Incoming Google CEO Larry Page To Cut Google Services & Projects Across The Board?

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This past week, Google insiders had said that Google co-founder and incoming CEO Larry Page is hoping to bring the company back to its “startup roots”. Now, Google tipsters talking to the Wall Street Journal have leaked that in advance of Page regaining the CEO spot from the outgoing Dr. Eric Schmidt, Page is surveying all projects that Google is working  on in order to “winnow” them down.

“People familiar with the matter” told the WSJ that Page is personally e-mailing all project and engineering managers for information about their projects, so he can trim them down. I guess it isn’t clear if these are projects in the works at Google, or if Page plans to cut any Google projects or services that are already up for the public to use.

So much of what Google does is cloud-based and algorithmically processed that in my estimation they would be pulling warm bodies off of further development, maybe not just outright canceling things. Anyway, it definitely sounds like Larry wants to bring a more collegiate atmosphere (back) to Google. According to the WSJ, Larry has been making a tour of Google, chatting with managers and hearing about what issues they’re having. Google was once the darling of the internet community, but the company has increasingly garnered more criticism on privacy and censorship issues. Even their once beloved “Do No Evil” motto has been ridiculed by snarky message board commentators.

Here’s something to consider. When co-founder Larry Page handed over the CEO job to Schmidt in 2001 (likely for the eventual Google IPO), Google had 200 employees. Now, they have over 24,000.  Remember that Larry Page takes over from Dr. Eric Schmidt as CEO of the world’s #1 search company on April 4th.