"But, but, that's just crazy talk!"

I had quite a buildup in mind for my version of the story Ron just posted about Larry and AdWords, because it had such a profound effect on my view of Google at the time. Larry’s unilateral decision not to screen AdWords ads before allowing them to go live on the site convinced me our founders occupied some alternative and severely distorted reality.

How in the world would our brand survive racist, homophobic, pornographic or defamatory ads being allowed to run on Google search results pages? To allow the publication of such ads via Google was a classic marketing crisis in the making. Any fool could see that. Evidently, I was that fool.

In my defense, my background conspired against me. Past public relations debacles had taught me always to evaluate worst-case scenarios before considering the possible benefits of any new initiative. “First, do no harm” had become my mantra.

Working at a newspaper had only reinforced this tendency. Journalists consider their efforts the “first draft of history” and most devote enormous effort to ensuring the accuracy and fairness of what they report. Newspaper staffers suffer even more paranoia on this front than their colleagues in broadcast news, because print produces a physical artifact that cannot be disputed. I found editors, reporters and publishers to be extremely conservative about taking big risks that could expose their brands to charges of unfairness, or worse, inaccuracy.

So, Larry’s idea struck me as lunacy. It took me some time to realize it was actually leadership, but in a form I had not seen before. I knew the flavor of leadership that would not proceed without consensus, and I knew the flavor of leadership that weighed unpopular decisions before cautiously stepping forward to test the waters in some limited fashion. I had not experienced leadership infused with such heartfelt conviction that united opposition was simply brushed aside and the risk fully embraced without fear or hesitation.

AdWords took off and quickly passed the outer moons of Jupiter on its way to some distant galaxy. No P.R. crisis ensued. And I took a notion that maybe I should be more open-minded about big ideas that, on the face of them, seemed ludicrous. I would have many opportunities to test this resolve in the years to come.