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Inside Google
October 26, 2005
Dan Farber provides an interesting report on a talk by Google IT executive David Merrill about how the fast-growing company works. What particularly struck me is the simplicity of the company's process for sharing information among the many projects it has under way at any given moment. Actually, it's not even a "process." Its just "an email posting of a list of bullet points" that anybody in the company, "'from engineering to sales to folks who sweep the floors," as Merrill puts it, can read and add to. It kind of makes you wonder about all the time and money companies have dumped into complex information systems for "knowledge management." Google uses similarly simple email systems for evaluating the performance of employees and collecting comments on potential new hires - two other processes that companies often "automate" with complicated technology.
Also of note is Google's practice of keeping its people on the move: "Part of Google’s innovation strategy is to keep its employees challenged, and the company does that by moving people from project to project, Merrill said. An average project lasts three months or less, and employees spend only a year to 18 months in one area." He notes that this practice creates its own set of problems, such as "maintaining continuity," but despite the drawbacks it seems like a good way to keep smart people engaged and motivated - and thinking about the broad interests of the company rather than their own pet projects.
Less valuable is Merrill's discussion of the company's deliberately messy organization. "'We always over hire," he says, and the structure of the organization is in constant flux. Google currently has the luxury of being inefficient because of its enviable position as the most powerful member of an oligopoly controlling an exploding market (Internet advertising). Most other companies don't hold such a lucrative position, and they can't be so cavalier about expenses. Sooner or later, Google will have to run a tighter ship.
Farber also notes that Google's commitment to transparency ends at the boundaries of its own organization. "Working at Google," he writes, "is about openness, flatness and transparency, which is pretty much the opposite of the company’s interaction with the outside world ... Google is enlightened on the inside but closed to the outside."
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Comments
It's not necessarily good to be transparent to the outside. A company should be able to make intelligent choices without influence of outside opinion.
Posted by: Enric at October 26, 2005 04:11 PM
At the recent Wiki Symposium (http://www.wikisym.org) Shashi Seth, lead product manager at Google, commented in a panel: "Our company is built on wikis." This in addition to your comments about email use at Google.
Posted by: Dirk Riehle at October 27, 2005 09:41 AM
I was at Oracle during the days when company revenue was doubling every year. The culture was very similar to the free-wheeling, free-spending Google culture you describe.
The crisis came when the company's revenue grew by "only" 30% one year. Since Oracle, at that time, had few formal financial management processes in place, the slowing cash flow almost bankrupted the company, and caused the stock to fall from $29 to $4.25
Due to very strong leadership, Oracle was able to make the changes necessary to become a well-run, stable company. I have serious doubts about whether Google's management team will have the ability to manage the transition when their revenue growth slows.
Posted by: Bob Nicholson at October 27, 2005 12:14 PM
Bob makes the only sane point here (even though I will not lambast their leaders in advance, I'll give them the benefit of doubt).
It's one thing to organize comms and KM when you are a 100 person company.
It's a different thing when you are a 1000 person company.
It's a whole different game when you are a 10 000 person company.
And it's a nightmare when you are a 100 000 person extended enterprise corportation with several subsidiaries expecting to work together.
Google will face these transitions, if they continue to grow, just like every other company has before them.
And each transition is going to be painful.
And these are not the only transitions they'll have to make...
Posted by: vasra at October 28, 2005 06:51 AM
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