
How Google Works - anvarik
http://www.slideshare.net/ericschmidt76/how-google-works-final-1
======
WoodenChair
I found these slides rather shallow. Smart, creative people are the best
employees? Who knew! The Internet led to massive disruptions in traditional
businesses? Wow!

Sorry for my cynicism/sarcasm, but I see the book campaign as Eric Schmidt
positioning himself for his next role. He's trying to secure his personal
Google legacy as he gets ready for an exit. I can't imagine it's all that
enticing to go from CEO to chairman in a company where the founder takes back
the CEO role... how much influence does that leave you?

~~~
victor22
First, the slides are meant to be simple. Notice how this is written/drawn in
a children's book style? Second, I do think it's very very provocative for
"formal" people like me. I'm the business guy in a suit who just left Procter
& Gamble.

~~~
valarauca1
What you are slightly experiencing is the East coast/West coast culture shift.

~~~
WoodenChair
Dividing this sort of knowledge between East/West is antiquated at best. New
York City has a vibrant startup scene and Boston is the center of the robotics
industry.

~~~
victor22
Agree with you, but it´s still antiquated. I'm a Brazilian guy who´s living in
Colombia.

------
q_revert
I started work at google pretty recently, and expressed an interest in working
on a particular project. I made some notes about some of my ideas, and was
putting some stuff together to show to one of the teams, to get some input
before prototyping.

I asked a senior team member to have a look at the notes I had made, and see
if they were ready to show to the wider team.

His advice?

"Go build something, then we can have meetings"

Coming from an academic background I find this type of thinking very
refreshing.

~~~
DonPellegrino
I was under the impression that the work load at Google is so heavy that it is
almost impossible to get "20% time" anymore. During what time did you work on
your idea? Are they freeing you of all responsibilities to build your
prototype or do they expect you to do it in your free time and then donate it
to the company?

Thanks, I'm very curious about this aspect of Google's culture.

~~~
mgraczyk
I joined Google a few months ago and have not had this experience. The company
is gigantic so everybody's situation is a little bit different, but plenty of
people still have 20% projects. The culture strongly emphasizes a "build first
and ask questions later" attitude.

~~~
davidw
Another guy saying he still uses his:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8431951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8431951)

------
sz4kerto
This is not how Google works, this is a PR product -- it's full of fashionable
and/or trivial things that we see on various blogs every single day. I don't
see why is this interesting to the HN crowd, but well, who am I to judge this.
:)

~~~
paganel
I think it's related to a book written by Schmidt and that Rosenberg guy, I
think I just read a review about it a couple of weeks ago (here's the review:
[http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-
arts/21620056-search...](http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-
arts/21620056-search-giant-shares-some-its-business-methods-dont-be-modest)).

As for the presentation itself, maybe it's because I'm becoming more and more
grumpier with age and haven't drunk my coffee yet, but there's something to be
said about today's _langue de bois_ , with expressions like "smart creative"
and "Internet Century" being some worthy examples.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Nah, I think it's neither age nor coffee. As much as I love what Google is
doing, I get this distinct impression that they're starting to get infected
with bullshit language (which usually leads to bullshit thinking). The
presentation is full of "wooden language". It's like it was made for some
corporate managers or something.

And don't get me started on pictrues in the presentation. It really feels like
clip-arts all over again. I just hope they don't add them to Google Docs.

~~~
warfangle
> It's like it was made for some corporate managers or something.

Because it was ;)

------
dalke
The answer to "What has changed? Which assumptions do people make that are no
longer true? Why does everything feel like it's speeding up?" is supposedly
"Technology is transforming virtually every business sector."

It list three examples which are mostly true. But the same answer could easily
have been said any time in at least the last 120 years -- and it _was_. I
think the complaint about the shallow content in this presentation is
completely justified, because there's nothing really new about the idea of
change.

Steam power. Electricity. Telegraph. Telephone. Mechanical calculators. Slide
rules. Cheap aluminum. Flight. Punch card sorting machines. Linotype machines.
Each of those are examples where technology transformed business sectors.

The telegraph made it possible for information to reach around the world on
the same day it happened. Ham radio enthusiasts talked to each other around
the world, including bouncing TV signals off the moon. Scratch off the names
and it's the same ideas that this presentation promotes as something somehow
new. It's assumes the fallacy that what you grew up with was slow and
unchanging.

It's difficult to read much of the research literature from the 1960s without
hearing people talk about the "information explosion" and there being too much
change and things out of balance.

Mail order is an 1800s example of "barriers to entry melting away" and is how
Sears gained its fame. So was the rise of the daily newspaper, subsidized by
advertising that made is possible for people to know what was available.

"Power has shifted from companies to consumers" ... Hello, the 1930s called.
Consumer Reports wants to know if you would like a subscription so they can
pay for rigorous testing. Or do you seriously think that mass edited
unrestricted feedback can't be gamed?

"Individuals and small teams have a massive impact." etc. That sounds a lot
like the HP Way, which has as point #1 "We have trust and respect for
individuals"

Except, oddly enough, the Google way doesn't mention ethics. Compare to the HP
Way where "We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity." and that as
a good corporate citizen HP will "meet the obligations of good citizenship by
making contributions to the community and to the institutions in our society
which generate the environment in which we operate.

Does Google consider ethics less important than business nirvana?

What is new in this presentation that HP didn't cover in the 1960s?

------
skrebbel
And then Larry Page walked in and said "Focus! Everybody's goal is to push
Google+ now!"

~~~
simi_
IANAG, but as far as I understand G+ is a twofold process: first, there's
transforming Google into a platform (as per Yegge's famous rant [0]) and
secondly, there's the mediocre social network (they've managed to fail at both
UX and perf, kudos for that achievement). The latter, and the confusion itself
are obviously pretty idiotic. The G+ platform, despite the annoying name, is a
pretty solid idea.

Larry Page claims to want to be a modern, successful Tesla [1], and I believe
and appreciate him for that, but some of his actions since he took the reins
again (G+, Android) are ones you'd rather expect from an Ellison or Gates.
Probably that's a good tradeoff for being able to sustain innovation at a
massive scale, but I'm just wondering whether some of the decisions he makes
are just plain uninspired, rather than ruthless.

This being said, Larry is still the reason I want to work for Google at some
point in the future. I feel like he's one of the very few high-profile CEOs
that appreciate ideas and cool shit more than money, and that's something I
think hackers in particular need to appreciate.

0:
[https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX](https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

1: [http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-
story-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4)

------
msutherl
My hope is that this is partly the case due to what is often lamented as an
endemic sense of entitlement in Generation Y. Capable, well-off, "smart
creatives," having been raised to believe that they can and will make a
positive impact if only they try hard enough and make the right decisions.
Cumulatively (not collectively, yet), they demand the conditions they need to
execute and to feel like they're getting a fair bargain for their most
precious resource: their "passion."

This might mean that we can make the world a better place by _raising_ their
expectations even higher. In other words, if no one will work for Google
unless they are given the environment and autonomy to do truly great things,
as measured by a well-considered external standard, then Google might just be
forced to do great things.

We all know Google has done some things that are not so great. Regulation is
one tool the public wields, but perhaps we can do something about that from
the inside as well.

~~~
deciplex
Once again downvoting a perfectly fine post with no indication exactly what
your fucking problem is in the first place. Good job, HN.

~~~
eru
Disregard early downvotes. Voting still mostly balances out in the end.

------
g123g
In addition to obviously selling the upcoming book this also seems to be
selling Google to potential "smart creative" types. Kind of saying that Google
is the one which has the ability to give "smart creative" types the freedom
they need to flourish. So in addition to selling copies of the book Eric is
also selling Google to potential employees.

------
rmsaksida
The presentation is a little silly, yes, but if there's any truth to it - if
Google actually works this way - that could make all the difference.

There are places that simply don't give a shit about "smart creative" types,
and there are places that claim to have a Google-like culture but in practice
are just regular old boss-centric jobs. Every CEO wants to be like Google, but
very few actually commit to it.

It usually starts like this: the CEO wants to have smart creatives and
delegate decisions. But then he thinks about all that hard-won money he'll be
throwing at an employee, so he hires someone middle level or fresh out of
college "with huge potential". Then he systematically micromanages the guy,
because he just can't make that jump. The poor soul either abides (not so
smart creative after all) or quickly runs out of steam (this guy will quickly
start looking at job posts). Eventually the new hire disappoints in some way
and the CEO cynically complains about the failed promises of the cool tech
company culture which he tried to implement.

Seeing a very successful company like Google follow these principles, and win,
might influence decision makers in a positive way.

------
galago
“As a result, barriers to entry that have stood for decades are melting away.
Every incumbent business is vulnerable to competition and disruption.”

Upper middle class dudes from elite academic institutions create businesses.
What's the new thing? Maybe I'm misstating this and I'm just going to piss
away what few points I have less, but hasn't business always been this way?

Railroads killed the stagecoach, the lightbulb killed gas lamps, Craigslist
killed the newspapers. Amazon might well kill Google, but if they do, its not
necessarily a new thing.

~~~
ethnomusicolog
Yes, but the demographic constituency who can play the game is expanding. It's
getting easier to hack your socio-economic status.

~~~
galago
The guys that started Google came from Stanford, the Facebook guy, Harvard.
The Dropbox guys, MIT. Is there someone who went to Bunker Hill Community
College or its many equivaltents who was able create a majorly disruptive
business? I don't want to sound like Reddit, but link to something.

~~~
ethnomusicolog
I am not trying to argue how the game is played. But take the google founder.
Here is the son of a computer science academic migrant, who kind of hacked his
way into corporate power, without needing to show all the ruthlessnes of the
past centuries titans. Now you could say that he was more privileged than your
average joe. And It's true. But he is less privileged that you usually needed
to be to attaign that level of success. It's true of him, true of Larry
Ellison, and countless untold stories. And with them, of all the people they
brought into the adventure. Te be fair, It has always been true that self-made
giant could come from any avenue of life. The difference is that it has never
been so well documented.

------
plainOldText
One line from the slides (33) - "Optimize for growth, not revenue."

I'm curious, why is everyone nowadays so obsessed with growth? Is growth
really that much more important than revenue? What if you strike a balance
between the two?

I remember reading what one of the WhatsApp's founders once said: "[..] we
focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast
[..]" And it looks like they did alright.

~~~
jadc
I am not sure what the full context for your quote is, but most people would
agree that Whatsapp focused on growth (in terms of number of users) and not so
much revenue (i.e. they made enough to be sustainable and independent).

~~~
plainOldText
source for the quote:
[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/19/whatsapp-
excl...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/19/whatsapp-exclusive)

------
christiangenco
These slides are a summary (introduction? teaser?) for Schmidt and Rosenberg's
new book, How Google Works[1].

1\. [http://www.howgoogleworks.net/](http://www.howgoogleworks.net/)

~~~
eru
Which had an interesting reception among Googlers.

~~~
cjbarber
How so?

~~~
hueving
Reflection of a CEO massively disconnected from what it's actually like to
work there.

~~~
general_failure
Most of these execs are smart enough not to have a disconnect. They know
exactly how decisions are made and what is going on. These slides are about
making existing googlers feel good about what is happening around them. It
would suck for the talent at google to be called a pyramid slave.

------
ardoi
Interesting how on slide 15 when describing characteristics of smart
creatives, out of technical knowledge, business expertise and creativity it is
business expertise that is associated with needing brain power.

------
andy_ppp
Wow! I Love him talking about creating company culture for smart creative
people! Those are presumably the same smart creative people that Google
illegally stopped from competing in the job market. Nice one!

------
dothething
Seems like a desperate attempt to drum up book sales. Whomever created this
could have just found motivational posters and pasted them in all 50 slides. I
found nothing in this but same old tired cliches; try hard, don't give up,
think big. "What's different now?"

------
freshflowers
The fact that this content-free advertisement for Google gets upvoted to the
front-page of a community where most people can see right through it
(regardless of how they personally feel about Google) suggest HN is getting
astro-turfed.

Seriously, who upvotes this?

------
bsaul
I think google's culture has become quite of a joke, and only the people
inside the company are still not aware of it. "Do no evil" has been replaced
by "pay no tax".

They've launched two succesful products in their entire history (search engine
and gmail), the rest has been bought or only work because they're given away
for free.

An from what i've heard, internal culture with meetings that explain what
should people at google think to really be a "googler" is turning into an
orwelian nightmare ("but it's for the general good" isn't an answer to limited
personnal opinion).

------
barrystaes
That stupid webpage keeps forwarding me to an empty page after a few seconds
in.

~~~
rkaplan
Me too. Use the embed link instead:
[http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/40175706?rel=...](http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/40175706?rel=0)

------
quickdraw46
Loved the presentation, makes me realise how much more difficult it is to hire
and foster innovative culture here in India where the office space is still
marred by the age old 'BOSS Rules' culture.

~~~
kamyfc
Totally agree.

------
pXMzR2A
I didn't know Google as a startup that needed showcasing on HN.

------
junto
Page 54. For the success of those products we need to add two extra components
(in my opinion):

[http://image.slidesharecdn.com/howgoogleworksfinal1-14101217...](http://image.slidesharecdn.com/howgoogleworksfinal1-141012171037-conversion-
gate01/95/how-google-works-15-638.jpg?cb=1413303906)

(Technical knowledge + business expertise + creativity)

You also need:

Luck + Hard (smarter) work

------
Leander_B
And then you apply for a job and wait... wait... and wait some more with no
updates. Rather fix/speed up recruiting than making bogus slides. If a
customer (or applicant) expresses interest in your company, also be humble and
give an answer within acceptable time.

------
modx07
"Focus on growth, not on revenue"

Not an exact quote but an idea that was expressed in the slides. I'm curious
as to how one achieves this....if this was a sincere bit of advice then I'd
love to learn more about what he meant!

------
jason_slack
I can't seem to find it but Jeff Dean did a talk a long while back about How
Google's search works, how they predict. I wish I could see it again. He talks
about "shard" servers.

Anyone remember this?

------
peterwwillis
> "Never forget that _hiring_ is the _most important_ thing you do."

Uhh.... I think at least a hundred commenters on HN who've gone through Google
hiring would disagree with you.

------
dennisgorelik
These slides are one of recruiting tools for Google.

------
pibefision
I've received the book last week and read it during the weekend. It has plenty
of insights and great ideas that you can take and try to use in your current
area of work.

------
general_failure
Dunno but I found most of it fairly clichéd

~~~
_pmf_
> Dunno but I found most of it fairly clichéd

That's what they get from imitating Apple, the poster child of whitewashed
generic stock presentations.

------
tonydiv
I love the illustrations!

------
phreanix
Was that a little nod to Apple in slide 42?

------
codeonfire
The motivation of Google is not even discussed here. Why do you want to create
a certain environment for "smart creatives?" Oh yeah, almost forgot... so
they'll make products that will make Google lots of money. This always leads
to a logic contradiction. If they are so smart and creative, why do they need
Google? Everyone knows if you create the next g-mail you still walk in on
Monday and get a salary, not equity. You might get a huge bonus, or Google
might choose get another airliner instead. That's a risk you'll be taking.

~~~
balazsdavid987
> If they are so smart and creative, why do they need Google?

Many things cannot be created individually, no matter how smart and creative
you are. Think of pyramids, space ships, - or even GMail. It's about
leveraging the resources of a big company.

And not to forget the low risk: you build something while you are on salary
vs. building something for equity that may or may not worth dollars in the
end.

~~~
grayclhn
Just a tip: you don't want to be one of the people building a pyramid. You may
want to think of a non-enslavement-and-death example when you explain why
somewhere might be a good place to work. I can just imagine the recruiter's
pitch now...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Why? That slave labour was used to build pyramids is a popular but unfounded
belief. There is evidence suggesting that some pyramids were built by well-
paid government contractors.

Also apparently American-type slavery was a historical abberation. A typical
slave in the past was not unlike a salaried employee today. He was well-
treated, earned good money for his services and was able to free himself after
accumulating enough of it, which is not unlike the FU money many a startup
founder wants to have.

[0] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques)

[1] -
[http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/manumission.pdf](http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/manumission.pdf)

~~~
hueving
>free himself after accumulating enough of it

If you don't think enslavement to a particular person is worse than working
now, you need a reality check.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Do I? I mind you, "enslavement" has bad connotations mostly thanks to United
States, it wasn't _that bad_ in the ancient past.

Also consider that technology sector is somewhat special in this regard. Your
typical unskilled worker is pretty much a wage slave. Many a slave in the past
(again, excluding US) was in much better situation than your average friendly
neighbourhood supermarket clerk.

~~~
mbel
> Many a slave in the past (again, excluding US) was in much better situation
> than your average friendly neighbourhood supermarket clerk.

Unless you are using some exotic definition of enslavement, there is a
fundamental difference between slave an employee. A slave is a property of his
owner [0], thus slave has no agency and is completely dependent on her/his
owner decisions. Employee may choose to be dependent on her/his employer to
any extent she/he chooses, but it is her/his choice. You may argue that both
slave and employer _may_ end up being completely dependent on her/his
owner/employer, but from the point of view of the law and society the
situation is always completely different.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery)

~~~
ptaffs
There are other ways of enforced labour as well as slavery, and some are quite
close to home. Indentured workers, and poor houses for example, and the
company scrip, are slightly less brutal forms of something similar to slavery,
as are workers in the penal system. In all of these systems the workers aren't
really able to walk away from their "owner". And some of this is fairly recent
involving Ikea [4] and Walmart [5].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour)
[4] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/business/global/ikea-to-
re...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/business/global/ikea-to-report-on-
allegations-of-using-forced-labor-during-cold-war.html?_r=0) [5]
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/05/mexico-walmex-
idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/05/mexico-walmex-
idUSN0546591320080905)

------
frozenport
If you are the top tech company is it hard to attract talent?

------
diltonm
The images were distracting, the text was not prominent enough and slide 29 is
religiously and humanly offensive to several billion people.

