In the past few years, prominent Googlers have taken team building to a whole new level. First it was Messieurs Brin, Page and Kordestani’s involvement in the X Prize Foundation, now Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken over the chairmanship of the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think-tank that hopes to foster daring new ideas and disseminate them through new digital technologies. Currently they are developing ideas on issues as wide-ranging as instant-runoff voting, a progressive consumption tax and an initiative to promote the delivery of wireless Internet service over unused television airwaves.
What separates this team’s mission from that of many think tanks is not only the fact that it is avowedly and, as far as we can tell, actually non-partisan, but also that its members cut a wide swath of political and social beliefs, interests and occupations. Like any great team, the New America Foundation is built on the idea that a diverse set of opinions and passions need not lead to bickering, but rather challenging and strengthening of ideas. It leaves one lamenting: if only a team like this could be leading our country.
