Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#101

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:07 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #61

So here's a question for potential HN entrepreneurs: If your company got as big as Microsoft or Google, would you split it up, spinning off subdivisions as separate companies? And (in the case of MSFT/Google) why haven't they done that?

In the case of Microsoft, no. The Office and Windows division are mutually-supporting rivers of gold. Everything else is the spaghetti cannon approach they've pursued since the 90s, with the possible exception of the Xbox.

Most of what Google does is not actually directly profitable and thus not ideal for spinoffs.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#102

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:10 PM UTC

dennisgorelik wrote: post #81

GOOG is 3% down today (while market overall is about the same). I personally like Larry's change, but average investor seems to be skeptical.

The average investor went to the same school as the MBAs whose power may be diminished if this is true.

Management ideology includes the idea that a good manager can manage anything; that management is a context-free science that should be left to professionals. If you believe that then you believe that this article says Google will be turning over management to amateurs. Naturally you might be suspicious.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#103

Post by al05 » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:13 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #28

blinkingled wrote: post #7

This 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…

I don't know of many engineers who would want to double up. I do agree that a well managed company could get by with far less management than most currently have, but don't think that just having really smart people in place will solve the problem magically. I've worked at a company full of incredibly smart people who couldn't get anything useful done because they were all so busy proving how smart they were, often a…

What makes you think mangers don't suffer from the same thing. Managers are also highly educated often more so(MBAs etc) etc except they will be trying to employ fancy management rather than fancy algorithms.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#104

Post by al05 » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:15 PM UTC

GoldenMonkey wrote: post #21

blinkingled wrote: post #7

This 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…

Microsoft has done this all along. Managers are programmers, they divide their time between programming and managing. The feeling within Microsoft, was how can someone who is not a programmer, manage programmers?

I'm pretty sure its illegal for non-lawyers to manage lawyers.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#105

Post by al05 » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:20 PM UTC

sachinag wrote: post #15

kenjackson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tech industry this isn't really an issue (management being overemphasized). Even at places like IBM and Intel you generally have engineers running the show at every level of the engineering org. I think what Google will see is that the real problem is the board and shareholder accountability. This creates a special type of short-term malfunction in organizations which often looks like a management problem, but…

Hell, Exxon is run by an engineer.

People on HN have this weird distinction where if your an engineer you stay an engineer. In the real world, most career structures involve coming in a engineer and then progressing into management. A lot the skills used for management such as negation skills just come with age anyway.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#106

Post by al05 » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:24 PM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #46

tomjen3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of management is essentially the same as the goal for any kind of political structure: remove issues which couldn't have been dealt with in a cheaper way.

And self-preservation of the management political class. How often does a corporate reorg reduce the number of managers?

Are you kidding? Middle Management are often the first to go. They produce no real work, they just provide less work for upper management.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#107

Post by al05 » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:29 PM UTC

asknemo wrote: post #10

Ever 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.

Its a way of making sure the power stays with the powerful.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#108

Post by teyc » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

No, I don't think this will solve anything.

The problem with Google is that it is sized to deliver big brands, big scale and big projects.

First. Google today cannot deliver small brands because failure is very expensive. Every Wave, Buzz, Knol costs Google because future enterprises are less likely to want to try their products.

Startup culture could no longer exist in Google, because the salary means that the people will be taking risk with other people's money, and it doesn't work for early stage projects.

Secondly, Google cannot deliver small projects. I can relate this to my past history working at a large mining company, there are some mineral deposits that they may not develop but sell off because it is too small for a company their concern. The management overhead is simply too big.

Finally, to deliver large projects require specialist departments. The functional structure is there to deliver this. The alternative would be a matrix structure where there will be a lot of confusion as to who reports to whom, or serious duplication.

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#109

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:45 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #13

blinkingled wrote: post #7

This 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…

One of my ex managers said that his role was to attend the meetings,shield the developers from the politics of getting projects approved and other institutional overhead so that we could focus on delivering product.

[deleted]

Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge

#110

Post by Laments » Tue, Apr 05, 2011, 10:50 PM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #64

Laments wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to ditto this; the linked article is very speculative, and without a G-employee response, it seems rather foolhardy to extend said speculation.

agreed, especially in light of the stories we just heard about technical skills being valued less in managers there. I think this is someone just coming up with a nice narrative.

To add an unrelated reply to a crowded discussion: I think that what we've seen from Googler manager skillset article in the Times is that Google has had to learn basic managerial attributes organically since that's the Google way -- from this outsider's perspective, it almost sounded like if they didn't invent it, it's hard-to-impossible to adopt given the startup culture.

I think that this board in particular has given Facebook a lot of praise; by this, I mean that there's a fascination/silent cheering for their engineering-driven culture. But I think that we're seeing a transition by Google from a startup (Facebook) to a real company (Microsoft); as much as a "management" layer is derided, a lot of Google's projects seem to have little business value; while they may eventually become valuable, it seems like their strategy has been to shy away from placing limits and directing units towards hard business goals (profitability).

But I'd argue that the rise of "business" being more important than passion-projects (which is what we implicitly view Google as) has been very visible, just ignored. Android's device manufacturers producing under anti-fragmentation clauses comes to mind as a sterling example of a unit posing to follow Google's motto but in reality has them running in the opposite direction (e.g. away from openness).

So, to round back: sure, anything could happen in regard to managers; but Google's in the middle of growing pains, and those pains I believe will end in an increased managerial presence/layer rather than ignored outright.