Ballmer calls Google's growth plans 'insane'

C|Net | at | by Mike

While many investors have knocked Microsoft for not moving as quickly as Google, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested that his chief rival may be trying to grow too fast.

Microsoft took nearly three decades to grow to 75,000 people, while Google has become a very large company in a fraction of that time.

"They are trying to double in a year," Ballmer told a crowd of Stanford Graduate School of Business students on Thursday. "That's insane in my opinion." But, he added, "it doesn't mean they won't do it well."

There are advantages to the deliberate management structure that Microsoft has put in place, he said, adding that he isn't sure anyone has proven "that a random collection of people doing their own thing" has created value. Among Google's perks, the company is widely known for letting its engineers devote 20 percent of their work time to pet projects.