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Google is a black swan. People keep trying to explain its success in ways Google founders never thought about. I remember that Google Story cited a branding expert saying something close to "These guys don't know what their brand stands for; they are just coders".

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Thank you! I always say that they have one of the most profitable products in the history of the world. By definition, there aren't many "most profitable products in the history of the world", so trying to duplicate their product is a waste of time. So many things went perfectly, both in execution and timing (for instance, they could afford to hire everyone that got laid off after the bust).

tell that to their billions

There's nothing wrong with being just coder, although they seem to be scientists too. To me their approach to data demonstrates that scientific method has become a viable way of doing business. The recent bestseller Super Crunchers seems to try to establish this as a trend:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=...

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