“Our mission is to outdo Google”. If this were the mission statement of any company, I surely would not like to work there. Over the past couple days I’ve been reading a fair number of articles discussing the the race to beat Google. I believe much of the talk in the blogoshpere surrounding the competition to Google was initiated by a New York Times article posted on Dec 29th titled “In Silicon Valley, the Race Is On to Trump Google”. While I respect any entrepreneur that is bold enough to challenge Google, I don’t think they stand much of a chance. On the other hand, there is a high probability that if their teams work fast enough, competitors of Google will get bought out (except for Wikia, who’s owner says their exit strategy is not to get acquired). I believe that the race is not really to beat Google, but is rather to become Google. After seeing the success of Google (and all the millionaires that were created by their IPO) and YouTube, entrepreneurs around the world have become inspired. Some have even become crazy enough to think that they can challenge Google.

To all those who point at better or cooler technologies that are coming out before Google (such as Snap search), I think you will be surprised by new Google search offerings in the near future. Google’s business is the search business, and to think that Google is unaware of competing offerings and not developing new technologies to improve their search offering would be ridiculous. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I agree with froosh’s post suggesting that “no one will beat Google in search, never”. I believe such a proposition is as good as suggesting that a powerful empire will never fall. On the other hand, I do believe that Google will reign as leader for some time to come. Competitors in the search market will only help to provide new ideas to Google who commands a 50% market share in the search realm. Eventually, Google will fall, I’m just not sure if I’ll live to see it.