I was all set to write a snarky comment about the WSJ doing another piece on how (retrospectively) brilliant some outlier founder was until I read the piece and discovered that "wisdom" refers to a series of blog posts written by AdMob's Employee #1. Skip the WSJ and go straight to the source:<p><a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/23/omar-hamoui-on-ideas-and-company-launches/" rel="nofollow">http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/23/omar-hamoui-on-ideas-an...</a>
<a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/25/omar-hamoui-on-deals-and-negotiations/" rel="nofollow">http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/25/omar-hamoui-on-deals-an...</a>
<a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/26/omar-hamoui-on-sales-and-marketing/" rel="nofollow">http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/26/omar-hamoui-on-sales-an...</a>
<a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/27/omar-hamoui-on-competitive-threats-and-team/" rel="nofollow">http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/27/omar-hamoui-on-competit...</a>
<a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/29/omar-hamoui-on-communication-and-a-final-thought/" rel="nofollow">http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2009/05/29/omar-hamoui-on-communic...</a>
It's a story like this that illustrates the power of a good idea, the ability to get stuff done, and some software.<p>$750,000,000 is a lot of value to create in 3 years.<p>And full marks to Google, who may have over-paid, but they've done so successfully before. Their portfolio has now become even more compelling. They remain unparalleled at identifying what move to make before everyone else.<p>I wonder how the executive meetings at Microsoft and Yahoo went the next morning. Disbelief? Dazed? Anger? A sinking feeling?