As Blood, Sweat & Tears sang in the 1960s, "What Go Up, Must Come Down" - and Google investors are living this adage today as the stock retreated $35 to $400. It seemed like yesterday - actually two weeks ago - that analysts were falling over themselves trying to publish the highest target price on the street. One analyst said $550, another said $600, and yet another postulated it could be worth $2000. So what happened between then and now? The most obvious reason is investors were spooked when Yahoo said its results going forward would be slower than expected. Then, there was disappointing financial news from Intel and Apple this week, which did a good job of puncturing much of the investor enthusiasm for technology stocks. Of course, it doesn't help that Google is talking tough against the U.S. government's request for information. So what does it all mean? Does it suggest Google is only worth $400 or $300 or $200. Well, you can crunch the numbers using price-earning ratios or cash flow multiples or revenue growth expectations or AdSense pricing trend,s but at the end of the day, Google is worth whatever the market will bear. If enough investors are stoked about Google's prospects, it could easily be worth $500 or $1000 or, for that matter, $2000. For Google, the stock price must be a strange animal. On one hand, the company needs a strong strong to keep its employees engaged and recruit the best talent. But I don't believe an obsession with the stock is part of Google's culture. If Page and Brin had any interest in the stock, they wouldn't be running a huge R&D lab with hundreds of PhDs and a throw-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks new service/application strategy. Clearly, Page and Brin have a long-term vision that goes way beyond just increasing the stock's value. Of course, whether you're a multi-billionaire, the value of stock is all relative, isn't it. As for what happens to the stock next, many investors have very short memories. If the company comes out with fourth-quarter results that surpass expectations, the stock could take off, and the recent decline will be written off as a buying opportunity.

A SiliconValleyWatcher post about Google possibly outsourcing some of its data centres reminded me Google could be building or expanding a facility in Toronto. The company recently placed a job posting online looking for a data centre technician in Toronto - an 12-month, entry level position for people looking to become "Linux gurus, system administrators or network engineers". The job's responsibilities include the installation of new servers as Google's Linux cluster grows. While data centres aren't the sexiest story in the world, a tour of Google's data centre near Mountain View, Ca. a few years ago was fascinating. You get a real sense of the computing power required to support Google when you see thousands of stripped down PCs linked together with a miles of wiring. At the time, Google's chief operations engineer was Jim Reese (not sure if he's still with Google), who had a medical degree from Yale and did three and a half years of a neurosurgury residency at Stanford before becoming Google's 18th employee in June 1999. You can read a story on Reese, which appeared in the National Post in 2002, here.

Is the Web 2.0 bubble about to burst? Well, if you buy into the Wired/Web 2.0 barometer, the enthusiasm is becoming a little less frothy as the February issue of the magazine was only 154 pages - compared with more than 200 pages in recent months, including the dot-com era-like 294-page issue in December. Should we be "reading" something into this development, or should the VC investing spree in start-ups with no business plans be a reassuring sign the Web 2.0 hype is still alive and well?