We're those "matters that CEO Eric Schmidt didn't want him involved in" something silly like ... "the financial status of the company"? Maybe it's the senior leadership that they don't want to work for?

George Reyes is not an idiot. He's a very strong CFO, accountant and controller. He's just not a strong leader or spokesperson, which is a trait that runs rampant at Google. Cut the guy a break. Google can't find another CFO because their standards are unrealistically high. They're probably trying to woo Alan Greenspan.

Great story. Could be that during this period Google was telling the world it wanted to be a telephone company (as it was bidding for wireless licenses) and the candidates that loved tech didn't also like the idea of managing ten million antenna towers.

Or it could be the Google hiring process. It literally is offensive as possible. Intelligent candidates must realize that working at Google might be something like interviewing at Google (and thus they take a pass). Don't get me wrong, the purity test works for frat boys right out of college, they are used to that demeaning stuff.

Also during this period Google's stock was crazy overvalued with few open market purchases, so candidates that did math did not see a lot of upside to the stock component.

So many MGMT 101 stumbles, so little time to discuss them all.

Google wouldn't have been managing towers, they'd farm that out in a partnership to Sprint, their wimax buddy.

Doesn't Google have a rep as a cheapskate on the salary side? Maybe that plus the stock slide hurts the recruiting.

Google is facing a brain-drain problem of severe proportions. When a tech company has a meteoric stock rise over a period of time, that company will attract the best and brightest, who will then leave once the stock stops going up. Paying higher than industry average is one solution (the one MSFT tried when they faced this situation) and Google will likely need to do the same.

Only computer game companies can attract the best talent without having to pay for it.

@Blackjack: Even if you outsource the work you still have to manage it. Also, if you consider their current model, they don't really outsource anything. They don't trust anyone other than Ivy league kids to do the work. So imagine the horror that Eric was facing, he would have work being done on his behalf by city college graduates! It's a good thing he walked away from that wireless auction. Now if he can just root those underpriviledged, salt-of-the-earth-types out of DoubleClick. I hear that some of them even drink tap water. The horror.

@The Cooler: Get ready for the sequel: "The Smartest Guys in the Room: Part 2". If you remember, Part 1 was Enron.

Click fraud issues and lack of transparency around screwing AdSense publishers is ultimately going to catch up with GOOG.

How do Enrons start? With CEO firing CFO for refusing to cook books.

Really, I fear if there is any idiot at all in this story, it's the one that thinks being CFO of Google would be a "dream job". More likely it will be a great job the day the announcement comes out in the press and then quickly downhill from there.