How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
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Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#2[deleted]
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#3>37,000 employees and 5,000 managers
That's 6.4 employees per manager. Isn't that too many?
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#4I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative?
I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get the fact that there's a lot of creative spin that goes with anything you're going to see published on the web about them. But hell, it sure would be interesting to poke around behind the scenes and see how things really work.
I'm not saying that to disparage this article or work, it's actually quite impressive. I simply wanted to point out that at some point, a company that does no evil and always is inventing things along the lines of time machines and faster-than-light travel every month starts to be a bit much for a reader to consume. Surely with 40K+ employees and that much money there is some other story here.
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#5I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…
Do you recognize, that GOOG is primarily a PR firm based on surveillance? (revenues, ads etc.) Their business is telling stories to influence (euphemism for fooling and diversion of) people using surveillance.
-8≤----
Upon this layer of commercial surveillance activity two things, then, happen with respect to government: the complicity and the thievery.
The data-mining companies believed, by and large, with respect to the United States and other governments around the world with whom they deal, that they were merely in a situation of complicity.
Having created unsafe technological structures that mined you, they thought they were merely engaged in quiet—that is to say, undisclosed—bargaining with power over how much of what they had on you they should deliver to others.
This was, of course, a mingled game of greed and fear.
But what the US data-mining giants of the West Coast basically believed, until Mr. Snowden woke them, was that by complicity they had gained immunity from actual thievery.
What sent both Facebook and Google into orbit since we were all last together—or rather, what had come out two weeks ago on the Wednesday that we were last together—was the news that their complicity had bought them nothing. [...]
So the problem is that, for the data-miners, the situation is not controllable, just as for the American listeners it is no longer controllable.
And it will only be controllable for Us if we bend our attention closely to the environmental nature of the problem that we face because environmental problems—like climate change, or water pollution, or slavery—are not solved transactionally by individuals.
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#6I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…
There was a story about Google and sex at the workplace, recently. So we are seeing both positive and negative articles about Google. While Google would like to portray itself as something akin to what Toyota was, naysayers would try to do the opposite.
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#7I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…
We do have problem employees and management feudal battles -- although I have only personally witnessed the latter. I have only worked here, not counting internships before I graduated, but I hear from colleagues who worked elsewhere that these two problems are of a lesser degree here.
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#8I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…
There was a story about Google and sex at the workplace, recently. So we are seeing both positive and negative articles about Google. While Google would like to portray itself as something akin to what Toyota was, naysayers would try to do the opposite.
This is the article on that topic:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/09/20/sex_a...
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#9We've seen a lot of articles on Google about the product side. This is the first I've seen in a while on their internal management. This is important for them to nail to avoid becoming the next IBM or Microsoft. (Both did well in their own ways, but Google aspires to be neither.)
Are there any GOOG alums who would like to comment on the article?
My impression is that data driven HR is a good start, but that it can leave outliers. I have heard anecdotal stories that things are generally well run, but you have to please a lot of people to be promoted as a result of the 360 degree feedback loop and general flat structure. Again purely anecdotally I've heard that there is a lot of email communication required of management, but this is true of most large tech firms. (Oracle, IBM and HP to name a few)
As an outsider my impression is that it's a great place to hire engineers from because they're learned the right things. The salespeople aren't as reliably solid, as they may not have needed to be scrappy.
Re: How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management
#10I keep reading these Google stories that appear flawless examples of exceptional thinking and execution. But heck, at some point, the stories just wash over without effect. Do they have no problem employees? Management feudal battles? Studies and organizational change movements that produce nothing appreciative? I understand that Google is basically a giant marketing company ran by engineers who own the web, so I get…
There are problem employees and management feud battles, but measured as a percentage of my time that I have to spend dealing with them, they are less of a problem in 35,000-person Google than in the 10-20 person startups I've worked in.