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Google's Ten Golden Rules
selvan writes "Newsweek is running an article entitled Google's Ten Golden Rules. The article, by Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian, going into the philosophy behind the company." From the article: "Don't be evil. Much has been written about Google's slogan, but we really try to live by it, particularly in the ranks of management. As in every organization, people are passionate about their views. But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other well-known technology companies. We foster to create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men."
From TFA
Wow...an article written by Google about how great Google is...the very definition of conflict-of-interest.
While I'm aware that Slashdot is contractually obligated to post any and all stories about Google that possess even the most infinitesimal amount of positive spin, this seems extreme even here.
Oh, and Newsweek, shame on you.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Does any of this really matter now? The moment they went public, their defining philosophy turned into maximizing profits for their share holders in any way lawfully possible. The share holders now control board votes, not google's lofty ideals.
11) Having fricking huge piles of cash so you can actually afford to do 1-10.
I don't get why Google has to yammer on and on about "don't be evil". That would say to me that they think most companies are evil, and google has to be different and say that all the time.
The fact is that the vast majority of businesses aren't evil, Microsoft included. They might do some bad things, but no reasonable person could say they are overall evil. Now Enron, and Worldcom could be considered evil, but there are the rare exceptions in American society, not the rule.
I like google, but sometimes they are a little full of themselves. They are bright and smart people, maybe too smart for their own good. For all people talk about Microsoft and Apple's arrogance, Google has got a pretty big head for a company not even 10 years old.
But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other well-known technology companies.
Thou shalt not be bitchy about competitors.
Also, I take issue with the "Pack them in" criterium. What I like most about my job right now is the space I get. Email, instant-message, radio, etc, make "packing them in" a reality for any company with these technologies. I'd like to be able to fart at my desk or turn on a stereo and not have anybody make a fuss about it.
I think they're trying to justify sticking their employees two-per-cubicle for lack of floor space.
Riiight... I know collecting data always only ever works out in favour of the individual that has been monitored. Lovely stuff like advertising tailored to your needs etc.
How on earth does Google want to be not evil, when every single thing they do is designed to collect as much data about people as possible (and that includes "free WLAN for everybody" - monitor surfing habits at the root has to be Google's wet dream)? I think they would have to make a VERY directed effort to avoid being evil.
Bullshit. I have no faith (i.e. I don't believe in a god) but you don't see me running around having sex with boys, convincing people to give me their life savings, having extra-marital affairs (ok, I'm not married so that doesn't count), murdering my family and so on. I highly doubt you'd find many people who don't have faith who don't follow the underpinnings of the 10 commandments.
Just because one doesn't believe in a god doesn't mean that they don't follow the basic rules. Nor does it follow that people who do have faith follow the rules. Your broad generalization isn't valid.
For the record, all the acts I indicated above were and are being done by people of faith. Not just one faith either.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The most convincing arguments are made by people who believe what they say. Google not only eats their own dogfood vis-a-vis using their product, I'm sure for the most part they believe the principals they claim to espouse.
However, that doesn't detract from the point that Google's sloganeering has a marketing objective. What's the point of Google bombarding us with their "do no evil" slogan anyway? Are they trying to start a religion or something? Maybe, but the main purpose of this catch phrase is to convince us that we can trust Google with confidential private information. You're not going to store your email on Google's servers if you believe they will abuse the privilege. But what do you really know about Google's intentions? All you really know, or think you know, is that they will "do no evil". Oh, how nice.
So what is "evil"? It's the same kind of gobbledegook meaningless babble that our current administration uses to promote its war on "terror", whatever that is.
I'm not one of those chicken little folks who believe big bad Google is going to gobble us all up. I'm also not one of those floppy ducklings who swallows so much corporate bullshit every day I don't even notice the taste anymore. And I'm old enough to be more than a little cynical when folks make a big todo about taking the high road. A little modesty and a little honesty from Google would be a welcome sign that they haven't completely lost touch.
The downside is that employers like Google expect you to love your job. If you do, good for you. But sometimes you will have other things that you need to do, but the nagging feeling that you're supposed to love your job and express that love by working your ass off will always come up, and you will feel like you're not doing enough for the great ideals of the Company.
It its own way, that's a worse kind of pressure than Dilbert-style companies have, because it's ideological pressure. You can pretty much predict what a PHB wants - he wants you to do your job, make him look good, and, even though you might have to work overtime until you find a better job, it ends when you go home. If you're supposed to drink the kool-aid and live/breathe the company 'values', then the company is not just trying to take over your time, but your mind, and I for one would rather work a few extra hours at crunch time.
This is actually a fairly standard article format: they asked the head of a succesful company to write an article on what he thinks makes that company succesful. It's not meant to be an in-depth analysis, just a highlight of what they think is important/different about their company.
It gives some idea of how the management thinks of the company, and what they try to work on. Sure, it's a fluff piece, the equivilent of the society column for businesses, but it's a moderately useful fluff peice. And it can help some people, espcially if you want to understand how Google thinks about itself.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
11. Only hire Ivy League grads.
12. Make a reference to Stanford in the first five minutes of every conversation.
13. Require hefty formal academic credentials for positions that are mostly clerical, administrative, or customer service. Because we're cool, like NeXT was.
14. Use the "W" hotel for conferences; it impresses the kids.
15. Eric Schmidt can lead us. After all, Sun did so well. And Novell, under his leadership. Plus, he looks like "Jimmy James" from News Radio.
16. Search! Don't sort! DON'T SORT! Do it OUR WAY! We are SMARTER THAN YOU! In fact, you can't even sign up for this.
it's not like it was a trick, the article starts off, "At google, we think..."
-- lol pwned
Bread and Circus....keep them fed and entertained and you can make them do anything!! Hoo ha haaaaaaa!
> Wow...an article written by Google about how great Google is...the very definition of conflict-of-interest.
:) Seriously, no offense meant but that's what every successful company does. "We're great and here is why..." Would you buy from a company that said "We are not great?" Didn't think so.
Your grasp on marketing is outstanding.
In this case all my annoyance is at Newsweek. the state of mainstream journalism in this country is pretty bad, and they don't need to be turing over their pages to corperate PR folks. How about taking the CEOs talking points and then going into the workplace and see them actually being implemented? Ask the average employee about the quality of the food in the cafeteria. Do a little work.
This isn't wuite as bad as the news orginizations who did nothing but repeat the Bush administration's lies in the lead up to war, but its the exact same concept.
sorry 'bout the mess...
And even the Google Toolbar.. personally, it was the first "good" toolbars that actually worked, and blocked popups.. granted, ya don't even need it nowadays, but still, it was a major help 2 years ago.. if you're critical about Google, you obviously must know something that we don't.. you probably read too much in to Google vs MS politics.. screw it man.. the most important thing is, that their products kick ass.. if Google runs their entire world one day, I'll gladly let them.. because I know they'll do a great job.. and the best job..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I work on contracts for 5 years already (5 years of perm before that drove me to this life :) so I have worked in 6 places in these 5 years (contracts come and go) and I think generally it is not a bad idea to put people on the same project into the same room.
Now having said that I think there are certain things that should be considered before doing that. First: if people on the project hate each-other this will not help matters.
Second: do not cram people into small rooms with no windows. It's horrible for morale. The best thing apparently is to have a large room with windows and if the room gets too crowded, split the team into 2 rooms in close proximity.
Third: one of the projects I worked on was pure eXtreme. I hated the paradigm but liked the process they used for unit tests/cvs merges/deployment and online documentation. But I still think eXtreme is a waste of time and money for very large very long projects. To get a person familiar with the project you may put him(her) together with someone who has been there for a while now for a few days. More than that is a total waste.
Fourth: it appears that in rooms like this eventually there will be music played on the background. First: don't make it loud, second: don't make it loud. Besides, not everyone likes the same stuff and listenning to Dido's White Flag for 9 hours can really drive you mad.
Fifth: No food that smells should be allowed in rooms like this, period.
You can't handle the truth.
Really? This is not being presented as news; it is clearly by Google about Google. I see no reason why Newsweek should be ashamed.
If this had been in Harvard Business Review, no one would have batted an eye.
i swear, the more i hear about google, the more they sound like the borg from star trek: "resistance is futile" and all that
of course i'll be modded into obvlivion for saying this, it goes agains the mindless slashot cliques: "google good, microsoft baaad" say the slashdot sheeple
read the comment again. it's a stupid manifesto of corporate life. the point is, IT'S STILL SOUL SUCKING CORPORATE LIFE
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Google's top rule "Don't Be Evil" only applies if its not in their best interest to be evil.
Look at the whole searching printed material fiasco they have gotten themselves into. They just went ahead and started making pages of printed material available online, without regard for the authors and publishers of those works. If Google truely WASN'T EVIL, then they would have sat down with the publishing industry, conveyed what they were trying to do, and work with the industry to create a solution that all would be happy with.
Communicate effectively? Only if you make them millions. My website was suddenly blocked from using Google's Ads. I was simply experimenting with them, figuring out how to get them into my webpage before it went live. Google claims that I was creating invalid click counts and barred my website from their program. When I tried to contact them to ask them to verify their decision and to explain how they felt I was violating their policy, they simply responded by sending me a link to their policy. When I felt I did not violate their policy, I was basically ignored from that point forward.\
Hire by committee. I know exactly how this works. First step, write a test to see if you know your stuff. While this may sound like a great concept in hiring practices, in truth their are many brilliant programmers out their that may not know exactly how to write a template C++ class or other trivial menial programming concepts. But, in reality, they have created astounding and well conceived application solutions from an almost intrinsic and intuitive knowledge of programming. Score badly on that test and you won't be talking to anyone else at Google, period. On the flip side, hiring people that score well on those tests mean they studied just before the test, or have enough book smarts to remember countless meaningless trivial tidbits, and then wonder why they can't program themselves out of a box or have one ounce of creativity.
Strive to reach consensus. The "many are smarter then the individual" myth. I don't know, its been my experience that the collective IQ of all society is 0. The larger the group of people involved in making the decision, the dumber the outcome. Look at US politics. George Bush elected a second time? Look at Candian Politics. Jean Cretien Liberal's lasted 13 years? This is because humans can't communicate effectively in a group and any important decision making gets lots in endless meetings, debates and discussions which starts to cloud the obvious decision. If this is how Google is doing business, then it explains why projects like GMail have been in a perpetual beta for over 2 years and they are falling behind other more innovative web mail solutions.
I don't like Google, period. They are quickly becoming a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none company creating knee jerk reactionary services and spreading themselves out too thin. The bubble will burst once Google can no longer higher enough staff to work in each of the many many projects they have on the go. Eventually, as I said with Gmail falling behind Yahoo and other more innovative web email server solutions, Google will start to see the quality of those services suffer as users strive to find other more focused solutions by companies not interested in dominating the entire web experience.
Google is out to ensure that you have to pass through them to get anything done on the web. Anybody not realizing how monopolistic and dominating their goals are probably thinks Microsoft is a nice benevolent company creating good products. The only people that believe this tripe are Wall Street investors throwing billions at a company that really isn't doing anything other then organizing data other people have created.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Back in the day, Ken Lay, CEO of Enron, used to tout Enron's internal policy of always taking the moral high ground and that all its employees exhibited the highest ethical standards, even going so far as to say that Enron set the bar when it came to business ethics. Shocking to think that we cannot always trust what the heads of corporations tell us.
In Vino Veritas
Congratulations on missing the point. This isn't an article on how great Google is. This is an article by somebody in Google management trying to explain how Google handles its employees, and why it has been sucessful. For somebody managing a small company, emulating some of these things might be interesting. I know gang interviews will be a new concept to at least a few people. We used them where I used to work, and they're a blast. It's easy for a canidate to convince management that he knows the engineering, its less easy for him to convince his potential coworkers.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Mary Kay Cosmetics: "To give unlimited opportunity to women."
Merck: "To preserve and improve human life."
Wal-Mart: "To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people."
Walt Disney: "To make people happy."
McDonald's: "McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile."
So, is Google evil?
Spiderman said it best; "With great power. .
-FL
But on the other hand, the way they get you to stay at work is by making you genuinely want to stay at work because it's enjoyable. I really don't think that's evil--if it works, you are happy; if it doesn't then you don't have incentive to stay later than your work requires, and you go home.
What is the average amount of hours people spend at Google (or any of the other companies on the list)? Not knowing the specifics of Google's work culture, let's just assume people work on average from 9:30 to 7:30 every day (e.g. 10 hr days) on average, and then of course, maybe 15+ hour days during "crunch time".
My question to you is, if Google DIDN'T offer all those "benefits" to working there, would those hours go down... and go down considerably? If so, then you could make the logical conclusion that these "benefits" *are* in fact causing people to work longer.
I, too, used to work at one of these companies -- and i found myself at work 10, 11 hours a day regularly, and 16+ (one day even 20) hours during crunch time -- because I was totally bought into the culture; Because the company loves me so much to give me such a "fun" work environment with such "great" people to work with who all love their jobs, I must love my job too, or there must be something wrong with me. No, this wasn't pressure being applied to me by management or other coworkers, this was subconscious, psychological pressure I applied to myself simply because of the environment that was created by all these "benefits". Over the years, as I finally have some perspective to look back at my time there, I have realized that it's a self-serving environment that only feeds itself, which is what makes it so addicting, and to be honest, successful at getting employees to stay late and "love" doing so.