A Creator Prepares to Take the Reins at Google

SAN FRANCISCO — Things that get Larry Page excited: tossing around programming lingo with engineers, picking the brains of scientists and championing ideas that belong in science-fiction novels, like cars that drive themselves.

Things he would be happy to live without: long meetings, press conferences and a regimented schedule.

But Mr. Page, the Google co-founder, will have to get used to those things quickly as he prepares to take over the chief executive role from Eric E. Schmidt in April.

The move will test whether Mr. Page, a reserved person who thrives on intellectual challenges, has developed the skills to handle the daily grind of running a business, along with the internal politics and external showmanship that come with the job.

Google, which has proved its ability to mint money with its online advertising systems, is trying to maintain its status as an engine of innovation. Mr. Page, 38, said on Thursday that he wanted to reinject Google with the speed and nimbleness that it once had as a start-up, before it swelled to 24,400 employees and $29.3 billion in annual revenue.

The challenge for Mr. Page will be to keep that big machine humming while at the same time taking the company back to its roots. How well he does this could determine whether Google can come up with another giant hit — a feat that few successful technology companies have pulled off.

“In a good economy, the core business for Google runs itself,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “Expansion into new initiatives is a heavy responsibility.”

People who have worked with Mr. Page say his insatiable demand for quick decisions and innovative ideas will light a fire at Google, where product development has slowed as competition from Facebook and others has grown fiercer.

“When the founder is the C.E.O., it’s a person who usually has product sense and an appetite for making new things, as opposed to talent for selling things,” said Michael Hawley, a longtime M.I.T. professor who knows Mr. Page socially and has advised him on writing projects. “Larry is more the archetype of founder, innovator, hacker, inventor, interested in all of the magical things that digital technologies do.”

But others say that Mr. Schmidt’s two biggest job responsibilities — being the public face of the company and managing internal politics — are areas where Mr. Page has less experience.

Mr. Page, whom friends and colleagues describe as shy and private, has avoided public appearances, letting Mr. Schmidt handle speeches and interviews with reporters and analysts. Sergey Brin, Google’s other co-founder, has appeared at recent press conferences and Google events more often than Mr. Page has.

Still, Google insiders say, Mr. Page has already been playing a broader role outside the company than some people see. For instance, he has represented Google in some meetings with policy makers and regulators.

After Mr. Schmidt was hired in 2001, Mr. Page served as president for product; Mr. Brin is president for technology. Inside the company, the co-founders have long played a decision-making role, with Mr. Schmidt frequently deferring to them, former Google executives say.

A key part of Mr. Schmidt’s role was as peacemaker. This meant softening the founders’ sometimes harsh feedback to employees, carrying out their wishes and smoothing over differences when they arose, all while managing the competing demands and interests of the executives reporting to him.

The former executives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to preserve relationships with former colleagues, said that a big question was whether Mr. Page would be able to play that internal management role effectively, and if not, whether he would hire a chief operating officer — which Google has not had — to handle it.

In an interview, Mr. Page said those management skills were something he observed during the decade he spent learning from Mr. Schmidt. “He’s a global statesman, all the way,” he said. “Eric’s very good at bringing people together, getting people to agree.”

In the interview, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin provided a few hints about their priorities when Mr. Page returns to the top. Mr. Page acknowledged that his role would change but said his passion was still creating products.

“Google is a product company, so there’s a number of elements obviously involved in running the day-to-day operations of Google, but at its heart, we are a product and technology company,” Mr. Page said.

The two said they wanted to focus on introducing real-time information and social networking features into their Web search products. Google has been criticized for being slow to embrace the social Web. Mr. Brin said that what Google had done so far, like incorporating Twitter posts into search results, “is really just the tip of the iceberg.”

Mr. Page said he wanted to speed up decision-making and product development inside Google. One way that might be done is cutting through big-company processes that have slowed things down.

For example, Google engineers sign up to present their projects at regular Tuesday meetings, a process started by Mr. Schmidt. But these grew so big and the wait list so long that the founders grew tired of them. They started their own technical review meetings on Fridays, with far fewer people invited, Google employees said.

But even if Mr. Page makes it easier for engineers to hatch new ideas, there is no guarantee that the next Facebook will grow out of Google. The vast majority of new tech endeavors fail — Wave, a collaboration tool that began as an independent project inside Google and was shut down last year, is one example.

Google employees said they hoped Mr. Page’s biggest impact would be in providing a jolt of inspiration. He gave a glimpse of that, along with a rare public display of emotion, in a commencement speech at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, last year.

“I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams,” he said. “I know that sounds completely nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition.”