Google IPO reading round-up

Goo-goo-g-g-g-g-l-e. Everyone has something to say, so why should I duplicate what's being done elsewhere? Here's pure aggregation from what I've been reading.

The Source: Google's SEC filing

Best business coverage: Gordon Smith / Venturpreneur (I recommend reading through it all)

Best coverage not repeated in a dozen ways elsewhere (and source of the above): Aaron Swartz / google.blogspace.com

Best text summary: John Battelle's Searchblog

While my summary of the letter may sound negative, it's my honest and initial response: to me, the letter comes off pretty strong, and likely will anger many on Wall Street. But I have to commend the founders for sticking to their beliefs, and using the IPO as something of a megaphone/soapbox. It is brave, unique, and rather commendable to very publicly state that the founders are controlling the company, and the founders will decide what is best for Google, not Wall Street. They've set themselves a very high long-term bar, claiming they will best the system, in essence. I think it will be very interesting to see how Wall Street responds. There is a chance, in the end, that the Street will feel slighted, and turn its back on the company.

Best bells-and-whistles summary: Danny Sullivan / searchenginewatch.com

Google Worries

Google's filing is full of many standard things that investors might be warned about. The company even addresses the issue of privacy concerns about its Gmail system or the controversy over anti-Semitic site ranking at the top of its results for the word "jew" might hurt its brand.

Funniest coverage: Andrew Orlowski: Google files Coca Cola jingle with SEC

"We'd like to build the world a home," write co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. "And furnish it with love. Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow-white turtle doves." The unconventional sentiments will puzzle Wall Street analysts, but delight Google's teenage fans - and children of all ages who make up its most ardent users.

"We'd like to teach the world to sing," they plead. "In perfect harmony."

We made that up, of course. But the real "Letter from the Founders" that introduces today's 26-page filing borrows as much from The New Seekers as it does from Warren Buffet.

Update: Best reverse-engineering of Google from the documents: Tristan Louis / TNL.net

Just for the sake of argument, let's go with 1 Gigaflop per processor. This means that the Google supercomputer has about 189 teraflops of power on the low end of my estimates, 253 teraflops on the middle end, and 316 teraflops on the high end. This would easily put it on top of the list of fastest computers in the world.

Any way you slice it, that's a lot of power.

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)