Forget the 800-lb gorilla. Google has billions of dollars more to worry about now that its shares have surpassed the $800 mark for the first time. According to Mercury News: The milestone comes more than five years after Google’s shares initially hit $700. Not long after breaking that barrier in October 2007, the economy collapsed into the worst recession since World War II and Google’s stock tumbled into a prolonged malaise that eventually led to a change in leadership. Things have changed lately. Google is hot. Their mobile is booming despite having challenges with Motorola. Their search…

It isn’t too common for Wall Street analysts to be very wrong. They have good indicators and past performances upon which to generate their predictions and it’s often more accurate than the weather. With Google’s Q4 2012 analysis, they were wrong by a mile even at Google’s revenue standards. They reported $14.42 billion in the last quarter and earnings per share of $10.65 on a non-GAAP basis. Analyst had expected that Google would have revenues of $12.3 billion. “We ended 2012 with a strong quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter….

We’ve been very critical of Groupon and its founding CEO Andrew Mason. The enigmatic Silicon Valley guy has famously shunned Google’s $6 billion bid for his company and seen his stocks fall to levels that make the shunning itself look downright ludicrous. We were critical when the shares were falling to $15. They’re hovering over $5 today. Still, should he be fired? A year and a quarter since going public, the company is in big trouble. Mason is fighting to keep his job, but just as Larry Page turned to Eric Schmidt to lead his company through the crucial years, should Groupon do the same? Investors…

The Google co-founders have been saying since before Larry Page took over as CEO last year that social was their #1 priority. Page made it clear that everyone’s focus should be on social media above all else and that the employees’ bonus structure would be determined by success in this single area. We even defended him on his choice and it has started to pay off with Google+ making strides in the right direction. The only gripe now is that they are not active participants in the very thing they want to succeed. Certainly, they are working behind the scenes to improve the chances for success on social…

Few businessmen are pushing the boundaries of technology further than that of Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page. Where Steve Jobs was able to streamline and successfully market, Page innovates. After meeting fellow co-founder Sergey Brin whilst earning his doctorate degree (at Stanford!) in 1996, Page helped create an algorithm that would launch the most successful search engine on the web and turn it into an empire of innovation, trailblazing technology in almost every field. But having recently faced lawsuits from Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, and with Facebook beginning to take aim…

Google announced they intended to purchase Motorola Mobility last August. Nine months, a go-around with China, and $12.5 billion dollars later, the deal has been completed according to a post by CEO Larry Page. “It’s a well known fact that people tend to overestimate the impact technology will have in the short term, but underestimate its significance in the longer term,” Page said. “Many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine, and the impact of that transition will be profound–as will the ability to just tap and pay with your phone.” Along with the handset giant, Google…

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were on top of the basketball world in the 80s. They fought back wars against each other and the rest of the NBA, capturing 8 championships between them. While they were finishing up their careers, a young man was building the Chicago Bulls into a team that would win 6 championships in 8 years. Facebook is to the Internet as Michael Jordan was to basketball in the early 90s. Pick one – Larry or Magic – and you can make them the Google of the 80s and early 90s. Strong, magical, often unbeatable, but getting a little long in the tooth and desperately needing a rejuvenation or retirement….

Taking a page out of Steve Jobs’ playbook, new Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page has restructured upper management at Google to streamline the decision making process and make the individual departments more autonomous. This move, which is happening a week into his reign, marks a dramatic shift in the way Google does business. It matches the style that the Android and YouTube divisions have used for years. Both have been considered extremely successful. The LA Times says the move is designed to “try to restore the sense of urgency and innovation that was once the company’s calling card.”…

When is the best time to change CEOs if you’re a major company? How about shortly after announcing fourth-quarter earnings of $8.75 a share on revenue of $6.37 billion, numbers that shattered analysts’ expectations. Today, Google announced that CEO Eric Schmidt would be going into a new role and co-founder Larry Page would be ascending to the top position that he held in the beginning of the company a decade ago. Schmidt wrote about it in a blog post. “As Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey, and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify…