Early Google exec says search engine did not do ‘evil things,’ owes success to ‘perfect execution’

On Wednesday, early Google boss Tim Armstrong told CNBC that he thinks the company did not do "evil things" to accumulate its supremacy in an online search. Instead, Armstrong said it was the deftly implemented strategy of Google that has developed the company to a position where it faces criticism against antitrust.

The Department of Justice sued Google on Tuesday over what it says are unfair activities that helped secure monopoly control for the search engine. In order to preserve its market supremacy in search and search ads, the complaint also alleges Google cut off rivals from key distribution networks.

"I look at a company that essentially had almost flawless execution on one side when I read that paper, the first 10 years of it," Armstrong said on "Squawk Alley." "And, on the other hand, it competed against some of the world's biggest corporations and some of those corporations obviously didn't make the best decisions in terms of emphasis."

"Armstrong, who joined Google in 2000 and was instrumental in expanding its direct ads business, added," I was at Google when we were 13 out of 13 search engines. He went on to become AOL's CEO and now runs a business based on the direct-to-consumer environment. He does not hold shares in Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Armstrong said he was not going to weigh in directly on what the outcome of the case could be for the Justice Department. But as a result of creating a quality product that users found helpful, he repeatedly sought to portray Google's growth.

"I think Google is an awesome business ... But it's not that I don't think there were evil things they were doing. I think they had incredible execution and they ended up in a place where they were willing to make deals, "Armstrong said, referring to Google's partnerships with companies like Apple and Samsung on their cell phones to become the default search engine."

Google's "exclusionary deals" with businesses account for almost 60 percent of all search requests, according to the DOJ complaint. Overall, Google has had nearly 90% of search engine queries in the U.S. in recent years, including 95% on phones, the organization contends. Google has called the suit "deeply flawed" by the Justice Department, and insists that people use their search engine because they want to, "not because they are compelled to, or because they can't find alternatives."

"In industry, everybody wants to win, and they've done a fantastic job of winning," Armstrong said of Google. He added that the complaint by the DOJ is "void of the wider sense" of the rivalry faced by the Mountain View, California-based company as it expanded from a scrappy start-up to a tech giant.

"Google just did a really, really good job, after being there really early and watching the competitive collection, which every organization, by the way, has done that good of an execution job, to some degree, getting the DOJ comes after you suggest that you have been successful," Armstrong said.