[I wrote this book review long time ago but just realized that I never published it. So it has sat in my draft box for more than 7 years!]
This is an interesting book on how to manage a modern technology company in "Internet Century", drawing insights and lessons learned from Google.
Their recipe for an innovative company starts with extremely selective and efficient hiring. In fact, many of their advice wouldn't work at all if you don't follow their first advice: Only hire "smart creatives", which is their speak for self-motivated, high-calibre employees. Once you have a team of A-players, the best way to manage them is to create a stimulating work environment and get out of their (creative) way. The work environment, including org chart, is designed to foster interaction and collaboration. Decisions are relied on either technical insights (elitism) or data (pragmatism). Get rid of HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion), i.e., promote meritocracy. Bias towards action and fail fast. Build a positive company culture to make people stay together. Default to open, instead of closed, ecosystem. Et cetera, et cetera.
Google's model has been widely copied and blindly extended by numerous aspiring startups, among which Facebook is a prime example. However, once you stop drinking the Google Kool-Aid, you'll find some of their advice lacks strong arguments.
First of all, by definition, A-players are only a small percentage of the work force. Once your company grows into a behemoth, you have no choice but to hire B-, C-, or even D-players. When that happens, many of the practices that worked before will no longer work. What was once an energetic band of misfits are now full of people who think little more than the free food from company cafe.
Second, innovation happens whether or not the ecosystem is open or closed. The authors painfully acknowledge it because of Apple, but still tries to argue that open is better. They sounded as if open ecosystem was Google's invention while in fact, it was GNU that heralded the open source economy. Plus, before companies embrace open source economy, willfully or grudgingly, there was always a model open community: academia.
Third, while the book lavishes about the flat organizational structure of Google and attributes its success to it, the company gradually shifted away from it, adding layers of middle managers, which is inevitable once the company grows in size. However, it makes this whole argument moot.
Overall, like all management books, it offers plausible explanations for their past success but no magic recipe for continued success in the future. Read it with a healthy grain of salt.
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