it's not ROI, it's EU
(End User.)
A question posed to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, during last week's Q1 2007 earnings call, and his response:
Anthony Noto (Goldman Sachs): Eric, I was wondering if you could comment at the management level as you make investments, what measurement do you look at holistically for the company as a return-based measurement to ensure that the overall business and overall shareholders are seeing an aggregated return from each of the individual investments?
Eric Schmidt (Google): We don't approach the questions quite the same way that you phrased them. Our primary focus is on end user happiness, end user traffic, end user growth. [styling mine]
-- Google Inc. (GOOG) Q1 2007 Earnings Call (transcript or liveblogging summary)
I'd say "overall shareholders" are satisfied so far. When will user-centric become business-as-usual, again?
comments
Bravo Mr Schmidt. And incidently that attitude will bring satisfaction to the shareholders over the long haul. One wonders if Mr. Noto always speaks in that manner? And does anyone listen?
-- Helen Courtney (April 28, 2007 2:41 AM)
Helen,
"that attitude will bring satisfaction to the shareholders over the long haul."
That's exactly it.
"And does anyone listen?"
The exciting thing is that "businesspeople" are talking more like people and about people, and discovering (the lost obviousness) that this is what business is really about.
-- jeffschuler (May 1, 2007 11:02 AM)