8.1. NEW MANAGEMENT STYLE
Their venture capitalists closely watched the young business enterprise's development and pressed the founders to add another member to top management, but Sergey and Larry took their time recruiting a chief executive officer. Eventually they found one who suited them. At first, they didn't give him the chief executive's title, but in time, Eric Schmidt took on the CEO position, with the Google boys serving as co-presidents. Schmidt handles almost all the key reports. Larry and Sergey are then free to pursue the creative side of the business.
This doesn't mean, however, that Brin and Page were willing to relinquish control. It is understood at Google that the founders have the final say on all major decisions. Apparently, getting the weigh-in gets more difficult as the presidents become increasingly busy.
Larry explained how the triumvirate that runs Google works:
Eric has the legal responsibilities of the CEO and focuses on management of our vice presidents and the sales organization. Sergey focuses on engineering and business deals. I focus on engineering and product management. All three of us devote considerable time to overall management of the company and other fluctuating needs.[]
"The goal of the company is not to monetize everything. Our goal is to change the world. Monetization is a technology to pay for it,"[] says Eric Schmidt. And yet, two words heard repeatedly around Google are scale and monetize. These words speak to the questions, Can a service or technology be grown big enough to make it worth the effort, and can it be made profitable?
Google has faced the same problems that other fast-growing startups have encountered. Among them are how to manage growth without losing your soul; how to keep ideas fresh; and how to keep bright employees and avoid hiring mediocre people.
David Friedberg, a founding member of Google's corporate development team, explained that good hiring is key to Google's success. "There are certain kinds of people where it's not about the money. And Google hires those kinds of people." Friedberg left Google to start his own Internet company, WeatherBill.[]
After the company was a few years old, Sergey and Larry realized their management structure had become too complex. By autumn 2001, the company felt top-heavy and unwieldy. They called their engineering managers to a meeting and told them they were out of jobs. Most got hired in other departments. The company was reorganized into small teams that attacked hundreds of projects all at once.
The founders give the employees great latitude, and they take the same latitude for themselves. Sometimes they show up unexpectedly for the wrong meeting. Sometimes they disappear entirely—zooming away in the corporate jet or taking a break to go kite surfing.[]
Although there are meetings going on all over Google campuses all the time, Terry Winograd, Larry's academic advisor at Stanford, says, "Larry and Sergey believe that if you try to get everybody on board it will prevent things from happening. If you just do it, others will come around to realize they were attached to old ways that were not as good—no one has proven them wrong—yet."[]
Eric Schmidt says that Google merely appears to be disorganized. "We say we run the company chaotically. We run it at the edge."[]
Eric Schmidt says that curiosity and probing play a large part in Google's management style.
Among the frequently asked management questions are:
How do we make the products we have the most useful?
What is the best long-term path for the company?
What are the next big breakthroughs in research?
How is the competition affecting our business?
"Out of the conversation comes innovation," Schmidt notes. "Innovation is not something that I just wake up one day and say 'I want to innovate.' I think you get a better innovative culture if you ask it as a question."[]
Despite Larry and Sergey's quick, smart personalities and their rollerblading approach to business, David Friedberg said they never forgot that they were running a company. "At the end of the day, it is a company and there are products, and you have to deliver the products."[]