Larry Page successful as Google’s “wartime CEO”

A very interesting read on Larry Page’s first few months as Google’s new CEO, saddled with the immense challenge of taking a hugely successful company to even bigger heights:

https://twitter.com/hnshah/status/286871896488816641

First, the April 2011 assessment by Ben Horowitz on Page’s new brief points out the difference between peacetime and wartime CEOs, which boils down to whether the company’s market is new, expanding, and relatively non-competitive, because its expansion benefits the company anyway, regardless of whether it benefits other players as well — a wartime CEO is focused on outright winning an existing market from the competition.

Second, a January 2013 article in Fortune, which points out that Page has carried out significant reform in the direction of tighter execution control, focused on a more defined plan, and somewhat stepped back from the culture of all-out innovation with less concern for a business model.