The Guru of Google

At first glance, it might seem that the new venture headed by Larry Brilliant — Google.org, or DotOrg, as it's known within the Googleplex — is barely a drip from this same faucet. So far, DotOrg has invested only $75 million in five initiatives. For a company with $16 billion in annual revenue, that's a nanospeck of cash. At a press conference in January to announce the foundation's new initiatives, one reporter asked Brilliant if the whole operation is simply a "publicity stunt."

But to look at what Brilliant is up to in straight financial terms misses the point. DotOrg is not just another corporate philanthropy — it's a bold experiment in philanthropy itself. Its uniqueness begins with its structure. Unlike most foundations, DotOrg has no endowment in the traditional sense and no external board. It was funded with an initial grant of 3 million shares of Google stock, currently valued at $1.3 billion, and a promise of one percent of the company's profits each year. Its goal is not simply to give away traditional grants like the nonprofits of yore but also to allow Google to invest money in projects that have the potential to do good and turn a profit at the same time. "We have a tremendous amount of flexibility," Brilliant says. "We can give away grants like a traditional foundation, or we can invest in new companies or even start companies of our own."

Brilliant calls this approach a "hybrid philanthropy." In the Old World, the essential dynamic of corporate giving was extract, exploit, get rich, then pass out nickels to charity to atone for past sins. In the New World, Google wants to sink those nickels into clean-energy ventures and promising entrepreneurs in the developing world. "Yes, there may be profit from that," Brilliant acknowledged recently. "But the real reason for doing it isn't to make a profit. It's because business is a better engine for creating jobs than aid."

It is, of course, easy to be cynical about all this, especially when it comes to Google. "They're the stealth Microsoft," says a senior adviser at one prominent foundation. Despite the lava lamps and "Don't be evil" slogan, the company's real goal, these critics say, is the same as every other corporation's: to take over the world. Consider two of DotOrg's first initiatives: to develop new sources of renewable energy and to forecast epidemics before they occur. If you think you're dependent on Google now, consider a world in which the company also supplies your electricity and sends you updates on your cellphone about a deadly new virus that's just arrived in your neighborhood. Is the goal to save civilization — or merely commoditize it? In this view, Larry Brilliant is essentially a human lava lamp, a guy who is useful to Google precisely because he is so colorful and so deeply human that he is the perfect foil for the company's more rapacious impulses.

But suppose that interpretation is wrong. Suppose Brilliant is not a human lava lamp at all but, as his friend and Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir puts it, "a living freakin' saint"? Hell, you don't even have to go that far. Suppose, for a moment, that Brilliant is simply a man with a deep conscience and a deep faith in mankind's ability to work together and solve big problems. Suppose you married that with Google's technological prowess and a few billion dollars. What would our future look like then?

It's a Thursday afternoon, and Brilliant is walking across the lobby of DotOrg's offices in San Francisco, yanking at his conservative silk tie. His sports coat is dark blue, his face is flushed red. This is not Larry Brilliant the philosopher of human suffering. This is Larry Brilliant the old hippie who can't quite believe he is a top executive at a $142 billion corporation — even if it is one that offers in-house back massages and cafeteria food that rivals the best San Francisco restaurants. "This is the last time you'll see me in one of these," he says, pulling at the tie as if it were a noose.

Like almost everyone else at Google, Brilliant is allergic to the traditional trappings of corporate culture. He prefers a hug to a handshake, carries a rust-colored backpack instead of a ballistic briefcase and would rather talk about his friend Neil Young's project to turn his Lincoln convertible into a hybrid car than discuss the Dow's latest moves. Googlers admire Brilliant as a veteran of the revolution and rally around him as an inspirational leader: One recent in-house e-mail raved, "Our own Larry Brilliant ROCKED the Emerging Disease Community this morning in his Key Note address!" But they also roll their eyes at his lack of discipline. "Larry is not a detail person," says Roger McNamee, a prominent venture capitalist who helped recruit Brilliant for his job at Google. "He is a big-picture person, and it only works because Google is the ultimate big-picture company."

Brilliant weaves past an inflatable Godzilla and the cardboard cutouts of Wonder Woman that clutter the hallways. His office is in the corner, smallish, with a spectacular view of the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island. On the bookshelf is a photo of Wavy Gravy, dressed in a clown outfit and holding a sign that says "Nuclear war is bad for business." Next to it is a photo of a barefoot Indian man wrapped in a blanket — Neem Karoli Baba, the guru Brilliant studied with in the Himalayas for two years. Hindu trinkets and statuary cover the walls.