Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
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Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
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Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#2I'm really interested in seeing how companies grow; I hadn't realized quite how large of a role non-engineers played in Google's structure.
Glad to see it's moving in the right direction.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#3I'm really interested in seeing how companies grow; I hadn't realized quite how large of a role non-engineers played in Google's structure. Glad to see it's moving in the right direction.
It's yet to be determined whether that is the right direction or not.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#4This is a big story. I'm both an engineer and a manager (to which engineers will say "management!" and managers will say "developer!"), and I haven't seen this pendulum swing back and forth so much as be ripped in half and pulled in opposite directions. Google's obviously got very smart folks in both engineering and management, so it's going to be very interesting to see how this is handled.
I can't imagine a Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, etc going through this exercise, so I'm seriously rooting for Google. It'd be lovely for this change to produce some real knowledge on how to run a modern, big, high-speed tech company without getting trapped in the argument over engineering-vs-management.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#5I think this is a great direction for Google, but it certainly is not a direction most other companies with equivalent growth can pursue. I think one of the unique aspects of Google, is the type of engineer they pursue.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#6It's awesome to see a fundamentally engineer-driven company like Google and a fundamentally designer-driven company like Apple become so successful. It has always seemed to me that management is an important but overemphasized skill (as a fundamental trait of the way large organizations work) and it's really refreshing to see this happening.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#7This got me thinking about role of managers in a modern org (to simplify things let's say it's a Tech company).
It certainly needs a CEO/Visionary, it most likely needs HR and front/back office folks, it certainly needs PR and marketing people. But in a world where people communicate rarely in person, have their own management and economics 101 abilities, are smart enough to not work against their own interests (and look after the org's interests) - what's the role of the future manager?
It sounds inevitable that senior Engineers will double up as managers for their group as and when required (working with marketing etc.) instead of it being a dedicated managerial position.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#8I wonder if part of this is the result of growing competition from the engineer-driven Facebook.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#9Can someone who works at Google chime in with what the organizational temperature is like at Google? Does this whole 'party time's over for the managers' thing we're hearing about have any real weight to it?
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#10Ever since "management" and the dedicated "manager" were invented, we have been told, increasingly in recent decades, that they, rather than talents in other roles, are the key to business success. With the increasing importance and accelerating pace of innovations in our time, it's time to test if to what degree such doctrine would still hold true. Good job Larry. That's some risk worth taking.