Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google
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Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt has command of a $125 billion market valuation, $10 billion in cash and 8,000 employees, including a squadron of developers considered to be among the best and brightest Silicon Valley has ever seen. The 51-year-old executive also has the pressure of an entire industry wondering: Can
make good on all its promises?
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This year, the full scope of Google's ambition became clear as it launched a blizzard of products, from a bundled Web apps package some see as a potential Office killer, to VoIP, enterprise
and online payment
services. The splashy $1.65 billion buy of video-swapping site YouTube confirmed that Google, which traditionally has stuck to small acquisitions, isn't shy about spending big when it sees a new space it wants to conquer.
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But Google's scattershot product development means it throws off far more misses than hits, a problem that's beginning to tarnish the company's golden reputation.
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Google, Mountain View, Calif., is still hauling in enough cash to keep its investors at bay—the company made $1.3 billion on revenue of $4.7 billion in the first six months of 2006—but users gripe about the products Google leaves to languish for years without updates, and the company hasn't dominated any markets outside its core search field. Schmidt's challenge is to prove that Google's unusual R&D strategy of loosely managed chaos is capable of turning out another big hit.