What Would Google Do

What if you ran your business, your classroom, or even your government like Google? That playful yet profound question is at the heart of Jeff Jarvis’s What Would Google Do? Jarvis takes Google not merely as a company but as a mindset—a model for understanding how the Internet reshapes power, relationships, and value creation in every sphere of modern life. Through stories, case studies, and a mix of journalistic insight and personal experience, he argues that survival in the 21st century depends on adopting Google’s worldview: open, collaborative, distributed, and customer-driven.

The book explores how Google’s principles—such as transparency, generosity, trust, and innovation—rewrite the old rules of business and society. Jarvis contends that while Google may be uniquely successful, its approach offers universal lessons for businesses, institutions, and even individuals trying to navigate the new digital landscape. The question, he writes, isn’t just what Google would do—but what you can learn from how Google thinks.

From Control to Collaboration

Jarvis’s central premise begins with a reversal of control: the era of top-down command is over. The Internet has given power to the public, shifting authority from corporations and institutions to communities and individuals. Google thrives because it trusts users—crowdsourcing the world’s knowledge through links, clicks, and contributions. Businesses that cling to control—companies that ignore their customers or hoard information—face extinction in the wake of democratized communication. The fall of Yahoo and the rise of Google illustrate this paradigm shift: one tried to be a portal, controlling traffic, while the other became a network, enabling users to find what they truly wanted.

Reversing the Rules of Value

Traditional economics depends on scarcity: limited space in newspapers, a finite number of TV channels, and costly physical distribution. Google’s world runs on abundance—unlimited digital space, near-zero distribution cost, and endless access. In this economy, power no longer comes from owning pipelines, printing presses, or airwaves. Instead, it flows from managing knowledge and enabling connections. Jarvis emphasizes that in this new world, value is created by platforms that facilitate participation rather than by gatekeepers that restrict it.

In place of control, the new currency is collaboration. Companies like Facebook, Wikipedia, Amazon, and Craigslist thrive by empowering their communities to create and share. Google’s brilliance, Jarvis argues, lies not in “having all the answers” but in building an infrastructure where the world can find them. Business today, he warns, must adapt from thinking in products to thinking in platforms.

Living by Google’s Laws

Jarvis identifies key principles—what he calls “Google’s Laws”—that define how successful organizations now operate. These laws include ideas such as: “Give the people control and we will use it,” “Do what you do best and link to the rest,” “If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found,” and “There is an inverse relationship between control and trust.” These principles form a new social contract between businesses and the public, where openness breeds credibility, and conversation replaces marketing.

Each chapter applies these laws to real-world examples. From Dell’s humiliating customer backlash (“Dell Hell”) to Starbucks’s reinvention through customer participation, Jarvis demonstrates the rewards of transparency and the perils of arrogance. Google’s “mutual learning” with its users becomes a universal model for how institutions—from airlines to universities to governments—can modernize by listening and responding in real time.

The Broader Vision

Jarvis doesn’t limit Googlethink to the economy. He reimagines entire sectors through this lens: how a “Google hospital” might share data to improve care, how a “Google government” could function transparently, how “Google universities” could open learning beyond the classroom, and even how manufacturing might become open-source. Across all these domains, the message is consistent—information wants to be shared, and those who resist openness risk irrelevance.

Ultimately, What Would Google Do? is not about Google itself, but about us. It urges individuals, entrepreneurs, educators, and policymakers to ask the same question every day: How can we think, act, and lead in ways that embody the web’s essential values—transparency, trust, speed, and connection? If we dare to answer that question honestly, Jarvis says, we might all become as transformative in our fields as Google has been in its own.

One of Jeff Jarvis’s first and most powerful “laws” is deceptively simple: Give the people control and we will use it. Don’t, and you will lose us. This insight crystallizes the Internet’s fundamental shift in power from institutions to individuals. Customers no longer wait passively for corporations to serve them—they talk back, organize, and influence brand reputation in real time. Jarvis’s personal story of “Dell Hell” offers a cautionary tale for any company unwilling to listen to its users.

The Dell Hell Case Study

In 2005, after battling months of poor service from computer manufacturer Dell, Jarvis vented on his blog: “Dell sucks.” The post drew thousands of sympathetic responses from other angry customers, triggering a viral wave of blog posts, comments, and news coverage. Within months, Dell’s stock price dropped, public satisfaction scores plunged, and the company became a symbol of corporate deafness in the digital age. Dell initially refused to engage with bloggers, insisting that “official conversations” happen only through company channels—a disastrous mistake in a world where conversations were public and decentralized.

Eventually, Dell learned from the backlash. It began reading blogs, fixing users’ issues in public, and launching its own blog (“Direct2Dell”) where executives talked directly with customers. It later created IdeaStorm, a platform where users could submit and vote on product ideas. When customers asked for computers preloaded with the Linux operating system, Dell delivered. The lesson was profound: by surrendering control, Dell gained trust—and its reputation recovered.

Your Worst Customer Is Your Best Friend

Jarvis redefines the angry customer not as a threat but as a vital source of intelligence. Online, unhappy clients have megaphones, but they also reveal exactly how a business fails. By addressing their complaints publicly, you convert frustration into improvement and advocacy. Transparent problem-solving builds credibility faster than traditional marketing ever could. (This reflects ideas from Seth Godin’s Tribes—true community leadership means listening and responding rather than dictating a message.)

The Partnership Model

Jarvis pushes the idea even further: Your best customers are your partners. People no longer just buy things; they co-create them. By inviting customers into the design process—as Threadless does with T-shirts, or as Google does by testing products in perpetual “beta”—companies multiply creativity while deepening customer loyalty. This participatory model turns consumers into collaborators, marketers, and advocates, transforming a traditional business into a living ecosystem. In the world of Googlethink, the crowd isn’t a threat—it’s your most valuable department.

Jarvis argues that the link changes everything. The web’s connective tissue of hyperlinks and search engines reshapes commerce, journalism, and culture. It dismantles monopolies, kills inefficiencies, and rewards transparency. For Jarvis, Google is not just a company—it is the organizing infrastructure of this new linked economy, functioning as what he calls “the U.S. Steel of our age.”

Do What You Do Best—Link to the Rest

One of his simplest but most radical prescriptions: stop trying to do everything yourself. In the old economy, companies and media outlets competed by controlling production and distribution. In the link economy, success comes from collaboration and specialization. Newspapers, for example, once produced their own reviews, columns, and coverage of every event. But online, they can link to the best existing content and focus instead on investigative reporting or local issues where they add unique value. Specialize in what you do best; amplify your reach through others’ expertise.

Join a Network and Be a Platform

Industries that survive the digital shift embrace distribution rather than control. Networks like Glam Media or platforms like Google AdSense thrive because they extract minimal value from participants, allowing countless others to grow alongside them. Jarvis highlights the power of Tom Evslin’s law of networks: “Extract the minimum value from the network so it will grow to maximum size and value.” That’s why companies like Craigslist, eBay, and Facebook flourish—by enabling participation and keeping profits modest per user but vast in aggregate.

Thinking Distributed

Google “thinks distributed.” It doesn’t wait for users to come—it sends tools out into the world: ads, maps, and search boxes on other sites. This decentralized approach contrasts sharply with traditional corporations trying to build fortresses around their brands. To think Googley, Jarvis says, you must stop being a destination and start being a means: build a network of relationships so your presence spreads everywhere people are already gathering.

In Jarvis’s world, being found is the new form of marketing. If you’re not searchable, you don’t exist. The Internet has turned every company and individual into a public figure, whether they like it or not. The key to survival is embracing this visibility by being open, authentic, and transparent.

Searchability and Googlejuice

The book explains the concept of “Googlejuice”—the strength of your presence in search results. It’s generated by the number and quality of links to your content. Instead of hiding behind firewalls or obscure databases, organizations must make their information easy to find and share. Successful companies like About.com structure entire content strategies to answer specific questions people ask on Google. Visibility is reputation; invisibility is death.

Life Is Public, So Is Business

Jarvis uses examples like Flickr’s “default to public” policy to show how openness can nurture communities and collaboration. Publicness is not vulnerability—it’s an engine of trust and connection. When businesses hide, customers assume the worst. When they share data, invite critique, or publish their process (as Starbucks and Dell eventually did), they gain loyalty through honesty. This aligns with the principles in The Cluetrain Manifesto: “Markets are conversations.”

Trust replaces spin. In the Google age, your customers are your ad agency. That’s why Google itself spends almost nothing on traditional advertising—their users spread the message better than commercials ever could.

In the old world, industries made money by controlling scarce resources—printing presses, airwaves, or physical stores. Google taught us to profit from abundance. Jarvis calls this a post-scarcity economy, where distribution is free and success depends on enabling others to find, share, and remix what you create.

Free Is a Business Model

Jarvis explores how giving things away can create larger, more profitable ecosystems. Google Search is free, but it generates billions through side-door monetization—relevant ads. Similarly, Ryanair sells cheap or free flights, but makes money from extras and partnerships. The trick is to find the value not in the product but in the network around it. That’s how Craigslist and Wikipedia created immense social value with minimal commercial friction.

The Gift and Open-Source Economies

He celebrates open-source collaboration as the purest expression of the abundance mindset. Projects like Linux, Firefox, and Wikipedia thrive because contributors share in a common purpose rather than competing for control. Businesses, schools, and governments can tap into this same spirit by inviting participation and sharing results openly. When Starbucks asked customers for ideas through MyStarbucksIdea.com, or Dell invited users to develop new products, they were tapping into what Jarvis calls the gift economy: generosity creates value for everyone involved.

In this environment, the mass market dies, replaced by a “mass of niches.” Success comes not from selling one big product to everyone but from offering millions of small solutions to highly specific needs. Google, he reminds us, makes money from each niche search, not from chasing the next blockbuster.

To be Googley is to embrace experimentation. Jarvis highlights Google’s internal practices—like its famous “20 percent rule,” encouraging employees to spend a fifth of their time on new ideas—as a universal model for innovation. The result? Products like Gmail, Google News, and AdSense, all born from experimentation, not rigid planning.

Life Is a Beta

Google launches everything in “beta,” signaling that imperfection is acceptable if it fosters learning. Jarvis argues companies should “make mistakes well”—fail fast, adjust faster, and learn publicly. When Facebook faced backlash for its News Feed rollouts, its willingness to apologize, adapt, and improve demonstrated the modern ethic: iteration trumps perfection. Innovation requires humility, not polish.

Simplify and Get Out of the Way

Simplicity, Jarvis writes, is a moral virtue. Google’s homepage—just a blank box and a logo—epitomizes respect for users’ time and intelligence. Complexity is arrogance; simplicity is service. He closes his principle chapters with Craig Newmark’s rule from Craigslist: “Get out of the way.” If your platform is truly useful, people will use it without your interference. The new role of business is to enable, not control.

In its second half, What Would Google Do? becomes a tour through major industries reinvented by openness and networks. Jarvis applies his rules to journalism, advertising, retail, manufacturing, education, health care, and even government, illustrating a universal transformation: every sector must become participatory, transparent, and platform-based.

Media and News

The rise of blogs, Google News, and citizen journalism dismantled traditional media monopolies. Jarvis advises newspapers: “Do what you do best and link to the rest.” Instead of guarding content behind paywalls, use Google to reach wider audiences and monetize through relevance and community. Journalism’s future lies in networks of professionals and citizens collaborating in real time.

Retail and Services

He envisions “Googley restaurants” that crowdsource menus, gather live customer data, and make recipes open-source. Retailers like Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV embody the model: authenticity and community outperform advertising. The new retail formula is simple—listen, share, and build users into your brand.

Education, Government, and Healthcare

Jarvis’s “Google U” reimagines universities as open networks rather than gated ivory towers. Learning becomes global, constant, and collaborative—students as both teachers and creators. Similarly, “St. Google’s Hospital” would use shared data and patient communities to improve care. And government run with “Google Power & Light” logic would prioritize transparency, open data, and citizen co-creation over bureaucracy. Across all these systems, the question—WWGD?—translates into a challenge: how can openness make us not only more efficient but also more humane?

Jarvis ends with a visionary reflection on Generation G—the first generation to grow up Googled, connected, and collaborative. For them, the Internet isn’t technology; it’s reality. They share instinctively, build reputations through transparency, and redefine community across borders. Their social norms—publicness, forgiveness, experimentation—will transform culture and ethics in ways we are only beginning to see.

He predicts a world where information is not just open but participatory, where identity is shaped through contribution, and where creation is universal. Google doesn’t make us creative, he says—it unlocks the creativity that was always there. As he puts it, “The Internet kills the mass. With that comes the death of mass economics and mass media.” What rises in its place is a culture of abundance, connection, and human possibility.

Jarvis concludes on a hopeful note: if we learn from Google’s mindset—its trust in users, its openness to error, its faith in networks—we can build new systems for business, democracy, and community that reflect our better selves. The revolution, he insists, is not technological. It’s moral. The world isn’t merely wired; it’s rewired for collaboration, generosity, and trust.