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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

#131

Post by 6ren »

It's also similar to how Berkshire Hathaway is run; and how Christensen advocates nurturing disruptive businesses - smaller units can get excited about smaller sales that are a rounding error to Big Google (new markets start small); independent units are free to customize their business model and how they do things to what fits the opportunity (instead of fitting in with the parent's model and processes - which has compelling economies, but only early).

e.g. it seems highly unlikely that advertising is the ideal revenue model for every business Google is in. The appropriate fit might be sales, renting, monthly charge, pay-per-use, royalty, per-developer, per-other-metric. It's not necessarily about extracting more money from customers, but revenue that makes sense for customers - that they prefer, that makes sense in the competitive set, that motivates the business to improve along the right dimensions.

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

#132

Post by code_duck »

jdp23 wrote: post #68
GoldenMonkey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

And look how well it's worked for them ...

A multi-hundred billion dollar valuation, a monopoly or two and the founder being the richest man in the world for years is good... right?

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

#133

Post by ramanujan »

This 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 build two operating systems intended for mobile devices and take that kind of approach.

I'll get my popcorn.

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

#134

Post by jacques_chester »

Elepsis wrote: post #123
jacques_chester wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure why people assume that Microsoft only makes money on Windows and Office. There were 11 separate businesses within Microsoft that brought in a billion dollars or more in revenue last year: http://techflash.com/seattle/2010/07/microsofts_11_billion-d...

I was talking about profit, not revenue. Here's what I'm talking about:

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-op...

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

#135

Post by jay_kyburz »

I don't think they should be letting Managers or Engineers run things. I think they need to have... I'm not sure of the title... lets call them Vision Carriers. In the video game industry we call these people Creative Directors.

These vision carriers need to understand the product they are building and the people who will use it.

They don't need to be good a managing people or budgets, they don't need to write code. They need to understand what is good and what is bad and they need to be able to clearly communicate it to the team.

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

#136

Post by jlees »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #135

I don't think they should be letting Managers or Engineers run things. I think they need to have... I'm not sure of the title... lets call them Vision Carriers. In the video game industry we call these people Creative Directors. These vision carriers need to understand the product they are building and the people who will use it. They don't need to be good a managing people or budgets, they don't need to write code.…

At Google we call them product managers.

(Aside: I think the original article does not understand that product managers aren't "managers" in the traditional sense of the word. Much of this discussion should be predicated on this fact!)

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

#137

Post by GaryOlson »

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.

Because the alternative is to become just like HP -- where technology and engineering is just an advertising slogan. And one HP is enough.

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

#138

Post by Aloisius »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #4

This 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 Microso…

Doesn't Microsoft do a major reorganization every few years? I thought moving people around was part of their business philosophy.

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

#139

Post by gms »

aridiculous wrote: post #9

Can 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?

They can't chime in because they'd probably get fired for it.

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

#140

Post by aboodman »

aridiculous wrote: post #9

Can 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?

No weight as far as I can see, but I guess it could be happening above my level. I am but a lowly engineer.
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