Google at 12: A company navigating the conflicts that come with age

When Google filed its incorporation papers 12 years ago, the company that would grow to a $24 billion-a-year business consisted of three Stanford computer science graduate students, all in their mid-20s. But even back in September 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's co-founders, and Craig Silverstein, Google's first employee, had a clear idea how they would carefully pick their hires, choosing people compatible with the culture they planned to create. As Google marks its 12th birthday this month, the tightknit, idealistic culture forged by its founders remains one of the company's foundational strengths. Many key players in its top management date to its earliest days, veterans of 100-hour work weeks and parking-lot roller-hockey games, who shared a vision of a company that could change the world. But just as those former 20-somethings are now looking at 40, with spouses, kids and other middle-age responsibilities, so too have their views of business matured. With the growth in Google's reach and power, their idealism is now forced to vie with coldblooded calculation, observers say. The result is a company navigating the conflicts that come with age, balancing commitment with pragmatism as it evaluates what success really means.