There is a big difference between a manager and a leader. A manager takes the credit for things that go well and looks for people to blame when they don't. A leader understands that they are only successful if their team succeeds. A manager worries about how the team might screw things up. A leader thinks about how the team can exceed their goals. A manager tries to consolidate their power and protect their turf at all costs. A leader knows that the team follows them out of a sense of mutual respect and understands that if they can no longer effectively lead the team than it may be time to step aside. Leaders are not just found at the top of an organization.
Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
151–160 of 163 posts
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#152I question the title. It doesn't sound like engineers are in charge, instead, it sounds like smaller operating units will be in charge. That is a very different thing from having the inmates running the asylum. I have yet to see a large company that successfully treats software as a creative endeavor instead of a production line that still manages to be able to focus on solving customer problems. I really hope that L…
Not even smaller operating units, it just sounds like things will be organized according to product rather than function. Other HN articles recently have mentioned how Google has a bunch of centralized organizations that report all the way to the top and are not responsible to any product group (Launch, Site Reliability, UX, Product Management, etc). What's different about Android is not that Andy Rubin has an engine…
the moment Google has several product teams each having all their own resources built in - like Launch, Site Reliability, UX, Product Management, etc - there would start to appear smart people with great ideas of combining similar functions from different products group into separate function groups to increase synergy and efficiency.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds to me like a Home Depot -> Lowe's relationship. I guess you'd have to master "being Google" first, so since G's business model is much much less settled than Home Depot's it will probably be a while. After all, there's still no "Fry's with good service," so maybe it's the B2C tech industry itself that precludes (good) customer service in general. This is complicated by the existence of customer-focussed c…
The central problem of B2C tech companies is that their value proposition is to make complex things simple enough that the everyman can have them. When things go wrong, they can go wrong in literally millions of ways, because there are literally millions of everymen. Fixing those one-off problems is not a scalable business proposition. Companies like 37signals and Craigslist manage to keep a good rep for customer ser…
>widespread expectation throughout the general population that Google is the Internet, and if the Internet sucks, it's Google's problem.
I was in agreement until this. I think this is an unfair characterization. The huge problem with Google's (lack of) customer service isn't because they wont fix bad sites on the Internet. It's that they provide incredibly bad service for their own stuff.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#154This brings to a head the interesting situation of the modern tech company. Unlike companies in almost all other industries, the average developer at Google (and a lot of other companies) needs to be much smarter to do the job than the manager.
So the skill pyramid is actually inverse compared the "military corporation" model. It's also true that many, perhaps even a majority, of the deveopers would be "even better" at management, marketing and strategy etc, than those normally filling these roles.
This situation really does beg for a solution beyond what the typical corporation/MBA paradigm has come up with so far. Kudos to Mr. Page for taking a shot at it.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking about profit, not revenue. Here's what I'm talking about: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-op...
Actually, I don't think you understand Microsoft's business model. "Server and Tools" may only generate a modest profit of only a billion dollars per quarter, but it is the foundation of all those Windows sales. The real core of the company is not the end-user stuff, it's .net, Visual Studio, IIS, and SQL Server. If you're actually trying to arguing that MSN/Live/Bing has been an endless waste of money, then of cours…
I admit that S&T was an oversight on my part in my OP. But MSN/Bing/Live, various attempts at tablets, phones and all sorts of other doodads and geegaws have been money sinks.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think many (middle) managers are afraid of Scrum and other agile development because their role is sidelined. As "individual contributors", engineers are generating actual business value. Engineers can self-organize in "quasi-communist" Scrum teams (as they own the means of production ;) and collaborate with product management who work with customers to derive and prioritize product requirements. In this scenario,…
The scrum teams don't own the means of production. Individual contributors are human capital. The means of production are owned by the people in control of the finances and business model. If the company were to shift direction and your product discontinued, it's possible the scrum team would be disbanded and the resources that were being used to support them would be reallocated by the "owners" to a new team that al…
Yes they do - just like lawyer owns his skills and can take them elsewhere and continue his work.
A factory worker on the other hand, can't (legally) take the machines with him.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#157This may finally lead to outright combat between the ChromeOS and Android groups. Chrome the browser itself is fairly successful, as are Android phones. But Chrome OS vs. Android...that is a huge showdown. ChromeOS is a minimalist OS, whereas Android is a fat client. Philosophies are totally different. Attitude within Google right now is "let the market decide". Only a company with the free cash flow of Google could…
This doesn't seem all that different from the way car companies run multiple makes. Chevy vs Saturn. Philosophies are totally different (or at least they were) but the market is the same. This way the company does well whichever approach wins out.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the tech industry this isn't really an issue (management being overemphasized). The thing is, in a lot of larger tech companies, I suspect it's the other way around: management is under-rated because the engineers have taken over the asylum. It's easy to point to huge, successful companies with a very pro-engineering culture like Facebook and connect the culture with the success, but how do we know they succeede…
It's easy to point out Google's mistakes and point to their engineering culture, but look at Microsoft as a counterexample. Microsoft has more or less the same story as Google; one or two wildly successful products supplementing the rest of the business. The other groups at Microsoft leap into new markets to try and expand the core business (Xbox 360 being a fine example). I doubt we would call Microsoft's culture an…
> Microsoft has more or less the same story as Google; one or two wildly successful products supplementing the rest of the business.
Really? I think if you list Microsoft's product lines, only a relatively small proportion failed badly. Sure, Zune never took off and their various on-line efforts haven't exactly had stellar results. Still, it's not like MS only makes money on Windows and Office. They also have a very successful range of server products aimed at businesses. Their initially loss-leading efforts to penetrate the computer game market are now doing pretty well. They even make good keyboards and mice.
Now, here's the kicker. Microsoft do effectively give away a couple of things, notably software development tools and IE. They also run Microsoft Research, which is where a respectable amount of serious work on the future of both programming and HCI is going on today. However, these things are done in a way that supports their overall business interests, which is exactly the sort of strategic decision that good management needs to be getting right.
I'm hardly a Microsoft fanboy, as many of my previous posts will confirm, but I don't think they have been anything like Google or Facebook in terms of hit-to-flop ratio in recent years.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#159I mistakenly thought Larry Wall was the new Google CEO. It seemed a little odd at first, but then I thought it was very cool. Now it doesn't seem quite as interesting.
Re: Larry Page Begins Major Google Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A lot the skills used for management such as negation skills just come with age anyway. Well you get older and fear change a bit more, and you tend to say "no" to more things, but that's not really a management skill.
I respectfully disagree. I believe that knowing when and how to say "no" is one of the most important management skills, and I suspect that understanding the need to say "no" a lot more than "yes" in the early days of a project (or a whole business) is quite strongly correlated with success.