Google och de tjetjenska rebellerna

\"I have a good idea,\" Sergey informed marketing manager Susan Wojcicki a couple of weeks after I started. \"Why don't we take the marketing budget and use it to inoculate Chechen refugees against cholera. It will help our brand awareness, and we'll get more new people to use Google.\"

[...]

Sergey didn't ask my marketing colleague Shari or me what we thought of his idea. He knew that we would have ridiculed it. Instead, he turned to Susan, an early member of the inner circle. Sergey had met her family (he'd later marry her sister), and Susan understood Sergey well enough not to dismiss his outlandish suggestions out of hand.

Instead, she went to gather data, which in this case meant asking her mom, a teacher in Palo Alto. As an educator, Susan's mother carried authority with Sergey, and when she confessed to being confused about our plan to support a rebel army in Russia, it took some of the wind out of his sails.