Larry Brilliant: Chief Philanthropy Evangelist

One of the better jobs in the Google economy (and yes, that ‘Googleconomy’ has been halved, but is still backed by some of the most innovative minds in tech and beyond) – running Google.org’s active philanthropic arm – just got a little more active for Larry Brilliant, who’s transitioning to “Chief Philanthropic Evangelist.” Per Google’s blog earlier this week, Brilliant (luckily an appropriate, not ironic name) set out that he is more the ‘ideas and partnership’ maker than the operational executive. His long-time colleague Megan Smith takes over day-to-day running of Google.org. I’ve met Larry a few times at Google Zeitgeist conferences and via my past role at Participant Media; and, as a “rainmaker of change,” it’s good to see Larry move into a more idea-centric role. What made this announcement interesting to New Medici was: when should a thought leader move away from day-to-day operations and concentrate on advancing/innovating the company’s cause directly?

The “next chapter” – the title for Brilliant’s blog announcement – is centered on moving his contribution into a new direction, being more active in terms of discovering outbreak diseases/solutions and climate change-related areas. Some .org highlights:

• Google devotes 1% of Google’s equity and profits to philanthropy, also using Google’s strengths in technology and information
• Google.org initiatives have included: Flu Trends, RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and PowerMeter (watch video below)
• Google.org has $85M committed in grants and investments in hybrid non- and for-profit companies

The changeover is somewhat corporate in nature too. Brilliant’s background is Wiki-dense: American physician, epidemiologist, technologist, author and philanthropist, and former director of Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org. Brilliant, a technology patent holder, has been CEO of two public companies and other venture backed start ups. From 1973 to 1976 he participated in the successful World Health Organization (WHO) smallpox eradication program.

Google.org Initiatives:

• Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE<C): create utility-scale electricity from clean renewable energy sources that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal.
• Accelerate the Commercialization of Plug-In Vehicles (RechargeIT): seed innovation, demonstrate technology, inform the debate, and stimulate market demand to foster mass commercialization of plug-in vehicles.
• Predict and Prevent: identify “hot spots” and enable rapid response to emerging threats, such as infectious disease and climate risk.
• Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services: use information to empower citizens and communities, providers, and policymakers to improve the delivery of essential public services (such as education, health, water and sanitation) in the developing world.
• Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: increase the flow of risk capital to small and medium-sized businesses in the developing world.

With myriad successes in combating devastating viruses, creating patents and running public companies (check Forbes for their take), comes a sense of purpose beyond the corporate responsibility – where can you do the most good, especially if you’ve already done just about everything else related?

In his words, it’s a matter of balance, finding a way to advance the vision without going into to neutral to resolve the organizational behavior of the Google division. While I enjoy the vision + execution from the standard of a digital exec/entrepreneur, Brilliant’s resume is at the point of overflow. He can do it all, but where can he do the most … with the best chance of success (and when/where relevant, with quick non- and for-profit allies). Brilliant’s words below:

When Larry and Sergey laid out their vision for Google.org, they hoped that this “experiment in active philanthropy” would one day have an even greater impact on the world than Google itself. They committed resources from Google’s profits, equity and substantial employee time to this philanthropic effort, and they created the mission: “to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age.”

They structured Google.org so that in addition to traditional grant making, it can also invest in for-profit companies, advocate for policies and, most important, tap into Google’s strengths: its employees, products and technologies. At first I was skeptical about “going corporate,” but I came on board convinced that Google could make real progress on these issues.

I think we have made an excellent beginning, but it is just a very few steps on a long path.

From the perspective of what “Chief Philanthropic Evangelist” means in the Google hierarchy, it’s a good question: it reads ‘emeritus’ in nature, but implies a C-level positioning. Almost like Google CEO’s Eric Schmidt’s “Do No Evil” other-half. (Not that Eric does evil, of course, but that Larry is a walking do-gooder.)

As “CPE,” which also sounds accountant-like or paramedic on a few levels too, there’s also some re-working around of the “Evangelist” title – in the dotcom heydays, every big tech company employed an army of “evangelists” who generally worked out of their houses in big media cities to push product whether it be Intel chips or Cisco routers at conferences, parties and yes, more parties.

A mixture of marketing, PR and overall general schmoozing; later, the stronger players in this bunch became “Fellows,” which was less marketing and more academic and technical in nature.

I don’t think Brilliant falls in this former “Evangelist” category, and perhaps the category itself is changing to represent the positive, social change element of businesses who see that – by example – saving the planet is good marketing if your corporate system can contribute intelligently. For top corporations, this may be a good time in the economic recovery to create a c-level of cause (marketing) evangelists to show that you’re still pushing innovation where you can. Not for image sake, but in a change-up in terms of organizational behavior and transparency.

We look forward to following Larry’s next chapter – his sprint to do more with less of the corporate trappings, albeit they’re shrinking or going nano-cloud-mini these days…

Below, a map of Brilliant’s associations, showing the deep background of relationships he has built and can partner against: