How Google Works

Eric and Jonathan cover a vast territory in their engaging discussion of Google's leadership in our software driven era. While their Google specific comments are singularly informed and compelling, I suspect their most valuable lessons are those applicable to virtually any venture. Many of these are recurring thematics within discussions of modern leadership, but rarely have so many useful concepts been so well and accessibly summarized as in "How." Despite 30 plus years in the business I furiously jotted margin notes throughout the book, reminding myself for instance, of the primacy of purpose, as illustrated by the story of a company, beginning with why it is important that it exists; the defining competitive separation afforded by traction and momentum or, get big fast; speed kills; iteration informs. This is a great read; informative, smart and wise, as reflected by their admiration of John Wooden and his aphorism "it's what you learn after you know it all that counts." For those interested I'll summarize below my 'Top 10' of the books many quality, illustrative elements. There are abundant actionable insights in this book and of course, the occasional tendril of presumption. Overall, my sentiment about the book is summarized by my ordering copies for my sons, nieces and nephews, regardless of the sectors they work within, or majors they are pursuing.My 'Top 10' of appreciated observations:1. Crowded work spaces fuel contagious energy and spontaneity; the physical presence of team members matters.2. Keep management lean, with numerous direct reports per manager to assure leadership is crisp and micro-management rare.3. Ignorance is not bliss, knowledge is instructive; share virtually everything about the company's business with all employees.4. Smaller teams for building products; larger to sustain and grow.5. Deliver transformative products, driven as much or more by insight as evident market demand. PS: platforms with leverage win.6. Leaders don't delegate hiring; hire smart, curious learners and pay handsomely for impact.7. Be mindful of your career objectives; sketch the larger ambition, then plan its execution, while remaining smartly opportunistic.8. Spend 80% of your time on the stuff that generates 80% of your revenues; the new is seductive, but keep your focus balanced.9. There are only a few truly important messages; assure they are heard: to quote Eric: "repetition doesn't spoil the prayer."10. It's what you do that counts.

"How Google Works" is a book that is quite easy to read. Rosenberg and Schmidt did make use of an informal tone and simple sentence structures, spicing up the text with include some witty (sometimes also somewhat dull) additions, including occassional smiley faces or phrases. This makes the book quite entertaining to read.What I also found very positive is the fact that everything is well referenced, using footnotes that were as interesting to read as the main text itself. Often the authors refer to other internet company leaders, such as Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos - but also draw from ideas of data visualization guru Edward Tufte ("The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", statistician Nassim Taleb ("The black swan") and of course Hal Varian ("Information Rules") and many other authors that I already have found interest in and was pleased to find them named in the book.What I did not like is the constant tone of excessive self-appraisal used throughout the book. For example Google Plus is phrased as Google's big coup and glorified. While Schmidt and Rosenberg admit that Google missed out the right time to jump on the social network trend, they say "Google+ is often positioned in the media as a competitive response to Facebook, but this isn't quite right. It's more accurate to say that Google+ is a response to the disruption of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the social web. It is the social fabric that weaves together Google's various platforms, from AdWords to YouTube." (p.249) In my opinion that is just a nice way of portraying how user's were actually forced to create a Google+ account when they wanted to continue using Youtube of write Google reviews.Another line that I felt should be reviewed is on p. 111, when they describe why they did not hire a law partner candidate. "(Jonathan's assignment was:) Write a contract that is well done, comprehensive, and funny. (...) the candidate delivered contract 666, whereby Mr. Brin sold his soul to the devil in exchange for one dollar and numerous other considerations. The piece was brilliant and funny but he didnt get the job - not technical enough". Hello? You tell him to be funny, comprehensive and well done and when he does all of this, then suddenly the assessment criterion is something completely different - namely not being technical enough. That didn't really make sense to me. Overall the "Talent - Hiring Is the Most Important Thing You Do" section was quite overbearing in my opinion. From my own experience I know that not all Googlers are "As" and that the hiring process at Google is not quite like an "interesting conversation between two intelligent people" - as Schmidt and Rosenberg suggest. And while its true that Google's special "treat employees with 1000 extras" allows Google to choose among as many applicants as probably no other company in the industry (if not in all industries), and Google's application process is long and difficult, I would still like to question the "perfection" of Google's hiring process.For me the core message is: Customers above everything. Get the customers, and money will follow. The need for this change from focusing on "profit" or "shareholders" as businesses might have done before is that in the Internet era, Schmidt and Rosenberg argue, customers have full transparency and the best product will dominate everything else. The book outlines various other concepts: How much Google likes the idea of and relies on open standards, how important hiring is, how Google is rather unstructured, how important innovation is and how employees are incentiviced through passion and peer-respect (and long term promotions) rather than offering solely monetary incentives. Interesting with that respect for me was also that the 20% rule (that employees should work on a new product or task unrelated to their core responsibility around 20% of their time) not only generates innovations, but that the major reason is that Google employees get cross-insights and develop a broader focus, build relationships and learn new things.In conclusion, the book offers an easily readable guideline of how internet companies are (or should be) structured, and how they fundamentally differ from what the authors refer to as the "traditional textbook MBA principles". For everyone interested in the topics of Internet businesses or Internet Entrepreneurship I highly recommend this book. If I could, I would give 4.5 stars.

Loved the book. I actually first listened to an audio book from the library and likes it so much that went ahead and ordered the book.

Druid’s Book ClubQuick Take: Business management lessons on how the tech giant Google has continued its dominance. I loved it.Longer Take:I read “How Google Works” a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I decided to read it again.“How Google Works” is written by a former Google CEO (Eric Schmidt) and former Google Head of Products (Jonathan Rosenberg). The book contains lessons from a decade at one of the most successful companies in history. They touch on an array of topics that they believe have contributed to Google’s success – Culture, strategy, innovation, talent management, etc. The book revolves around the idea that a business’s success in the information age hinges on its ability to attract and motivate the best and brightest (what they call “smart creatives” – Smart people who work hard and are willing to question the status quo).“How Google Works” is filled with invaluable wisdom for running any company (even if you are not a behemoth like Google). To illustrate these lessons, Eric & Jonathan share numerous stories from the inner workings of Google.If you’re into business management/strategy books, I cannot recommend this one highly enough. I’ll probably read it again a few years from now.Some of My Favourite Quotes:“We understood … that the way to fend off Microsoft was continuous product excellence, yet we also understood that the best way to achieve that excellence was not via a prescribed business plan, but rather by hiring the very best engineers we could and then getting out of the way.”“Messiness … is a frequent by-product of self-expression and innovation, it’s usually a good sign. And squashing it, which we’ve seen in so many companies, can have a surprisingly powerful negative effect. It’s OK to let your office be one hot mess.”“…it is the quality of the idea that matters, not who suggests it.”“The best cultures invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many interesting things to do both at work and at home. So if you are a manager, it’s your responsibility to keep the work part lively and full; it’s not a key component of your job to ensure that employees consistently until forty-hour workweek.”“When Israeli tank commanders head into combat, they don’t yell “Charge!” Rather, they rally their troops by shouting “Ah’cha’rye,” which translates from Hebrew as “Follow me.” Anyone who aspires to lead smart creatives needs to adopt this attitude.”“Giving the customer what he wants is less important then giving him what he doesn’t yet know he wants.”“If you focus on your competition, you will never deliver anything truly innovative. … Be proud of your competition. Just don’t follow them.”“For a manager, the right answer to the question “What is the single most important thing you do at work?” is hiring. … The higher up you go in most organizations, the more detached the executives get from the hiring process. The inverse should be true. … hiring well takes a lot of work and time. But it is the best investment you can make.”“Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong…”“Pay outrageously good people outrageously well, regardless of their title or tenure. What counts is their impact.”“The best way to retain smart creatives is to not let them get too comfortable, to always come up with ways to make their jobs interesting.”“Because people seldom leave over compensation, the first step to keeping them is to listen. They want to be heard, to be relevant and valued.”“…the best way to avoid having to fire underperformers is not to hire them.”“If you’re not sure if a course of action is right, the best thing you can do is try it out and then correct course.”“One of the most important decisions any business leader makes is how to spend his or her time.”“Innovative people do not need to be told to do it, they need to be allowed to do it.”Druid’s Top Entrepreneurship Lesson: Hire the right people (Smart, hardworking, creative) and then give them the freedom to help make your business great.

This is a story well worth reading.I believe anyone reading it will learn a great deal. Much of the content is not so common sense but is demonstrated as being effective

Le livre explore en profondeur la culture unique de Google, y compris son approche de la transparence, de la prise de décision décentralisée, et de la valorisation des idées par rapport à la hiérarchie. Eric Schmidt et Jonathan Rosenberg partagent des leçons précieuses et des stratégies pratiques basées sur leur expérience chez Google. J'ai adoré ce livre et n'ai pas regretté de le prendre en anglais

book full of many information of how they managed things inside the company, and many tips to apply or try to, in your business!

Read it in two weeks. It was a great reading. Lots of insights on how to hire, who to hire, how to lead innovation, meetings, objectives. How to make tough questions with the objective of staying relevant.