Some people you fit to the company, others, you fit the company to them. Brin is in the latter category. Rare, but they do exist.
"I used to fall in love with everyone I interviewed and I'd say, 'We can make anybody successful' or 'We can find a job for any talented person.' And that's just completely wrong and a really bad idea. HR people should figure out job descriptions. God forbid I should ever do that."
- Howard Tullman, founder of Experiencia, Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, The Cobalt Group and Tunes.com (Tullman sold his first company in 1987 for $100 million)
"That's lovely for you and him - it's just _not relevant_. Can they do the job?"
He's much closer to being a pro golfer than a major league baseball player.
Other than founding Google, their supposedly big ideas are just on gambling shareholder's money and make more money via Google in suspicious way. Search still makes 97% of their money, Android was * from others and market share is being lost to Microsoft.
Adsense relatively makes little since they pay most to site-owners, whatever they call the ads on Google make the money. After 11 years has, Google has what, other than search?
YouTube. Android (their market share isn't declining). Likely the most popular cloud office suite. GMail. Picasa. Google+. Analytics.
Just to name a few.
I'm pretty sure AdSense accounts for around 30-35% of Google's revenue.
You can see their Q4 2010 earnings statement at http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.... . Here is the relevant portion for AdSense:
"Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion."
If publishers are paid 68%, this means Google's share is roughly $650mill for that quarter.
Android would last a couple of hours without Google's tens of billions in protection. Isn't it free anyway?
Revenue vs earnings matter on Adsense. Their pay and inventory is linked to the power of Google.
So in the end Google has, search.
Can G out-Microsoft Microsoft in Office? I doubt it. Analytics and everything else is subsidized by search.
Not that I would refuse him a job... but it would require the same interview process as anyone, because I need to find out what he knows about my industry, what his current skills truly are, learn his philosophies, and find out how he would fit culturally.
Even brilliant people are sometimes crappy fits for the specific roles a large company may have to offer.