I Don't Like Google

My dislike of Google is totally irrational but it is to some extent driven by the arrogance emanating from Mountain View. The people working for that organization who got stock are so full of themselves and I just don't see the brilliance behind the company. Before anyone more technical than I explains how Google has the entire Internet stored in ram or that they were the first search engine to filter out the porn sites spamming their meta data let me remind you that the average web surfer doesn't know what meta data is. I trust that Google's algorithm is great but it doesn't provide noticeably different results than Yahoo, MSN or Ask to the average user, who like me, doesn't know what meta data is. Google's revenue is driven by the average web surfer using their portal and if there isn't any noticeable difference between them and their competition than their value must be in their brand. Google turned out to be a catchy name and their minimal/clean front page were points of differentiation that must have helped their page views grow but was this really marketing genius?

If consumers don't care about the technical details and the brand is more lucky than good, is there anything that early stage entrepreneurs can learn from Google's success post venture funding? I believe that, much like Hotmail, Google's success is more a case of being in the right place at the right time than an example of entrepreneurial brilliance.