thing we now hope to do is make money.

Ever been to a Google office? Lots of little Googlers marching around chanting the "freedom of information" mantra. Well, not exactly. It is, however, the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Food, beverages and snacks abound -- Veruca Salt would be in heaven. You can have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the building and it’s good food! You never have to leave. You never have to leave. Now, don’t mistake this little rant for a Google put-down. Au contraire.

I am jealous, very jealous. I work for a public company. One of the offices I work in has a "restaurant." Think high school lunch line with parolees cooking up slop. Leave? That’s all you want to do.

I remember in the early days of Internet marketing, we had tons of people around, getting work done and having a good time riding Razor Scooters around while spouting Google-esque chants. And then… shareholder equity.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was watching (even after the rebound, years later) companies coming together and deciding who was redundant and who wasn’t. Empty desks, offices, cubicles and buildings, along with some of the most appalling self-preserving human behavior I have ever witnessed. If still employed, one would look around to realize one is now doing the work four people once did. Shareholder equity is corporate Darwinism at its best.

Here’s where I am going with this: Youthful exuberance is easy when you operate in the privatized vacuum. When you start answering to thousands of constituents and get the CFO sweaty palms around the end of the quarter, you might have to start cutting out things like food service, neato toys, and eventually, people. Attitudes begin to sour, then Willy Wonka has a heart attack, and some evil baron swoops in to save the fledgling Chocolate Factory to maximize -- you guessed it -- shareholder equity.

So what is Google doing, if anything, to preserve the dream?

Control is an infantile illusion

Let’s start with a $2.7 billion offering. On top of that, we drop in an interesting auction-style stock release. Most importantly, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, along with chief executive Eric Schmidt, plan to establish a tiered operating structure that will allow a small portion of shareholders to hold the lion’s share of control of the culture-enhancing search destination.

The selling proposition now becomes "buy my stock, but you can only watch me run the company." Maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all. Who needs to think and act? It seems as though every time we the people attempt both, bad things happen. However, the question remains, once the initial hype dies down, will shareholders or employee owners ever trust their future to a precious few in the wake of Enron and its ilk?

"Don’t be evil" is another phrase that appears in the most unusual prospectus I have ever seen. We never see the document that got Jerry Maguire canned, but I would imagine it looked a lot like Google’s go-public document. Focus on quality of information, build trust and a winning corporate culture with our employees, keep them fed and healthy. The concept sounds Jim Dandy.

The problem is, far too many outside problems come into play, once Google is in the public domain. Will Americans get bored with Googling the same way they bored with Cabbage Patch kids? Will minimalist Google search go the way of the dodo in favor of a rich portal experience? What about those looming trademark problems? Privacy issues with Google’s mail application? I can only offer my mantra, some famous words of advice; it pays to be nice to people on your way up, for it is the same people you meet on your way down.

The cold hard facts

Advertising supports Google. In the future, it will have to be much more than search. Powering government databases perhaps, complex shopping engines or advanced email ad serving? Some or all are in the works for Google, as we speak. 

Key growth areas for Google, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, in the time period between October, 2003 and March, 2004 are news, image search, groups, toolbar and answers, which grew a whopping fifty percent on the high end with News and twenty six percent on the low end with Google Answers. This proves beyond the shadow of any doubt users will adopt, if from a trusted source.

Audience hold and reach is, then, another issue for Google. According to a comScore qSearch spokesperson, "In February, Google controlled approximately 35 percent of searches conducted at major search engines by U.S. Internet users. Yahoo!, its closest competitor, conducted 30 percent of searches by U.S. Internet users in February." It looks like Google is still on top for the moment.

What happens when it doesn’t make sense to build the next great thing? Maybe someone already has, and a purchase has to be made. Google has made purchases before, but mostly those which can be quickly absorbed into the collective. Maybe this time it’s a big firm and precious corporate cultures have to be merged. Maybe it happens a few more times. The hand holding healthy habitat becomes homogenized. The dream fades and the utopian search society slips away. We are right back where we started, aren’t we?

Hope, dreams and a better Place

Lots of firms strive to change the world.

None of them make it to Google’s size and pull it off.

Maybe the Googlers will, and I hope they do. Google promises to be honest with both good and bad news. Google hopes to keep enough cash around so they don’t have to send a series of memo’s announcing cutbacks and layoffs because they didn’t meet expectations. Americans are ripe for a firm that actually maintains a principled approach over the long term. Fear and anger from being on the business end of corporate betrayal have turned us into a nation of untrusting Gollums looking for our precious one ring of dignity. Maybe it's time to believe that someone will actually do it right.

Good luck Google.

iMedia search columnist Kevin Ryan’s current and former client roster reads like a “who’s who” in big brands; Rolex Watch, USA, State Farm Insurance, Farmers Insurance, Minolta Corporation, Samsung Electronics America, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Panasonic Services and the Hilton Hotels brands, to name a few. Ryan believes in sound guidance, creative thought, accountable actions and collaborative execution as applied to search, or any form of marketing. His principled approach and staunch commitment to the industry have made him one of the most sought after personalities in online marketing. Ryan volunteers his time with the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and several regional non-profit organizations.

Meet Kevin Ryan at Ad:Tech May 24-26th, 2004 and the iMediaLearning Search Tour.