Introduction. "How Google works" review

Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg’s introduction describes how it was to join Google in the early days. It describes a company that has rejected most of the existing management philosophy and centred activity on talent, skills technology, learning and culture.

Even though they were hired to lead, S&R had to take the approach of students to learn from the people that had been part of the founding team. This is embodied in the quote from coach John Wooden: It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.

The aversion against planning and allocation of resource that is the foundation of most large corporations is seen as an asset for Google.  Focus was on creating products that would beat any conceivable plan or schedule. The only real management tool used was a spread sheet with the top 100 project ranked from 1 to 5 in importance.

The philosophy in the company was to hire the very best engineers and get out of their way. Their products and product development had an intense focus on the user. Income streams would follow if the product was good enough.

Microsoft was the gorilla in Google’s jungle. Not only were they seen as a dangerous competitor but also as a potential acquirer of Google and as a  powerful motivator. “When we gets noticed they will come after us – wave after wave” and they did.

Schmidt and Rosenberg outlines why they believe the old industrial thinking needs to be replaced with thinking more appropriate for the internet century. They see the internet century being defined by 3 major developments:

-          Information through the internet: It is free, copious and ubiquitous

-          Global reach though mobile devices and networks: Low cost and widespread

-          Infinite computing, storage and applications through Cloud computing : No investment need

They believe that this has lowered the cost of production through 3 factors: Information, Connectivity and computing power. As a result of lower production cost power that has been with the manufacturer and has moved to the distributor is now moving to the customer as predicted by Drucker. It is not possible to fake customers though marketing – the product has to be excellent to compete. As Jeff Bezoz (Amazon) puts it: : In the old world you spent 30% of your time on creating a product or a service and 70% of your time shouting about it – In the new world, that inverts.

The product development is also changing from the old stage gated system with strict resource control and minimisation of risk as the controlling paradigm to a system of experimentation. With new 3D print technology and access to cloud computing experimentation has become low cost and low risk. The Google Glass prototype was made in 90 minutes.

Google want to attract and develop “smart creative” people with engineering skills.  You cannot tell people like that how to think. You have to learn to manage the environment where they think and make that place where they want to come every day.