If you are looking to sell your company to Google, David Lawee is the guy to be stalking. Lawee, a source says, is the new Vice President of Corporate Development at Google, a spot that has been vacant since Salman Ullah, the previous VP, left (along with Sean Dempsey, also from Google corp dev) to form new venture fund Merus Capital.
Lawee, who started off in corporate development at Google but was most recently their VP Marketing, was a bit of a surprise choice, we hear. Many insiders expected Megan Smith, Googles VP New Business Development, to get the job. Both Smith and (now) Lawee report to SVP David Drummond.
Google’s corporate development group has been a bit of a revolving door over the last couple of years. In addition to Ullah and Dempsey’s departures, Chi-Hua Chien (now at Kleiner Perkins), David Friedberg (Weatherbill), Stephen Chau (now at Google Maps/Local), Jeff Donovan (retired) and Jeremy Wenokur have all left the group and or the company. There are just three people left in Google’s U.S. corp dev team (four now with Lawee), and another four or so abroad.
Part of the problem: Google’s corp dev team is, according to our source, hesitant to step on toes or pursue deals that won’t have internal corporate sponsors for integration. Only deals brought to them by others in the company can be pursued, and the corp dev team chafed at these restrictions. No word on whether things will change under Lawee.
what if I don’t want to sell my company :/
Congratulations David!
could you please state your source and confirm your comment that google corporate development is not allowed to source deals? i have never heard that, and it sounds wrong or at the best like hearsay…
This is a smart move by Google. David is a great connector of people and is someone you walk away from a conversation feeling comfortable doing business with.
dave - yeah, i’ll post my sources in a minute. keep coming back to look for it.
A thumbs up for a Canadian!
He should immediately buy openlinksw.com. Ripe for the pickin’. way ahead on Semantic Web, Communities, Linked data.
thanks. what you’re saying is logical, since these product groups are all over emerging opportunities and threats, but doesn’t it seem rather odd that elgoog did all of these acquisitions with corpdev sourcing a single one?
Are you sure you have your facts right regarding how deals are done a Google? I think you may have heard from those who don’t know or the sour grapes patrol. I wish David Lawee and the team the best moving forward!
Are you sure you have your facts right regarding how deals are done at Google? I think you may have heard from those who don’t know or you’ve some input from the sour grapes patrol. I wish David Lawee and the team the best moving forward!
@Dave - I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I wouldn’t suggest you keep waiting for Mike to reveal his sources. I have a feeling that was sarcasm in his comment. Why would he tell you and the rest of the world who his source was?
Who cares?
Congratulations to David. David does have a great ability to reach out & build relationships.
He & his wife Lorna did a great presentation (while she was @ Yahoo) at a Canadian Venture forum last year which was very entertaining and informative.
Great to see the Canadian cabal of the valley is still running strong.
Dear Dave
I have a business idea that you do not want to lose out on - it is regarding a community experience which could be a top ten.
If interested…. please contact me
Jan Nielsen
jan@nielsen.sh
+352 621 215442
Dear Jan,
This is definitely not the place to reach out to Dave.
Best,
Steve
Who is the new VP Marketing?
all the best!!
@ jan nielsen
Ideas are a dime a dozen, they are worthless unless steps have been taken to implement them… I am sure everybody here has an idea on this board that “could be a top 10″. Turn the idea into a “top 10″ THEN contact David (more likely, he will contact you).
You got 0 to negotiate with from my point of view if all you have is an idea with no proof of concept.
Jon
Dear jan nielsen,
Your idea sucks. Talk to Steve Ballmer.
Best wishes,
Dave
Someone please call Jan Nielson pretending to be David Lawee then post the mp3 online.
That would be fun times.
/snicker
David did not just appear at Google as corporate development, but first created a hugely successfully website himself. (vacation rentals, i think)
EVO
http://www.LocalWineEvents.com
Buy Yahoo.
Quickly.
Congratz David. Enjoy the MAZIC!! @ http://moviemazic.com
@Markus
Why don’t YOU do it? LOL.
@7
He should immediately buy MyBlogFans, before Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog gets too widespread while they’re gaining momentum these days. But, too bad — Lawee cannot source deals.
@7
He should immediately buy MyBlogFans, before Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog gets too widespread while they’re gaining momentum these days. But, too bad — Lawee cannot source deals.
What if my site runs on ASP.NET?
(Talk to Ballmer?)
chi hua was a summer intern in google’s corp dev team during his GSB years. bit of a stretch to cite him to substantiate your claim that google’s corp dev team is a revolving door. classic michael arrington.
i mean michael errorton
David is a super-smart guy who will be a great face for Google in these activities. Before this, David founded Xfire with Mike Cassidy, and actually funded Mike’s DirectHit back when David was still a VC.
He’s a class act all the way.
Buy Ubuntu!
new blog
http://www.i-guide.ro/blog/Ro/en/
Three Cheers to David.
Hope to meet you soon.
Founder
http://www.meetingflex.com [Social Network]
http://www.jhatak.com [ Web Meeting Platform]
Seems to have good experience as a VC and more importantly an entrepreneur. I won’t hold it against him that he’s Canadian:)
But, I do have a question. Google has a marketing department, for what?
All corp dev teams are alike. If they have strong BU sponsorship, they can get the deal done. To get a de novo deal done in a corporate environment is tough because they lack budget to support the necessary activities. Finance groups prefer to waste money on existing go-nowhere departments than fund new efforts that aren’t coded into the general ledger…
Hence why CorpDev groups suckle on the BU teats.