Marcy Simon, Valleywag has learned, doesn't just have a coveted desk and a phone line in Google's cramped New York offices. She also has a seemingly hot assignment: PR for the yet-to-be-launched Googlephone. All this, simply for serving as married Google CEO Eric Schmidt's piece on the side? Yes, that's right: Schmidt's girlfriend, despite having no experience in wireless or telecom, is handling the launch of one of Google's most-whispered-about initiatives. Why the Duchess of West Chelsea, as Valleywag has dubbed Simon, is handling this, and not say, David Krane, Google's telecom-savvy director of corporate communications, is telling about both Schmidt's character and the fate of the phone project.

Does anyone really believe it's a coincidence that Google CFO George Reyes has announced his retirement so soon after the company missed Wall Street analysts' expectations for earnings in its second quarter? I only regret that I hadn't included Reyes in our ongoing "Toogle Many Googlers" series, in which Valleywag attempts to solve the binge of overhiring that led to Google's profit shortfall. After all, if the CFO isn't minding the payroll, who is? When reading these departing-executive press releases, just imagine that the fond farewells are in opposite-speak, and they begin to make sense.

Vint Cerf, Google's Internet evangelist, really did invent the Internet. So we suppose it's okay for him to coast a little. But as with anyone with the word "evangelist" on his business card, we can't help but wonder what, exactly he does. A profile in the Times of London does little to clarify matters. Apparently Cerf worries about the security of Web browsers and operating systems — never mind that Google doesn't make browsers or operating systems. Cerf got his job by emailing Google CEO Eric Schmidt and asking if he needed any help. Schmidt replied, "Yes." We're thinking Schmidt might be wondering now if he should have been more specific — and if Cerf could be contributing to Google's little payroll problem.

It's odd, sometimes, the contortions reporters will go through to make a story out of nothing — especially when they miss the real one. Take, for example, this report from IDG News about the planned departure of Intuit CEO Steve Bennett. The subhead of the article: "Intuit chief executive's resignation is not tied to April tax database snafu." The first sentence: "Four months after a database problem prevented thousands of U.S. users from paying their taxes on time, Intuit Inc.'s chief executive announced plans to step down." Obsessed with an embarrassing, expensive, but ultimately meaningless, glitch in Intuit's tax-prep software, IDG misses what's interesting about Bennett stepping down in December to make way for Intuit SVP Brad Smith.

CEO Eric Schmidt, in carrying on with women he's not married to, has apparently set the tone for the rest of the Google C-suite. We hear that another top executive, although he has a stunningly beautiful wife, is seeing another Google employee on the side, putting his marriage in jeopardy. Anyone care to venture a guess who it is? Leave a comment or send in a tip.

Despite CEO Eric Schmidt's promises during Google's most recent earnings call, his company continues to metastasize. This time, it's threatening to swallow up all of New York's Chelsea neighborhood. I have an idea: Rather than lease expensive new real estate, why not boot some current Googlers to make room for new ones? Which brings us to this, the second edition of Toogle Many Googlers! Want to nominate a Googler for toogling? Send in a name and pic.

Mr. Schmidt goes to Washington. Google CEO Eric Schmidt meets with legislators on Capital Hill to talk "health care, patent reform, immigration, privacy and consumer issues." [News.com]

I've been thinking, obsessively, about the revelation Google CEO Eric Schmidt made in last week's earnings call that his company had overhired. Even more curiously, Schmidt defended the hiring binge, expressing his delight in the quality of the people Google's overeager recruiters had brought on board.

Let's get this straight: Last month, Google HR executive Laszlo Bock testified before a House subcommittee. His complaint? A lack of H-1B visas, the controversial permits which allow talented immigrants to come to the country to work, made it hard for Google to hire all the qualified people it wanted to. And yesterday? Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, in an earnings conference call, that the company had added too many people and would be cutting back on hires. Just two questions on Google's two-faced stance: Did Bock lie to Congress? Or did Schmidt lie to investors?

In yesterday's earnings call, eBay CEO Meg Whitman's comments on her company's relationship with Google sound like every codependent couple we know: They'll last forever, sparring all the while, or end disastrously. In the meantime, each partner will use every opportunity to chew your ear off about the other partner, hoping to gain leverage over the other in their petty, public battles. And if things get ugly? They'll just pretend they don't even exist:

Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan. Or so the saying goes. Google's second-quarter earnings — how to put this delicately? — sucked. At least compared to Wall Street's predictably overhyped expectations. Profits rose 28 percent, but that wasn't enough, and the stock fell 5 percent in after-hours trading, which means someone's got to take the fall. I dialed into Google's conference call, and listened closely to who did most of the talking. When it's bad news, the chief financial officer usually gets stuck with the unpleasant job, and sure enough, that's what happened, with CEO Eric Schmidt quickly handing the call over to CFO George Reyes and flipping tough questions to his colleagues. That tells me even Google insiders thought it was a bad quarter, too. Also on the call: Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and top executives Jonathan Rosenberg and Omid Kordestani.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt surprises reporters at the Idaho mogulfest by joining them for a late-night bull session at the hotel bar. During the hour-long chat, he slams Viacom ("Just look at their history, they built their company on lawsuits") and dismisses Yahoo's Panama advertising system. [NYT]

"Eric told me that he has to assume that he is always on the record, and false rumors are less likely to form if all of the original source material is online." Interesting advice. [Steve Jurvetson on Flickr]

The leaked outline of today's Stevenote was apparently wholly spurious, including the promise that Google CEO Eric Schmidt would get on stage at Apple's WWDC to talk about a Google-Apple deal. The unfulfilled rumor was that Google's Web apps would replace or enhance Apple's .Mac email and file-storage service. But the consensus seems to be that the logic of such a deal is still compelling. So, tell us, readers: Was Schmidt, an Apple board member, supposed to show, and backed out? Did Jobs nix an appearance at the last minute? Or was there really nothing to the Google-Apple rumor after all?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's girlfriend Marcy Simon, formerly head of WCTV, has taken a job with Ogilvy Public Relations. She'll be coming in as a "senior advisor," she's "very excited," et cetera. Apparently no (publicly released) truth that Simon and Schmidt ever got engaged, though New York magazine is known to be digging around the story. Sorry to afflict you with an image of Schmidt on this post, but — strangely — there's no pics of Marcy Simon to be found via Google image search. Somewhat odd for a media relations star with 20+ years in the biz. If you know where to find a pic, by all means say so.

Amazing what you find on the ol' internets. Here we see Google CEO Eric Schmidt wearing a not entirely ironic king-hat this past Halloween, posing with a (presumably) fellow Googler who went the pornstar route. Apparently this crown thing is something of a trend in the Valley.

Now, this is just sad. Eric Schmidt, CEO of mutli-billion-dollar corporation Google, goes to Washington DC on a goodwill tour. His presence is met by a collective yawn — or even more pathetically, questions from a peevish Hill staffer as to why they can't get Microsoft Outlook to work properly. You'd think the politicos would at least get a little slobbery over a walking moneybag of potential campaign contributions, but before Schmidt's speech was over, "more than a third of the audience was gone." Ouch. Oh well, at least he got to pal around with Arlen Specter.

NICK DOUGLAS — There are plenty of reasons for Silicon Valley to lean left. Silicon Valley is just south of San Francisco, home of liberal Congresswoman Nancy "Palomino" Pelosi. Techies are young, idealistic, and progressive. Their votes and their money end up with the Democrats.

4:20: The grand ballroom for the welcome message and a talk by Google CEO Eric Schmidt was packed; I skipped upstairs to a swank overflow room catered by Google. Remember those Google snack rooms? They turned this room into one of them.

After a little bullshitting about deals in the first, canned part of the call, Google's top execs made some great points in the Q&A section of their latest investor conference call.