Google’s Grand Plan

Google’s Grand Plan

In a typical month, David Lawee meets two dozen founders of new companies. He grills them on their businesses, their ambitions, their funding, and their clever ideas for the future. Every once in a while—maybe every 10th meeting—Lawee will encounter someone who blows him away. “They’ll come in, and it’ll be so obvious,” he says. These brilliant founders will have identified some magnificent solution to a problem that ails the world and have proven adept at knocking down all the hurdles along the way to their dream. “When I meet someone like that it’ll just make my whole week,” Lawee says. “I’ll even tell the guy or the woman, ‘Thank you, you’ve just made my week.’ ”