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January 7, 2008

Google: Inside the Managerial Belly of the Beast

There are some fascinating insights into Google's management culture in a Ken Auletta piece in the current New Yorker. There are also some clear signs of where, when it happens, the inevitable cracks will appear in the Google armor.

For example, Auletta gives an example of Google CEO Eric Schmidt being "condescending" in public toward Brin and Page. He cuts the two founders off at a media meeting during a question about the Patriot Act.

Later on, we have a more interesting example. It happens during an anonymized internal Google engineering meeting that Auletta gets to sit in on. Brin and Page slump quietly in their chairs, whispering to one another and generally offering no feedback -- until coaxed to by Schmidt. At that point the two offer some tag-team criticism about needing some bigger, harder, etc. It is the dynamic, however, that's interesting, with Brin/Page acting a little like doctoral students, as opposed to founders of large public company.

There is more amusing stuff too, like this passage:

Brin and Page also introduce a measure of what Schmidt refers to, affectionately, as management “chaos.” Neither has an assistant. Executives check Google Calendar to learn if Brin or Page plans to attend a meeting. Sometimes, Schmidt says, the founders show up, unscheduled, for the wrong meeting. Sometimes they simply disappear—flying off on their Boeing, for instance, or indulging their newest sport, kite surfing.

Showing up unscheduled for the wrong meeting? Sounds like me. Anyway, read the whole piece.

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