Nicholas Carlson just published a fascinating in depth article about Larry Page. It covers his evolution over the last 15 years. When he started out at Google, he was an immature CEO who fostered conflict and micromanaged. He resisted the idea of giving up the CEO role to Eric Schmidt and over the years disengaged himself from the product role at Google.

Android fostered his renaissance. He had the vision to buy the company without permission (which was not blocked because the $50 million made no difference to Google’s bottom line) and to foster its development. He learned to delegate and improved his management skills.

At the same time, despite all of Eric Schmidt’s success at Google the company, the company became slower and more risk averse, loth to go for moonshots. Having built up his management experience during his wilderness years, Larry Page had become just the person required to take the company forward with the proper combination of vision, ambition and experience.

Read the full story at: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4