Today is the first day Larry Page is once again the CEO of Google. (Eric Schmidt announced he would be relinquishing his CEO post in January). The last time Page was the CEO was a decade ago before he and co-founder Sergey Brin hired Schmidt for adult supervision. The founders don't need supervision anymore, and while Google is still the most powerful tech company in the world, it is not as invincible as it once seemed even a few years ago. Google is still king of search, but when it comes to new growth areas like social or local, the action is elsewhere: Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Groupon. Maybe what it needs is the return of a founder CEO. Between the two over-achieving Google co-founders, Page is considered to be the ambitious one. Consider this anecdote from Steven Levy's soon-to-be-released book, In The Plex , which I was reading last night. The book describes the first time Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr met Page and Brin in 1999: