Larry Page wants the giant Google to behave 'more like a start-up'

Specifically he wants to make the giant Google act more like a start-up. Wired magazine says Larry is "perhaps the quirkiest person to run a $30 billion company." He once suggested accepting payments from Uzbekistan in goats.

The Wall Street Journal reports that he wants to speed up "sluggish decision-making" at Google's top levels. He wants employees to designate a decision-maker at meetings - and to refrain from working on their laptops.

The irony of this , as AdAge points out, is that in the early days in meetings, Mr. Page and co-founder Sergey Brin "would often stare at their computers, occasionally leaving the room to get a snack." Once Larry refused to look up from his PDA to talk to movie mogul Barry Diller saying he was capable of doing several things at once." All that has changed. Larry Page Mark 2 wants more openness in the company.Top executives will sit and work together every day in a public area of the company's HQ at Mountain View, California, - so employees can approach them on matters directly.He has been moving about, talking to managers. About a month ago, he sent an email asking them to write to him about what they were working on in 60 words or less. (at least it wasn't 140 characters). Mr. Page said in the email that he wanted the managers to "pitch" him on their projects.Some believe Mr. Page will eliminate projects he doesn't believe are worthwhile, said the WSJ, freeing up employees to work on more important initiatives. One project under the microscope is Google Health, which lets people store medical records on Google's servers.Although the search engine currently brings in most of the company's $30 billion revenue, emerging lines of business, including online business software division Google Apps, will be in the Page spotlight. There will be more acquisitions of start-ups.Driverless car technology is a big future bet and putting all the world's books on the search engine (one of Page's favourite projects) is still a priority - despite a setback last week when a judge in New York nixed a deal for the scanning of out-of-print books. Coming back to the start-up theme, Mr. Page has said he wants to allow more projects to operate in this way inside Google, similar to how YouTube and Android currently operate. Last year Google bought Slide, a company involved in apps related to social-networking. Slide was supposed to be absorbed into a Google social networking team. But Slide management and the Google team couldn't agree; Slide is reportedly staying independent - and working on its own services.AdAge says Mr. Page faces "numerous challenges"- from re-instilling some kind of entrepreneurial culture to coping with threatening newcomers such as Facebook and Twitter. Current CEO 55-year old Eric Schmidt - the man to whom Larry handed over in 2001 - will become executive chairman. He will be travelling more as part of his new role handling government affairs and partnerships. He is also tipped for a top post in Mr Obama's administration. Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, 37, is working on special projects . Mr Schmidt said "Larry was ready" when the changes were announced in January. He tweeted, "Day to day adult supervision no longer needed." Wired magazine said of Mr Page's takeover on April 4,"Google has had a wild ride over its first 12 years . It's about to become even wilder."