I always assumed because they were so smart, they were excellent coders.<p>They don't have to be excellent coders. They need to be excellent thinkers. They've found two very innovative solutions to problems which ended up being very successful (PageRank and AdWords).<p>However, would they have been successful at all if they weren't able to create the initial prototypes and get Google to the stage where they were able to get excellent coders involved?<p>I don't consider myself an amazing coder either, even though I want to be, but I'm often finding simpler solutions to problems people are struggling with, or recognize struggles before people realize their could be a simple solution.