<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP/Jae C. Hong</span></p><p class="caption">Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has stayed at the helm.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Snapchat has lost six upper-level executives in the past year, with only one lasting past the eight month mark.</p><p>While turnover among leadership is not unusual at a startup, especially in a time where there is a fierce war for talent, it does raise a tiny red flag that the $16 billion startup is losing so much upper level management.</p><p>Here's a rundown of who has left in the last year:</p><ul><li><strong>Peter Magnusson</strong> has been musical chairs amongst tech companies. Magnusson left his role as engineering director at Google to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-hires-google-cloud-engineer-2014-2">join the Snapchat team in February 2014</a>. He only lasted six months as its VP of Engineering before he joined Oracle as senior vice president, working on its cloud services.</li><li><strong>Mike Randall</strong>, Snapchat's revenue boss, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-vice-president-of-business-and-marketing-partnerships-mike-randall-resigns-2015-1">resigned from his position in January 2015</a> after just seven months. Randall originally came over from Facebook where he was a global director of its Preferred Marketing Developer program. There's no word as to what Randall's been up to since January.</li><li><strong>HR director Sara Sperling</strong> departed in February 2015 after lasting eight months. She also jumped ship from Facebook, but reportedly <a href="http://recode.net/2015/02/27/snapchat-hr-director-sara-sperling-departs-after-six-months/">left the company for personal reasons</a> one month after Randall. In May, Sperling joined delivery company DoorDash <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=AAkAAADYrdgBeU8jjbEGt159KX6vcxVTjOafXSQ&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=oLUk&amp;locale=en_US&amp;trk=tyah&amp;trkInfo=clickedVertical%3Amynetwork%2CclickedEntityId%3A14200280%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH%2Cidx%3A1-1-1%2CtarId%3A1445368775675%2Ctas%3ASara%20sperling">as its head of HR</a>. </li><li><strong>COO Emily White</strong> had the longest stint at the social network. White left her director role at Facebook in January 2014 to join Snapchat. She stayed for a year and three months before <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-executives-suddenly-leaving-2015-3">leaving in March 2015</a>. White's <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=ADEAAAAJlZMBIcuxsiuhNM_ppAR7JXB96-UDU0U&amp;authType=NAME_SEARCH&amp;authToken=ZYTs&amp;locale=en_US&amp;srchid=894813611445369712717&amp;srchindex=1&amp;srchtotal=1&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_name&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A894813611445369712717%2CVSRPtargetId%3A628115%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPnm%3Atrue%2CauthType%3ANAME_SEARCH">LinkedIn lists her</a> as CEO and founder of a new project. </li><li><strong>Simmi Singh</strong>, the chief talent officer, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/snapchat-fires-talent-officer/">was reportedly fired from her post</a> in September 2015. She spent seven months at the company, which she had joined after leaving her job as a partner at head hunting agency Egon Zehnder. </li><li><strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jill-hazelbaker/22/324/3aa">Jill Hazelbaker</a>,</strong> Snapchat's VP of communications and public policy,  is the latest executive that we know of to depart in October. <a href="http://recode.net/2015/10/20/uber-nabs-snapchat-comms-head-hazelbaker-for-key-policy-and-pr-role/">Re/Code reported that the PR expert is joining Uber</a> and reporting to her old boss at Google, Rachel Whetstone. </li></ul><p> </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-global-fiber-optic-internet-cables-2015-9">Animated map reveals the 550,000 miles of cable hidden under the ocean that power the internet</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1iNHI3dzr1l7P_ZGDpqWJC3kUle6Dsan" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Snapchat has now lost 6 top executives in the past year

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Justin Sullivan/Getty Images" title_caption="Brian McClendon just got poached by Uber" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52fe70b0eab8ea631a063b87-960/google-maps-brian-mcclendon.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Brian McClendon just got poached by Uber</p></div><p></p></div></div>Google's former head of Maps, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-brian-mcclendon-replaced-by-jen-fitzpatrick-2015-5">once seen as one of Google's most influential execs</a>, just got poached by Uber, according to <a href="http://recode.net/2015/06/16/uber-hires-googles-former-head-of-maps-to-oversee-location-technology-pittsburgh-center/">Re/code</a>. </p><p>Business Insider has independently confirmed the report.</p><p>As a ten-year Google Maps veteran, Brian McClendon will be bringing his expertise to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-plans-to-build-self-driving-cars-2015-2">Uber's new Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh</a>, where he'll be guiding the company's development of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology.  </p><p>That McClendon decided to leave isn't exactly surprising. <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/Uber-Tesla-Energize-Mapping-Sector-Deal-Buzz">Jen Fitzpatrick replaced McClendon</a> as Google Maps VP last fall, and in May, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-brian-mcclendon-replaced-by-jen-fitzpatrick-2015-5">a source told Business Insider that he was likely on his way out</a>. </p><p><span></span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-brian-mcclendon-replaced-by-jen-fitzpatrick-2015-5">McClendon, described as a "towering figure" </a>within the the company, joined Google way back in 2004 after it acquired the digital mapping software startup Keyhole where he was an engineering VP.  </p><p>And the fact that McClendon left Google for Uber isn't exactly a shock either, given the talent flow between the two companies lately. </p><p>Tom Fallows, former founder of Google Express and current Uber exec, <span></span><a href="http://www.strictlyvc.com/2015/05/18/uber-exec-tom-fallows-on-the-companys-culture-and-more/">said on stage at a recent StrictlyVC event</a> that <span>one</span> out of three people he works with is a former Google colleague. Google's PR boss, Rachel Whetstone, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pr-svp-rachel-whetstone-goes-to-uber-2015-5">recently ditched the search giant</a> for Uber too. </p><p>Uber currently uses Google Maps data to power its apps for drivers and riders, but McClendon's hire in conjunction with the company's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-buys-decarta-mapping-startup-2015-3">recent acquisition</a> of a mapping startup and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-may-buy-nokias-mapping-unit-here-2015-5">reports that it could be interested in buying Nokia's mapping unit</a>, hint that that relationship might not last.</p><p>Google and Uber's ambitions are starting to overlap more in other areas too: Both companies are experimenting in the speedy-delivery space.</p><p>Google has Express, a same-day delivery service <a href="https://www.google.com/shopping/express/">that's available in seven areas</a>. Meanwhile, Uber continues to experiment with ways it can <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-50-billion-question-can-uber-deliver-1434422042">turn its vast fleet of drivers into a logistical network </a>to be reckoned with. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/general-mcchrystal-manage-company-us-army-uber-2015-5">Gen. Stanley McChrystal on how Uber operates just like a special forces unit</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="UweG8ydToxKxgv97nzOpisx_MuacMgQv" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

An influential Google Maps exec just got poached to build products at Uber

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>Google SVP of communications and policy Rachel Whetsone <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pr-svp-rachel-whetstone-goes-to-uber-2015-5">is jumping ship to Uber</a>, where she will oversee similar functions for the fast-growing ride-sharing company.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Whetstone's move caught many by surprise. Google and Uber have become increasingly competitive. And Whetsone is a veteran Googler who has been with the Internet company since 2005. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But Whetsone's move is just the latest - although one of the highest-profile -examples of Google's redoubtable public relations army dispersing across Silicon Valley's elite companies</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Veterans of the Google communications team now control the messaging, the spin and the access to executives at tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat ,and Yahoo among others. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Google's vast size and the breadth of hot-button issues that touch its business everyday, from <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32720944">privacy</a> to mobile technology, and from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-accuses-google-of-antitrust-violations-2015-4">competition regulation</a> to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/12/google-china-ends-censorship">China</a>, provide a veritable boot camp for modern business communications and policy that few other companies can match. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em; color: #000000;">Here is a list of the Google PR vets who now craft the corporate narrative for Silicon Valley's most influential firms, based on their LinkedIn profiles and on news reports.</span></p><ul><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Rachel Whetsone, SVP Policy and Communications at Uber.</strong> Time at Google: 2005 - 2015</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Elliot Schrage, VP Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook.</strong> Time at Google: 2005 - 2008 </span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Gabriel Stricker, Chief Communications Officer, Twitter.</strong> Time at Google  2006 - 2012</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Jill Hazelbaker, VP Communications and Public Policy at Snapchat.</strong> Time at Google: 2010 - 2014</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Anne Espiritu, VP Global Public Relations at Yahoo.</strong> Time at Google: 2005 - 2012</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Ricardo Reyes, Brand Lead, Square.</strong> Time at Google: 2006 - 2009</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Barry Schnitt, Head of Communications at Pinterest.</strong> Time at Google: 2000 - 2012</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Aaron Zamost, Head of Communications at Square.</strong> Time at Google: 2007 - 2011</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Andrew Kovacs, Head of Communications at Sequoia Capital.</strong> Time at Google: 2006 - 2012</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Larry Yu, Marketing Partner, Accel Partners.</strong> Time at Google: 2007 - 2008</span></li><li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Erin Gleason, Director of Communications, Founders Fund.</strong> Time at Google: 2005 - 2010</span></li></ul>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-burpee-full-body-workout-2015-3">This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lyeGY3dDqIOrfWUeyzqcSzvAuvKi9t3n" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Veterans of Google's PR army now control the messaging at Silicon Valley's most important companies

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Facebook's latest scandals will hurt hiring efforts and damage employee morale, insiders say.</strong></li><li><strong>A recent New York Times report exposed how senior leadership tried to downplay the company's problems and smear its critics.</strong></li><li><strong>Current and former Facebook employees warn the revelations will further damage already-eroding morale at the company.</strong></li><li><strong>That, in turn, may make it harder for the company to retain and hire good talent - right as it's trying to solve some of its most difficult problems.</strong></li></ul><p>Facebook is in crisis, yet again.</p><p>This time, the issue how the company attempted to attack its critics with smears that have been accused of fueling anti-Semitism, while pushing to downplay the extent of public disclosures about Russian election meddling in 2016 - revelations exposed by a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html">bombshell New York Times investigation</a>.</p><p>The company went into panic mode, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg defending his position on a conference call with reporters as further leaks spilled out about his working relationship with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO. So what happens now?</p><p>Business Insider spoke to 3 former Facebook employees, and one current worker at the company, to get a feel for what people in the know are expecting Facebook to do next. These insiders warn that employee morale could take a hit - making it harder for Facebook to hire and retain the vital talent it needs to navigate this crisis. </p><p>Representatives for Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><h2>Facebook's scandals are more personal than ever before</h2><p>Facebook's current woes aren't like past crises the company has weathered, said some insiders.</p><p>"If you look back at the history of the company, there are many times when its been attacked from the outside ... but it's often felt like, internally, the leadership is on top of it," one former employee said. This person cited the company's rocky post-IPO period, and the questions over whether Facebook could effectively transition its business to capitalize on the smartphone boom, as examples of problems that Facebook leadership effectively hurdled.</p><p>"This time around ... it's actually a criticism of the leadership. This is a new kind of threat that Facebook has not experienced before ... it is the leadership somehow failing ... [a] crisis of confidence in the leadership," said this former employee.</p><p>Another former employee blamed some of Facebook's recent crises on the corporate culture built by Zuckerberg and Sandberg, where good news rose to the top and bad news never made it to the CEO's desk. </p><p>"I believe they would definitely have been kept in the dark on these issues as long as possible," this person said. "They built an executive culture that incentivized bringing only good news and deflecting bad."</p><p>"They will change something as a result. The external message will be something about some people already being gone from [Facebook], others being redeployed, and a new task force or something about doing this better," the person predicted.</p><p><em><strong>Got a tip?</strong><span> </span>Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at <a href="https://twitter.com/robaeprice">@robaeprice</a>. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.</em></p><h2>The relentless drumbeat of crises can hurt employee morale at a critical moment</h2><p>As the scandals have mounted, the change in attitudes towards Facebook over the last year has been dramatic.</p><p>"All of a sudden [it] went from a little bit of a darling to there was no safe haven," another former employee said.</p><p>"Government hated us, friends started not liking you, press started talking about the constant corrosive effect ... all the hard things that are going on give new people a lot of pause ... 'does this leadership know how to save the company?'"</p><p>Part of the problem is Facebook's rapid pace of growth. At the end of 2017, the company had around 25,000 staff, up from 17,000 at the end of 2016. A year prior to that, it was roughly 12,700, and in 2014 it was just over 9,000.</p><p>In other words, most employees simply haven't been at the company very long - and this means they may be less incentivized to stick around to clean up the mess and tackle some of the hardest problems that Facebook has yet had to face.</p><p>"Most of the company has not been there more than two years, so they have not been ... through a crisis like this, and they might not be emotionally invested in the company like the first thousand might be," an ex-employee said. They summarised employee perceptions of executive attitudes as "hey, we made a bunch of mistakes, and now it's your job to clean it up."</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-employee-morale-drops-after-scandals-survey-report-2018-11">According to a recent leak, Facebook employee morale has already plummeted</a>, with the proportion of employees who are "optimistic about the company's future" dropping from 84% to 52% over the last year.</p><h2>Where will the buck stop?</h2><p>It's not yet clear whether we'll see any major departures as a result of the most recent revelations.</p><p>One of the former employees suggested it was unlikely, pointing out that top communications exec Rachel Whetstone left back in August, and Elliot Schrage - head of comms and policy - has already announced his intentions to leave. </p><p>"Mark and Sheryl aren't going anywhere, no-one else is really worth getting rid of, so I don't really expect to see heads roll," the former employee said.</p><p>A current employee, meanwhile, suggested that Joel Kaplan, Facebook's policy boss in DC, might ultimately exit.</p><p>Kaplan is Facebook's policy boss in DC, and is a rare conservative at the famously liberal company, having previously served in the Bush White House. Kaplan drew flack from employees earlier this year after publicly appearing in support of his longtime friend Brett Kavanaugh as the then-Supreme Court nominee testified to Congress regarding allegations of sexual misconduct. According to the Times, Kaplan played a key role in the social network's attempts to downplay to the public the spread of misinformation on its platform.</p><p>A former employee said that some of Sandberg's lieutenants and other mid-level executives could leave (or be forced out) amid the turmoil.</p><p>Meanwhile, it's almost guaranteed that there will be some kind of discipline for those leakers who spoke to the New York Times. </p><p>"There will be firings from that. That team is very good at what they do," the former employee added. "Ironically, if those resources had been looking at external manipulation via Facebook, we may not be where we are today."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-marathon-race-week-training-2016-10">How to train the last days before a marathon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The latest scandals at Facebook will hurt morale and make it harder to hire during this critical moment, insiders say

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle.</span></p><p class="caption">Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle, and Eric Schmidt.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Google executives Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle have written a new book called "Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell." </li><li>In this excerpt, they share some of the best management lessons they learned from legendary business coach Bill Campbell, who mentored many of the most successful modern tech leaders before he passed away in 2016.</li><li>Campbell had a talent for really listening to people, watching body language, sensing mood shifts, and using empathy when delivering short, effective messages to employees.</li><li>In many ways, Campbell was like a sports coach, and he seemed to operate by tha mantra that if you get the team right, you'll get the issue right.</li><li>Eric Schmidt served as Google CEO and chairman from 2001 until 2011, Google executive chairman from 2011 to 2015, and Alphabet executive chairman from 2015 to 2018. Jonathan Rosenberg is a former senior vice president at Google and an advisor to the Alphabet management team, and Alan Eagle is a communications director at Google.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.<strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></li></ul><p>Eric Schmidt was involved in a Google meeting, with some people attending in person in Mountain View, and some (including Eric) joining via video conference. They were discussing a few different issues, but they ran out of time and one of the issues didn't get resolved. One person made a comment toward the end of the meeting, which Eric interpreted negatively. He felt sure, based on that one remark, that things weren't going to go his way on the issue in question. The comment sat with him and festered for a full week, and by the time the group got back together Eric was gunning for battle. That is when he realized, though, that he had completely misunderstood the comment and, as a result, the entire situation. The crisis was inadvertent. A lack of communication and an apparent slight had dug a fissure that was completely false.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is not an unusual story. It happens every day: The offhand comment, the quickly drafted email or text, and people careen off in emotional directions way out of whack with reality. This is when a coach can really come in handy. As Bill described it, his job as our coach was to "see little flaws in the organization that with a little massage we can make better. I listen, observe, and fill the communication and understanding gaps between people." The coach can spot those fissures before they become deep and permanent, and act to fix them by filling in the information gaps and correcting any miscommunication.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bill wasn't involved in that meeting with Eric, but if he had been, Eric would have gone to him to test out his assumptions about the perceived slight. Bill would have corrected him - everyone was, in fact, aligned - and Eric would have been spared a lot of angst.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> So, what would Bill do? First, he would listen and observe. This is the power of coaching in general: The ability to offer a different perspective, one unaffected by being "in the game." (Patrick Pichette: "Bill saw all the chess pieces all the time, because he had the luxury of not being on the board.") Bill sat in Eric's weekly staff meetings, listening intently, watching the body language of attendees, sensing mood shifts.</span></p><h2><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><strong>Marissa Meyer on Bill's power of observation</strong></h2><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Marissa Mayer tells a story about Bill's power of observation. She had started a new program at Google for people right out of college, computer science majors who were brought into the company as "associate product managers."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One day Eric told her, "Marissa, you've hired all the smartest 23-year-olds on the planet. But they are driving everyone crazy. Either this becomes a home run or the whole thing blows up. Get them under control."<br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><strong><em>Read more: </em></strong> <em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-dianne-greene-to-exit-alphabet-board-2019-4">Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene are both leaving Alphabet's board of directors</a></em></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Marissa turned to Bill. Could he help? He agreed to attend one of their meetings, an evening session where the first class of APMs gave updates on their projects and what problems they were having. Marissa thought the meeting was a failure - it was so boring! Just a bunch of people giving status updates and griping.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Bill observed something different. After the meeting he took Marissa aside. They're all getting stuck, he said, and you're the wrong person to help them. You've been here since almost the beginning and know how to get things done, so you can't relate to the problems they are having. Get someone who will help them figure out what the next step is. Create a forum where they can help each other. That will fix the problem. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And of course, he was right.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is one example of the power of observation at work; listening, looking for patterns, assessing strengths and weaknesses.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As Lee C. Bollinger says, "Bill had the highest capacity to understand the people he was working with. He had an intuitive sense of people and what motivated them and how to move them forward." He accomplished a lot of this by looking for tension, the smoke to a problem's fire. In Eric's staff meetings, for example, he'd sit in the room, usually not saying much, sensing when tension levels were rising and from where. Our staff meetings were generally open, transparent affairs where everyone was encouraged to share opinions and ideas, even on issues not directly related to their functions. Still, that goes only so far. People would simmer, and Bill would spot it.</span></p><h2><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><strong>Listening to more than words</strong></h2><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This requires keen observation. Not just listening to the words, but noticing the body language and the side conversations. So many of the people we talked to commented on Bill's ability to sense when people were frustrated. This is a natural skill, but one that can be developed. You have to listen and watch.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jim Rudgers, who was on Bill's coaching staff at Columbia, recalls Bill's remarkable ability to see the entire field of 22 players as a play unfolded. Hold up a finger and look at it, Jim says. That's how most of us watch football; the finger is the player with the ball. But Bill could see, recall, and assess the things that happen on the periphery as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He brought that skill to team meetings. He wouldn't just see the speaker, he could see the entire field and gauge reactions and intents even with the people who remained silent, the ones without the ball.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Stephen Lamb/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">The late Bill Campbell, shown at a 2012 conference.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Then he would talk to people. As Bill explained it one time at a Google management seminar, "I have a little more time than Larry does to do some of that stuff. I have a little more time than Sundar does to do some of that stuff, so, you know, I'll say to Sundar, Do you want me to meet with so-and-so?  Sure. And here's what I'm going to tell 'em. You okay with that? Yeah. Great. Perfect, and, you know, that helps a little bit in moving the thing along. Let's get it moving."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rachel Whetstone recalls a time a decision didn't go her way when she was running communications and policy for Google. She was in one of Eric's staff meetings, where they were discussing an important issue that had been causing PR headaches. She had been pushing for a change for a while, and when she didn't get the decision she wanted she was upset. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She felt they were making a mistake. Bill sought her out after the meeting. Listen, he told her, we decided not to make that change to that particular thing this time. I'm sorry and I know it's tough, but you're going to have to suck it up. Deal with the problem, okay? </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Not much of a pep talk, right? His advice was "deal with it"! But sometimes that's all it takes. An acknowledgment that things didn't go your way, some empathy that it sucks, a reminder to buck up and soldier on for the team. These were the sort of messages that Bill delivered all the time. Short, timely, and highly effective.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And while the skill of observing tension is a challenging one to develop, this idea of going around and talking to people is not. It simply takes time, and the ability to communicate well with colleagues. Bill could have noted Rachel's frustration and simply forgotten about it; it wasn't his job to fix her problem. But instead he made the effort to have a conversation with her. To make that short, important connection.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's so easy to forget to have these little conversations in a busy day; Bill made it a priority. While none of this was underhanded or secretive, it all had a "behind the scenes" quality. Bill rarely talked about these little 1:1 conversations; he would simply take you aside and have a few quiet words. This was all by design, another difference between a sports coach - who's out in front, leading the team, highly visible - and a business coach. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The essence of Bill was the essence of just about any sports coach: team first. All players, from stars to scrubs, must be ready to place the needs of the team above the needs of the individual. Given that commitment, teams can accomplish great things.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That's why, when faced with an issue, his first question wasn't about the issue itself, it was about the team tasked with tackling the issue. Get the team right and you'll get the issue right.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-marissa-mayer-rise-and-fall-2017-6"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></a></p><p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Excerpted from the book </span></em><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Trillion-2DDollar-2DCoach-2DLeadership-2DPlaybook_dp_0062839268_ref-3Dsr-5F1-5F1-3Fkeywords-3Dtrillion-2Bdollar-2Bcoach-26qid-3D1553691862-26s-3Dgateway-26sr-3D8-2D1&amp;d=DwMGaQ&amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&amp;r=Qm3YCzRCLuVwAZAOq8SkQLYVwoFsa6b6NJ5j5zQyOsk&amp;m=W6niqi35IC5xdNIF-5_LWzlm0w5GnWUv-AvJGPj9NNc&amp;s=yRtJORmoCuxkklyqoVLVO7_n4Uy653BysswrTYg37LQ&amp;e="><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">TRILLION DOLLAR COACH: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell</span></em></a><em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle. Copyright © 2019 by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle. To be published on April 16, 2019 by HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.</span></em></p><p> </p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reporter-calls-out-claim-that-fbi-was-happy-comeys-firing-sarah-huckabee-sanders-white-house-press-briefing-2017-5">This video shows the moment Sarah Sanders lied to a room full of reporters about FBI agents telling her they were happy Trump fired Comey</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Eric Schmidt reveals the best wisdom he got from ultimate Silicon Valley CEO coach Bill Campbell, who worked with Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg, and other star executives

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Uber - one&#xa0;of the most valuable private tech companies -&#xa0;is in a public battle with the world's&#xa0;most powerful mayor.<p class="embed-spacer">The richly valued ride-hailing company is fighting a proposed vehicle cap that would limit the number of new cars it could put on the road every year in New York City.</p><p class="embed-spacer">NYC mayor Bill de Blasio says the vehicle cap will allow the city to&#xa0;conduct<span>&#xa0;a study about congestion, traffic, and pollution. </span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span>Uber and its&#xa0;allies are quick to point out that the mayor may have other&#xa0;motives for kneecapping the company's growth -&#xa0;<span>De Blasio's mayoral campaign </span><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.1448237">received more than $250,000 from the taxi industry</a><span>,&#xa0;which opposes Uber.</span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span>To fight the proposed legislation, Uber is pulling out all the stops.&#xa0;The company - which has a history of being&#xa0;far from conflict-averse - has aggressively marketed itself as a service for minorities and outer-borough residents (two groups taxis are notoriously bad at serving) and as a means for New Yorkers to find gainful employment. There have been TV ads and pressers. On Tuesday, Uber hosted a "jobs event" for prospective and current drivers, to showcase how many NYC residents' jobs stand to be cut if the vehicle cut goes&#xa0;into effect.</span></span></p><div><div></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span>If this sounds&#xa0;like a political campaign, that's because it is. If Uber wants to sustain growth in New York City - one of its biggest markets, which generates&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-revenue-rides-drivers-and-fares-2014-11?op=1">hundreds of millions&#xa0;of dollars of revenue</a>&#xa0;annually for the company - it&#xa0;</span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span>has no choice but to fight the taxi lobby and the mayor's office, which mistakenly thinks Uber's proponents and users are limited to a "<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/cold-dead-uber">small set of excited tech people</a>.<span>"&#xa0;</span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer">Rarely does a tech company get into <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword>, especially at this level. Uber is the exception because it has to: it's a transportation service with a technology layer and real-life operational implications. Uber is a simple enough concept - it brings people from point A to point B at the tap of a button - but it affects a host of issues more wide-reaching than transit, including regulation, employment and labor issues, city infrastructure, and yes, politics.</p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span>Uber&#xa0;can't reimagine&#xa0;public infrastructure and affect regulatory change without playing politics. It&#xa0;didn't become a $50 billion company without&#xa0;putting up a fight.&#xa0;New York City is far from&#xa0;being the only&#xa0;market Uber has targeted politically, but it may be the best case study of Uber as an efficient political entity with a well-oiled PR team.</span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span>As you'll recall,&#xa0;</span></span></span></span>Uber hired former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe last year. Plouffe works on Uber's policy and strategy division, and has been responsible for making sure Uber clears every regulatory hurdle in its path so it can operate in cities around the world.</p><p class="embed-spacer"></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p class="embed-spacer">Under Plouffe, Uber&#xa0;has made some strategic hires: in Illinois, for example, Uber hired the&#xa0;<a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140516/BLOGS02/140519820/uber-adds-lobbyists-as-it-begins-to-lose-springfields-taxi-war" target="_blank" data-web-url="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140516/BLOGS02/140519820/uber-adds-lobbyists-as-it-begins-to-lose-springfields-taxi-war">former governor's chief of staff</a>. In Connecticut, Uber worked with a&#xa0;<a href="http://www.brownrudnick.com/people-detail/ritter-thomas-d" target="_blank" data-web-url="http://www.brownrudnick.com/people-detail/ritter-thomas-d">former House speaker's firm</a>.</p><p class="embed-spacer">And in&#xa0;May, Uber&#xa0;hired <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pr-svp-rachel-whetstone-goes-to-uber-2015-5">longtime Googler and&#xa0;</a><span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pr-svp-rachel-whetstone-goes-to-uber-2015-5">SVP of communications and policy Rachel Whetstone</a> to replace Plouffe, who now serves as the company's&#xa0;<span>chief advisor.</span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span>Even at a national level, politicians can't keep Uber's name out of their mouths. Uber has somehow already become the hot-button tech company of the 2016 election: Hillary Clinton weighed in with concerns about the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-vows-to-crack-down-on-worker-misclassification-2015-7">1099 economy</a>&#xa0;and worker misclassification, which some&#xa0;saw as a dig at Uber. Jeb Bush&#xa0;made a show of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jeb-bush-uber-campaign-spending-report-2015-7">taking an Uber</a> while visiting San Francisco earlier this month.</span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span>Last month, Bloomberg wrote an in-depth look on <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-06-23/this-is-how-uber-takes-over-a-city">how Uber took over Portland</a>. Plouffe was instrumental in working to legalize Uber's operations in the city. Swarming in with its team of 250 lobbyists and 29 lobbying firms (which doesn't even count the company's municipal lobbyists), Uber wore down city&#xa0;authorities with data and its newfound agreeable, open-to-compromise attitude.</span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span>In New York, Uber has&#xa0;</span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span>run TV ads, bought banner ads on websites, sent out direct mailers to&#xa0;<span>constituents of City Council members who are proponents of the proposed legislation, and even&#xa0;reportedly tried to persuade<span>&#xa0;</span><a href="http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150713/BLOGS04/150719963/uber-courts-sharpton-to-oppose-mayors-cap-on-car-service-vehicles">Reverend Al Sharpton</a><span> to oppose the for-hire vehicle cap.&#xa0;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span><span><span>On Tuesday, the NYC comptroller <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-stringer-weighs-in-on-uber-vehicle-cap-2015-7">came out swinging</a> against the mayor's vehicle cap proposal. "<span>It makes no sense to arbitrarily cap Uber and other for-hire vehicle companies before we study the impact of congestion on the streets of New York," Scott Stringer said.&#xa0;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span><span><span>The company also&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-is-offering-free-rides-to-its-own-protest-2015-6">offered free UberPool rides</a> to its New York City customers to attend a pro-Uber protest at New York's City Hall last month, and introduced a "de Blasio" feature in its app&#xa0;to let users see just how long they'd have to wait for a ride with a vehicle cap. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span><span><span>The proposed vehicle cap Uber is fighting could be voted upon </span><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/uber-de-blasio-battle-access-nyc-streets-32518291">as soon as this week</a><span>.&#xa0;</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-founder-convicted-of-all-counts-2015-5">Here's the incredible story behind the guy who was just sentenced to life for creating the 'eBay for drugs'</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="p2d2wxczptWT5pUwmAdleRGRLaPVA12Y" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Uber is a political machine

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Larry Page's ambitions are huge and they grow bigger every day.</p>
<p>Already, he has Google working on self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, robots, solving the problem of aging, and drones. At Google, they call these efforts "moonshots."</p>
<p>The latest problem Page wants to solve: inefficient airports.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theinformation.com/At-Google-CEO-Page-s-Dreams-Keep-Getting-Bigger">In an excellent report, The Information's Amir Efrati writes: </a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">With friends and colleagues, Mr. Page has talked about his desire to build an airport that would be more efficient than existing ones. For example, his argument against the hyperloop train-a concept for transporting people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes-is that planes are just as efficient; it's the airports that are the problem. (Other transportation experts have expressed similar views.) It's not clear how Mr. Page would go about building such an airport.</p>
<p>Apparently, Page wants to build a model airport to show the world how it could be done better. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Efrati says Page also wants to build a model city.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p>
<p>It's all part of an initiative called "Google 2.0." Efrati reports that Page cleared out space on his floor of Google's headquarters a year ago, and asked 100 or so employees to help him figure out what huge problems in the world Google could solve.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>We published <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4?op=1">a long story about Page and his ambitions in April</a>. The last section was sub-titled "Understanding Every Want And Need."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4?op=1">Here it is:</a></p>
<h2 style="padding-left: 30px;">Understanding Every Want And Need</h2>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">On March 19, 2014, Larry Page gave an interview at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. During the keynote, Page and his interviewer, Charlie Rose, sat in tall chairs on a stage with a table between them.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The interview was essentially scripted. Page, his chief PR executive Rachel Whetstone, and Google's CMO Lorraine Twohill, had spent the day before in a Vancouver hotel room working on the presentation.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Now, Page and Rose were looking away from the audience at a giant screen above and behind the stage. On the screen, there was a video-game boxing match. One boxer had the other trapped in a corner and was mercilessly whaling on his opponent.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The winning boxer was being controlled by an artificially intelligent computer program created at Google.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">This, Page explained to Rose, was the future of Google. Page pointed out that all the Google artificial intelligence could "see" were the same pixels on the screen that a human player could see. It had learned to play the game all by itself. Look how well it's doing, Page said. Imagine if that kind of intelligence were thrown at your schedule.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Rose, enthusiastic but a little confused, chuckled. Likewise, the audience had no idea what Page was getting at. The rehearsals hadn't worked. And neither Whetstone nor Twohill were to blame.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In terms of his ability to relate to other humans, Larry Page has come a long way since that one awkward day in July 2001. But he's still bad at public speaking. All the content is there, but it's buried in a jumble of half-finished sentences and digressive run-ons. Steve Jobs, Larry Page is not. He's not even Mark Zuckerberg. As a result, the public is essentially unaware of what, exactly, Google and Larry Page are up to these days.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">As Page enters his fourth year in charge of Google again, the company is in fantastic shape. The stock price is above $700 per share, and it's not hard to imagine a day when Google revenues will cross $100 billion per year.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And yet, Page believes the company faces an existential question: Can Google come up with another great business after search?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Between Google search and Android, Larry Page and Google can take credit for creating two technology platforms used worldwide by billions of people.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">But Google gives Android away for free. Android's contribution to Google's bottom line is that it puts Google search and Google search ads into the pockets of millions of people around the world. In that sense, it's not a great new business for Google at all, it's merely an extension of Google's primary business. Google still makes 90% of its revenues from advertising; 70% of Google's total revenues still come from search ads.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">One danger to Google is that eventually - not this year, not this decade, but inevitably - it will be so huge that it will capture nearly all the money any businesses on the planet spends on marketing. As crazy as this sounds, it's plausible. Google revenues are already bigger than all the money marketers spend on magazine and newspaper ads combined. It already owns all but the tiniest sliver of the online ad market. Google search is running out of room to grow.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">For Page, this means he now spends much of his time asking himself what that future is going to be and how Google creates it.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He's got lots of ideas, and now that he's in charge he's got his engineers hacking away at plenty of them.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He never gave up on the transportation system he pitched to the University of Michigan, so now he has Google engineers working on self-driving cars.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Then there's artificial intelligence. Besides dominating video games, Google's AI was also able to watch all of YouTube, learn from the experience, and draw a picture of a cat.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There's a Google subsidiary called Calico that's working on solutions to the problems of aging and death.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Google has another subsidiary, Google Fiber Inc., connecting homes in Kansas City; Austin, Texas; and Provo, Utah with Internet that's 100 times faster than broadband. Google Fiber may soon expand to nine other cities, including Phoenix, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In 2013, Page moved Andy Rubin from the top of Android and asked him to start working on robots. Page envisioned a world in which robots could do things like take care of the elderly and load our self-driving cars with groceries and household supplies while we're busy at work. At the end of 2013, Google bought a company called Boston Dynamics, which makes humanoid and animal-like robots - some of them for the military.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Also in 2013, Page met former Apple executive Tony Fadell - the guy who designed the iPod - and persuaded him to sell his new company, Nest, to Google for $3.2 billion. Nest makes thermostats that are connected to the Internet. Just this month, Google purchased Titan Aerospace, a company that produces drones.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">At Google, they call the biggest ideas moonshots. There are many more of them, from hot-air balloons that broadcast the Internet spectrum - providing access to areas of the world that have lacked it - to plans to produce Android-powered watches.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Page admits that the diversity and number of ideas leave some of the company's investors anxious. They worry: Can Google keep its focus? Or is it about to follow in the footsteps of so many technology giants before it, spreading itself too thin, chasing too many wild ideas? And really, who needs a computer that can beat a human at a video game?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Page's answer to those concerns is twofold. First, he believes that it will be easier for Google to work on moonshots than on more mundane products. His logic: There's less competition. Also, the best people will work for Google because the best people like working on ambitious projects.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Secondly, Page argues that all of these schemes are part of providing the world better search.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Page has, over the years, come up with a broad definition for what Google search should be.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In 2012, he told a reporter that "the perfect search engine would understand whatever your need is. It would understand everything in the world deeply [and] give you back kind of exactly what you need."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">During a keynote at a Google conference in 2013, Page said that in the long term - "you know, 50 years from now or something" - he hopes Google's software will be able to "understand what you're knowledgeable about, what you're not, and how to organize the world so that the world can solve important problems."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So, in Page's vision, if you walk into your house and feel cold, your Google-powered wristwatch will be performing a search to understand that feeling. The search result will be for your Google-powered thermostat to turn up the heat.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Likewise, if you run out of milk and your Google-powered fridge notifies your Google-powered self-driving car to go collect some more from the Google-powered robots at the local grocery warehouse (no doubt paying with your Google wallet), it will all be a function of search.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The key to understanding the diversity of Google's moonshots is understanding that Page's vision of "perfect search" only works if all the products you interact with are compatible with one another.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">For example, Google's most advanced search product today, Google Now, is able to do things like alert Android users that they need to leave now if they are going to beat traffic and make a flight on time. But it can only do that because it has access to the Android users' inboxes, Google Maps, Google Flight Search, Google Calendar, and, of course, the users' smartphones.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So while it may seem random for Google to get into businesses as diverse as cars, thermostats, robotics, and TV production, there is an overriding objective behind it all: Page is envisioning a world where everything we touch is connected with and understood by an artificially intelligent computer that can discern patterns from our activity and learn to anticipate our needs before we even know we have them. Someday, Page has said several times, this AI will be hooked directly to our brains - perhaps through an implant.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Some of these ideas would scare people if Page were better at talking about them. He is, after all, directing billions of dollars every year toward making them a reality as quickly as possible. He's said several times that Google should be employing 1 million engineers. With all of Google's money, that's actually possible.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The good news for the world is that Page's goal of developing a pervasively connected AI that understands and provides for our every need is not about taking advantage of us.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He is, at heart, a passionate utopian - one who believes that technology has overwhelmingly made life better for humans and will only continue to do so.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In a question-and-answer session at a Google conference in 2013, Page told attendees that in the future, people would look back on how humans lived their lives today the same way we look back on our ancestors who spent all their time hunting and farming, as "crazy."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In 2014, Page is living an alternate ending to the Nikola Tesla biography that made him cry when he was 12 years old.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Instead of ending his life destitute and ignored, Page, still just 41, will spend the final half of his life pouring billions of dollars and countless hours into his wildest visions.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Anything you can imagine probably is doable," Page told Google investors in 2012. "You just have to imagine it and work on it."</p>

Forget The Hyperloop, Larry Page Wants Google To Build A Super-Efficient Airport The Rest Of The World Can Copy

<keyword id="6433339" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="20" keywordseo="Game-of-Thrones">Game of Thrones</keyword> Season 5 is finally here! While the residents of Westeros are busy planning, scheming and fighting for the Iron throne, we enjoy being a part of their world. Fans all over the world eagerly await the episodes, so that they can launch into a fantasy flight. And while we touch base back to reality, what are the lessons we can carry back to our lives to get rich?<br />
<br />
The plot revolves around the desire to dominate the ‘iron throne’. Even the Queen of England had been to see the throne in real life. The characters have strong personalities and are either driven by love, money or power. So what is it that drives us in real life? Money is definitely a great driving force. It motivates us to do better, live better and go that extra mile. It’s not only earning but also managing money that makes people financially successful. We can definitely take cues from the Game of thrones and use those lessons to achieve our financial goals.<br />
<br />
<strong>Winter is coming! </strong><br /> And then comes education, health, vacation and many other expenses. This phrase is the motto of House Stark. Used as a warning and to keep people alert these Stark words reveal a lot about their philosophy. While some people may think that they are pessimists, they actually believe in being prepared for the future. They are aware of the changes happening around them and accordingly they put their act together. Similarly, we must also be aware of the changes happening due to new regulations, impact of various events, influence of a political situation, etc on our <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> and <keyword id="6354308" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Plan">plan</keyword> accordingly. There is also a lesson to save for the not so glorious future here. Whether it’s a job loss or a health issue, we should be able to sustain our lifestyle for a couple of months at least. Saving an amount equivalent to 3-6 months of expenses to sustain our lifestyle is a good enough saving amount.<br />
<br />
<strong>A Lannister always pays his debts!</strong><br />
These Lannister words are more famous than the official motto of the house which is- Hear me roar! Lannisters are often heard quoting these words with pride. Now whether a Lannister always keeps his/her word is questionable, but further discussion can be a potential spoiler. The lesson to take away is when it comes to debts, think like a Lannister. Plan your repayments well in advance and take a vow to never default. Defaulting has a negative impact on CIBIL report and score. While institutional lenders in the real world rely on CIBIL reports and scores to evaluate customers more than vows, a vow to yourself will definitely reflect positively on papers.<br />
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<strong>The brave men did not kill dragons. The brave men rode them.</strong><br /> Words of Viserys Targaryen reveal a lot about how brave men think. While cowards embrace failure while accepting it as their fate, the brave are determined to tide over difficulties and achieve success. During times of recession or when the <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="economy">economy</keyword> is down, many a time people lose hope. They give up on their long term financials goals and accept losses in panic. Tough times are to be dealt with a calm mind and courage in the heart. And to do that it is necessary to believe in oneself. Trust your abilities, the efforts you have put in research, the instinct developed over years and be brave in face of adversity. Think about opportunities to benefit from situations rather than giving up. So, next time you see the markets crashing look out for the stocks you always wanted to invest in. That’s the opportunity!<br />
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<strong>A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.</strong><br /> Tyrion Lannister is intelligent and witty, and that is exactly what protects him in spite of his physical shortcomings in a world where physical strength was important for survival. He is often seen with a book for company when wine and women are not around. His explanation is that reading is necessary to maintain a sharp mind. In the same way we must stay updated and relentlessly pursue knowledge to remain on top of the financial game. Whether it is reading informative articles, books or watching <keyword id="25455" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="finance">finance</keyword> related videos, it is necessary to keep learning about the happenings in the finance world. Your hard earned money definitely deserves your time and attention.<br />
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<strong>The lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep.</strong><br />
Considered one of the most calculative characters, Tywin Lannister’s wise words come from experience. This is especially true when there are decisions we make but do not feel so confident about due to public opinion. We must feel confident about our thoughts and hold onto the idea even if people think differently. Just like the lion, who does not concern himself with the opinion of the sheep?<br />
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<strong>What we don’t know is what usually gets us killed!</strong><br />
Petyr Baelish is an opportunist and has a scheming mind. These are his words. And precisely what we must keep in mind when money is involved. Whether it is making an investment, buying stocks or a real estate transaction, take efforts to get into the details and understand the whole deal; especially, the fine print. Enquire about hidden charges and evaluate the risk involved. Only once you are confident about what you are getting into, part with the money. Let no transaction kill you, instead you should be killing it with profits!<br />
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When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. However, in the world of finance it is possible to find a middle ground. Plan your finances, balance your investments in debt, equity etc. and evaluate the risk. Surprises and unexpected twists make the show interesting but when it comes to a real life finance situation ‘the well planned’ win the game.<br />
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<span>Rajiv Raj is the Director and Co-Founder of </span><a href="http://www.creditvidya.com/">www.creditvidya.com</a><br />
<em><span>Image: indiatimes </span></em>

Game of Thrones can make you rich!

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Google just <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/">fired off a feisty blog post</a> refuting <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-makes-most-of-close-ties-to-white-house-1427242076">a recent Wall Street journal piece</a> about the company's ties to the White House. </p><p>Google basically said that yes, some former and current Google employees have visited the White House quite a lot in recent years. But, they weren't there to discuss the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe into the company, as it says The Wall Street Journal insinuates. </p><p>"In fact, we seem to have discussed everything but," Google writes. </p><p>The tension between the paper and Google started after <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274">The WSJ recently published a major story</a> about the FTC's 2012 investigation into Google's anticompetitive practices, after <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/feds-gave-wall-street-journal-google-antitrust-report-accident-2015-3">accidentally obtaining the staff's internal report</a> through an unrelated Freedom of Information Act request. The <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-makes-most-of-close-ties-to-white-house-1427242076">paper then published a follow-up story</a> about the number of White House visits Google employees during the FTC's deliberations about its antitrust investigation. </p><p>"<span>As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of </span>Google<span> Inc.,</span><span> company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission," the WSJ story begins. It then goes on to say that Google employees have visited the White House <span>230 times </span>since President Obama took office, based on visitor logs. The piece doesn't claim to know the content of many of the meetings, but points out how many took place right before the FTC made its decision to drop its antitrust probe. </span></p><p><span>In a blog post published Friday evening, Google SVP of communications and policy Rachel Whetstone addresses specific claims from the WSJ piece, including the number of White House visits Google made and that the Bureau of Economics findings disagreed with the findings of the FTC. </span></p><p><span>"<span>Given the inaccuracies that have been published, we wanted to give our side of the story," she writes. </span></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Here's Google's full post, titled "Really, Rupert?" (GIFs their own)</strong>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Last year Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, accused Google of creating a "less informed, more vexatious level of dialogue in our society." Given the tone of some of your publications, that made quite a few people chuckle.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"></div></div></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">This week you were at it again.  One of your newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, accused Google of wielding undue political influence.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It#/media/File:It%27s_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It.jpg">Blimey</a>!<br><br>More seriously, given the inaccuracies that have been published, we wanted to give our side of the story. Here goes.<br><br><strong>Wall Street Journal</strong>:</br></br></br></br></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The findings [from the Bureau of Competition] stand in contrast to the conclusion of the FTC's commissioners, who voted unanimously in early 2013 to end the investigation.".   <br><br><strong>Google</strong>:<br>As the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/03/statement-chairwoman-edith-ramirez-commissioners-julie-brill">FTC made clear this week</a>:  "... the Commission's decision on the search allegations was in accord with the recommendations of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Economics, and Office of General Counsel" (something the Journal has chosen not to report).<br><br><strong>Wall Street Journal</strong>:<br>"Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times …  In comparison, employees of rival Comcast Corp., also known as a force in Washington, have visited the White House a total of about 20 times … Google's knack for getting in the room with important government officials is gaining new relevance as scrutiny grows over how the company avoided being hit by the FTC with a potentially damaging antitrust lawsuit".<br><br><strong>Google</strong>:<br>Of course we've had many meetings at the White House over the years.  But when it comes to the information the Journal provided to Google about these meetings, our employment records show that 33 of the White House visits were by people not employed here at the time.  And over five visits were a Google engineer on leave helping to fix technical issues with the government's Healthcare.gov website (something he's been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vc8sxhy2I4">very public about</a>).  Checking through White House records for other companies, our team counted around 270 visits for Microsoft over the same time frame and 150 for Comcast.  <br><br>And the meetings we did have were not to discuss the antitrust investigation.  In fact, we seem to have discussed everything but, including patent reform, STEM education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, civic innovation, R&amp;D, cloud computing, trade and investment, cyber security, energy efficiency and our workplace benefit policies.  For example:  </br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></p><ul style="padding-left: 30px;"><li style="padding-left: 30px;">Several visits were advertising industry meetings attended by Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others.  Yes, Microsoft, the main complainant in the FTC's antitrust investigation;</li><li style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;">Over a dozen visits were for production crews covering the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbR6iQ62v9k">YouTube interviews </a><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;">with the President following the State of the Union and photographing the </span><a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/collection/the-white-house?projectId=art-project">White House art collection</a><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;"> for Google's Art Project;</span></li><li style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;">One of the meetings specifically called out by the Journal was actually a meeting with our Chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, with several other technology companies to discuss copyright legislation (the draft SOPA/PIPA laws that were ultimately dropped by Congress).</span></li></ul><p style="padding-left: 30px;">As the FTC has said, the Journal "makes a number of misleading inferences and suggestions about the integrity of the FTC's investigation. The article suggests that a series of disparate and unrelated meetings involving FTC officials and executive branch officials or Google representatives somehow affected the Commission's decision to close the search investigation in early 2013. Not a single fact is offered to substantiate this misleading narrative". <br><br>We understand you have a new found love of the regulatory process, especially in Europe, but as the FTC's Bureau of Competition staff concluded, Google has strong pro-competitive arguments on our side.  To quote from their report "... the record will permit Google to show substantial innovation, intense competition from Microsoft and others, and speculative long-run harm".  <br><br>And the FTC was not alone when it comes to search ranking and display.  The <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2882072/ohio-closes-google-antitrust-investigation.html">Texas and Ohio</a> Attorneys General closed their comprehensive competition investigations into Google in 2014. And courts in <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-wins-vertical-search-antitrust-case-in-germany-158544?utm_campaign=tweet&amp;utm_source=socialflow&amp;utm_medium=twitter">Germany</a> and <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-wins-major-antitrust-victory-in-brazil-does-it-foreshadow-broader-eu-us-wins-132729">Brazil</a> found that there is no basis in the law for Google competitors to dictate Google's search results.</br></br></br></br></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"></div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jen-selter-belfies-instagram-background-kim-kardashian-butt-selfie-2015-2">Forget Kim Kardashian - the 'butt selfie' queen of Instagram is a 21-year-old from Long Island</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="4yYmk2czojuTR5jCduGtnG0enYdapsNF" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Google fires back at the Wall Street Journal over White House meetings: 'Really, Rupert?'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Steve Jennings / Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>In 2014, Uber's office in Lyon, France, unveiled what's now the ride-hailing company's most infamous ad campaign: pairing "hot chick" women drivers with passengers for a 20 minute trip. The promo video, with close-ups of women's breasts strapped under seat belts, was taken down as soon as Uber's headquarters caught wind of it. </p><p>"It was a clear misjudgment by the local team and we apologize to the Uber community," an Uber spokesperson<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-avions-de-chasse-promotion-with-hot-chick-drivers-2014-10"> told Business Insider</a> at the time.</p><p><span data-term="goog_1393144578">Two years later</span>, the danger of a local city team making a misjudgment is amplified. Instead of being in 50 cities around the world, the company is now in more than 450. Employee headcount has ballooned from 500 to 10,000, spread across all corners of the globe. And as Uber plans an aggressive expansion in China, the growth will continue.</p><p>Uber's sprawling network of autonomous city outposts has helped the ride-sharing company expand at a record pace, upending the entire taxi industry and bolstering a $60 billion valuation. But the free rein that Uber gave its regional branches can be a double-edged sword.</p><p>Now Uber is taking steps to impose more adult supervision while trying not to kill the magic formula behind its success. Uber says it is putting up more "guardrails," including exerting more centralized control on its messaging, bolstering communications between local offices and adding more oversight where necessary.</p><p>"I think the vision, the strategy, the culture, the things that we stand for are so clear now that if something like [Lyon] were to happen today, immediately there would be people on the teams today to say 'Hey is this really what we stand for' and 'What does the communications team think about it?'" Uber's general manager of France, Thibaud Simphal, told Business Insider.</p><h2>How Uber builds its network of cities</h2><p>Because of the way Uber seeds cities, its field offices have a lot of power. </p><p>Uber usually sends a city "launcher" to find the first three employees: a general manager t0 run the city, a marketing manager, and an operations and logistics manager to handle a lot of the interactions with drivers. </p><p>Those teams hire and build out a city's operations, including finding more people to seed the smaller cities in the surrounding area. Uber employees fly to headquarters for "Uberversity" to get indoctrinated in the Uber way, but otherwise, they're largely left on their own, essentially operating as little fiefdoms.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS</span></p><p class="caption">As Uber expands in China, it's going to add more cities to its network and bring on more challenges in a highly-competitive market.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"City teams have a ton of flexibility," said Nick Anderson, a former general manager based out of Chicago who left to start his own company, <a href="http://www.take5drink.com/">Take5</a>. "HQ sets the goals, and it's the city teams jobs to beat them and really grow the market as quickly as possible."</p><p>And while Uber's SF headquarters gets most of the attention, some of its biggest developments have come from its city offices - like the Uber kitten marketing stunt that came out of Seattle and went viral from there.</p><p>Surge pricing, for example, <a href="http://abovethecrowd.com/2014/03/11/a-deeper-look-at-ubers-dynamic-pricing-model/">originated in the early days of Uber's Boston office</a>. The team on the ground realized there was nothing to incentivize drivers to be on the road at <span data-term="goog_1393144579">2 a.m.</span> when the bars closed. Adding surge pricing, which increases the cost for riders and subsequently the payouts for drivers, righted the supply and demand imbalance.</p><p>Now, it's a core part of the company's business.</p><p>"The culture is very much one around experimenting and trying new things. Cities did not have to go very high up," said one former operations manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It was a really interesting mix of plugging in and staying connected to the main team, but also staying independent enough to try some of your own experiments."</p><h2>Auto-body shop office hours</h2><p>Uber has delegated so much responsibility to cities that in<span> at least one instance, important relations with key organizations and business interests in a city </span><span>were entrusted to a local contractor who started out as a driver.</span></p><p>The former Uber driver, who who asked for anonymity because of a non-disclosure agreement, described overseeing a wide range of duties in his local region. </p><p>Uber didn't have a physical presence in the driver's city - its closest office in the area was three hours away in a bigger city. After the driver emailed Uber's local office with suggestions, Uber deputized him, empowering him to build the business.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for NYCWFF</span></p><p class="caption">Uber relies on a network of brand ambassadors to spread the word, but it's also experimented with hiring contractors to help it spread and grow faster.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>He started going to bars and hotels, handing out free Uber codes to give to guests. He established office hours in a café and later in an auto-body shop that soon doubled as a vehicle inspection lot. And when it came to relations with the city's Chamber of Commerce, it was the contractor for Uber - and not a full-time employee - that spoke on behalf of the company. </p><p>Despite representing the company, the contractor was never flown to Uber headquarters for training or to go through the "Uberversity" like other employees. </p><p>But, perhaps recognizing the importance of such a role, Uber eventually imposed more control in the region. After one year, the company terminated the former driver's contract and installed its own full-time employee.</p><p>The freewheeling approach is "good for expanding, but not good for maintaining," the former driver says.</p><p>"Having workers in that capacity where you can easily change them around, end contracts, cut hours, it gives [Uber] a lot of advantage in expanding, but I think that it's hard to maintain," he told Business Insider. "If they don't hire these people on, I don't know how well that works in long term without having the kind of support," he said. </p><h2>Freedom, but with guard rails</h2><p>While Uber has reached its size and scale through experimentation, Justin Kintz, Uber's head of U.S. public affairs, says the company worked to put up "guard rails" over the years to make sure actions are in the best interest of Uber's drivers, riders, and cities.</p><p>"We go back to our company's principles: When in doubt, celebrate the city. Do what's best for riders. Have we been perfect at it? No. We've made mistakes," he said.</p><p>Uber is taking steps to hone its marketing messages, while keeping the employees between offices better connected so they can share what they learn. Headquarters not only manages aspects like pricing and the products it develops, but it's also taken a greater role in centralizing the message about what Uber stands for.</p><p>In the last two years, Uber has undertaken a big brand revamp about "celebrating cities". Its motto changed from "Everyone's personal driver" to "Making <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> as reliable as running water." </p><p>Now, Simphal looks at headquarters as a network of experts he can tap into when he needs the help instead of being entirely free-wheeling and on his own in France.</p><p>The shift in tone - and greater control over it - has coincided with the hiring of David Plouffe, a former Obama campaign manager, and former Google PR maven Rachel Whetstone, who joined Uber in summer 2015. </p><p>"Uber's grown to become a pretty massive company so there's a need to have a healthy balance there with the trade-off between headquarters and city teams," the former manager, Anderson, said of the oversight. "I think they've done a really good job of empowering city teams to make their own decisions and to stay in control of their own destiny."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Thibaud Simphal, manager of Uber France, arrives at the courthouse as the executive from the California-based Uber faces trial in Paris, France, February 11, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The empowerment comes with responsibility, and in June, two French Uber executives, including Simphal, were convicted and fined by a judge for illegal business activity after defying an order to shut down its low cost UberPop service. Uber argued in the case that the decision was made by headquarters, not by France's managers, even though the judge held them responsible anyway. Simphal declined to say who will be paying the fine, whether it will be his own money or an Uber-funded payment, but Simphal is willing to take responsibility for the company's actions in his market. </p><p>Now that the stakes are so much higher, everyone is conscious of the repercussions of a wrong move.</p><p>Uber is still very city driven, but anything a team does must fit within certain boundaries of the company's vision and principles, Simphal says. Experimentation outside of those limits is possible, but it requires an extra bit of explanation and gut-check to make sure it's the right move. </p><p><span>"You need to have this unity of the vision," says Simphal. "Then a lot of these things come naturally. "</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-passenger-rating-tips-2016-4">Uber drivers reveal 5 ways to get a better passenger rating</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="xpMGE3MzE6m_YIOsNO7lPvPPPu_iUQh8" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Uber's hundreds of freewheeling outposts fueled its crazy growth...and caused some headaches

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Craig Barritt/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Chris Lehane carries with him the nickname "Master of Disaster."</p><p>Twenty years ago, Lehane was part of a small team that coached the Clinton Administration through the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater scandals. Their political maneuvering <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0096M8PL4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">earned Lehane the nickname and a book deal.</a></p><p>Now three thousand miles away from the White House and two decades removed, Lehane is leading global policy for Airbnb, a $25.5 billion startup that enables people to rent their spare bedrooms.</p><p>His appointment is not the final resting place for his political career, but a new branch of it. Tech companies are gobbling up executives who have the political clout and connections to help build bridges to DC.</p><p>In turn, we're seeing these startups become more politicized too. Last month, L<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-airbnbs-playbook-for-taking-over-every-city-2015-11">ehane revealed a playbook to encourag Airbnb hosts to join "clubs"</a>, which Airbnb will then turn into grassroots lobbying organizations.</p><p>The gulf that once existed between Silicon Valley and DC is growing smaller. The Valley has replaced Detroit as the mandatory campaign stop, Lehane says, and those in <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword> see the draw of the new tech economy.</p><p>"If you could be in Florence during the Renaissance or Paris during the Enlightenment, why wouldn't you?" Lehane questions, although admitting his analogy might be a bit hyperbolic.</p><p>"History will tell us if indeed this is the equivalent or at least close to the equivalent of that, but I do think it is the epicenter of a lot of the big ideas that are driving broader issues that are driving society globally," Lehane continues. "And to be able to have a seat in the bleachers and watch that and maybe at some small levels participate in that was an amazing opportunity."</p><h2>The DC exodus</h2><p>Lehane is just one of the many political movers and shakers to make their way to private tech companies in recent years:</p><ul><li><strong>Ted Ullyot </strong>served as the former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush and chief of staff to the attorney general in the department of justice. He joined Facebook in 2008 as is first general counsel, trying to help the social network educate both DC and Europe about the company. Most recently joined VC firm Andreessen Horowitz as a partner to help its startups negotiate the complicated world of policy and regulation.</li><li><strong>Mark Penn</strong>, the former strategist for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign and a pollster in Bill Clinton's earlier years, joined Microsoft in 2012 to lead special projects, where he came up with the company's anti-Google "Scroogled" campaign. He left <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-penn-pe-fund-backed-by-steve-ballmer-2015-6">in June 2015</a> to start a new private equity fund.</li><li><strong>David</strong> <strong>Plouffe </strong>served as President Obama's campaign manager in the 2008 election and sculpted his campaign of hope and change. In September 2014, Uber brought on the former DC bigwig to be its senior VP of policy and strategy and lead the ride-hailing company, which had been pounded by both the press and regulators, to a more positive message. </li><li><span><strong><strong>Joel Kaplan</strong>, </strong>the former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, jumped to Facebook in 2012 to head up their public policy.  </span><strong>Kevin Martin</strong>, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2005 to 2009, joined Facebook in 2015 as its VP of mobile and global access policy.</li></ul><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Jason Reed/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">In this 2012 photo, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney (R), U.S. President Barack Obama's political strategist David Plouffe (L) and Obama's chief speechwriter Jon Favreau (C) step off Marine One as they follow Obama. All three have left DC for jobs at Amazon, Uber, and creating their own firm catering towards startups.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><ul><li><strong><span>Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor,</span></strong><span> a former speech writer and spokesperson for President Barack Obama, opened a firm this year to help teach story telling to startups.</span></li><li><strong>Tucker Bounds</strong>, a former spokesperson for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, made a pit stop at Facebook before launching Sidewire, a political newswire company, in 2014.</li><li><strong>Jill Hazelbaker, Niki Christoff, </strong>and <strong>Samantha Smith </strong>all worked on the McCain campaign before jumping to Google. (Hazelbaker later jumped to Snapchat and is now at Uber.)</li><li><strong>Susan Molinari </strong>is one of the few elected officials to have served in office before they launched into tech. She started her career as a Republican representative from New York where she stayed for seven years. After a tenure as a journalist and lobbyist, Molinari joined Google in 2012 to be its Vice President of Policy and Public Relations.</li><li><strong>Lisa Jackson</strong> joined Apple to be its VP of environment, policy, and social initiatives in 2013 after serving as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2009-2013.</li><li><strong>Al Gore, </strong>the former senator and vice president under Bill Clinton, joined Apple's board of directors in 2003 and became a partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield &amp; Byers in 2007.</li></ul><p>In the latest high-profile shift, Amazon hired another Obama executive, former White House press secretary <strong>Jay Carney</strong>, in February 2015. The move was unusual for Amazon since it's known for growing its talent internally rather than hire from the outside, but the company gave Carney the role as senior vice president for corporate affairs.</p><p>In his short tenure, Carney's political background has already shown through. The company that has been notorious for declining to comment for years took 59 days to respond to a New York Times exposé that alleged bad working conditions for Amazon employees. Once unleashed, Carney and the New York Times engaged in public mud-slinging on Medium (another tech company and publication), trading posts back-and-forth over the merits of the story.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Jay Carney gives his final briefing at the White House in Washington</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Why they make the jump</h2><p>When Ted Ullyot was working in DC in the early 2000s, the conversation around tech was still all about Microsoft and the antitrust regulation the company was facing. Technology was still considered more of a service and less of the innovation and economic driver it's seen as today, says Ullyot.</p><p>In 2008, Ullyot jumped to Facebook - a move he says his friends questioned at the time. Facebook was still a young social network, and Ullyot was only the second person the company had hired based in DC. </p><p>"I remember in the early days, the reaction for when I went to Facebook was 'Why would you do that? That sounds crazy. Why would you leave DC and all this and go out to fledgling social network company, whatever that is?'" Ullyot told Business Insider. "And now people say 'Oh I get it. I see that's pretty interesting. There's some real issues you're working on.'"</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Andreessen Horowitz</span></p><p class="caption">Ted Ullyot, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz</p></div><p></p></div></div>To Ullyot, Sheryl Sandberg was exhibit A of that. Before she joined the tech sector, Sandberg spent a year at McKinsey and then left to work for Larry Summers, her former thesis adviser at Harvard, who was serving at the US Treasury Department in 1995.</p><p>She spent five years in government before joining Google in 2001 as its VP of Global Online Sales and Operations. It wasn't until 2008 that she joined the nascent social network, Facebook.</p><p>"There's a long history of people in public service that then go to public sector. Maybe a decade ago they would go to Carlisle, they would go to McKinsey or maybe TPG. They would just go to some other place where it was important for them to have access," said Semil Shah, an <a href="http://blog.semilshah.com/about/">investor-writer who created and invests out of the Haystack Fund</a>.</p><p>Those jobs still exist, but the tech sector gives these political figures another shining moment in the tech sector.</p><p>"David Plouffe, can he go create another Obama? No. So he's like 'OK this is an interesting challenge.' And if he doesn't do well in it, then he can go to Carlisle," Shah said. </p><p>Lehane thinks some of the most recent job changes - and the desire for new challenges - could be attributed to the state of Washington politics. Compared to DC, he says the Valley is optimistic and full of ideas are changing the world. "It's a place where the first instinct is to say 'yes we can do it,' not 'no we can't do it,'" Lehane said. </p><p>The draw of high tech salaries and great benefits packages pitted against a lack of forward movement in the government, it's not surprising to Lehane that more DC types have moved into the tech sector.</p><p>"You have paralysis in Washington DC and you have action in Silicon Valley. So for people who from a life perspective want to contribute in ways to move society forward, this is just a natural place to be," Lehane said. </p><h2>Why startups need political handlers</h2><p>While the early movers like Lehane used to be more like translators than negotiators,  startups are now learning early how to deal with regulation.</p><p>"I think these companies realize that their very existence is not just a market battle but a political battle. The way that our regulatory systems are set up they're just not designed to handle them well," said Edward Walker, a professor specializing in grassroots campaigning at UCLA. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Seth Wenig/AP</span></p><p class="caption">The movement into new sectors also clashes with incumbents, leading to riots and lobbying from industries like taxi or hotels who have seen their profits wilt&#xa0;due to Uber and Airbnb.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The need for political acumen is increasing because software and technology is only increasingly intersecting with every day life. Startups are now targeting sectors like transportation, water, and energy, all closely-regulated areas. It gets particularly complicated when companies have to deal with a patchwork of local regulations. </p><p>Lehane blames the DC paralysis for also pushing many of these decisions about new technology to the city and state level.</p><p>"The other issue is [startups] have a wildly varying regulation environment across cities, so you need an incredibly amount of acumen and skill to be able to navigate those wildly varying terrains across cities," Walker said. "I think the hiring of highly skilled political strategists says a lot about how much knowledge one needs about how these processes work across incredibly varying environments."</p><p>Now startups are starting to poach former political players from other tech companies.</p><p>Uber, for example, nabbed Plouffe from the Obama campaign, but soon thereafter, moved Plouffe to an advisory role. The company snagged Rachel Whetsone away from Google to be its new SVP of communications and policy, a position she held at the search giant after her career in British politics. Whetstone, in turn, brought on Jill Hazelbaker, another ex-Googler and former John McCain staffer, who was leading up communications and public policy at Snapchat. </p><h2>Not a one way street</h2><p>Startups aren't doing the only poaching, though.</p><p>In 2009, President Obama created the role of US CTO, first hiring people from within government to fill the role, before naming Megan Smith CTO in September 2014.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Flickr/joi</span></p><p class="caption">New U.S. CTO Megan Smith</p></div><p></p></div></div>The former VP of Google's special project lab, Google X, was in Africa a year ago when she got an email from Todd Park, the US CTO at the time. 33 days later, Barack Obama called and asked her to come to serve in DC, Smith said during an October appearance in San Francisco. </p><p>"I said, 'It'd be an honor, Mr. President,'" Smith told the audience.</p><p>She doesn't condemn tech workers who move to Silicon Valley and dream of building apps - after all, that's where she came from too. But she does think tech workers should consider spending some time in government because the issues on the horizon for the United States are only going to become more technical. </p><p>"In order to form a more perfect union, it includes us and we need to show up," Smith said.</p><p>Smith's not alone in the government. Facebook's lead open source guy, David Recordon, left the company in March to become Director of White House Information Technology and bring the executive branch into 21st century technology.</p><p>To Andreessen Horowitz's Ullyot, tech workers need to see the role model for success, like a Recordon or a Smith, before they go to the other side. </p><p>"Sometimes you need a model. You need to see somebody do that and be successful at it and come back with stories about how interesting it was," Ullyot said. "Due to the nature of things, it is harder to make that kind of immediate impact in Washington given the size of the federal government and bureaucracy out there than it is to come this way and be involved in a company and be immediately impact."</p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/candidates-spending-politics-money-ben-carson-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-jeb-bush-2015-10">Here's what the leading presidential candidates are actually spending their money on</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JvNDNmeDqH0VsrEr7G3HVsrd0suGMq32" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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