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How Google Works Kindle Edition

by Eric Schmidt (Author), Jonathan Rosenberg (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 4,120 ratings

Goodreads Choice Award nominee

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Seasoned Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider's guide to Google, from its business history and disruptive corporate strategy to developing a new managment philosophy and creating a corporate culture where innovation and creativity thrive.

Seasoned Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider's guide to Google, from its business history and disruptive corporate strategy to developing a new managment philosophy and creating a corporate culture where innovation and creativity thrive.

Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary-and frequently contrarian-principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business.

Today, Google is a global icon that regularly pushes the boundaries of innovation in a variety of fields. How Google Works is an entertaining, page-turning primer containing lessons that Eric and Jonathan learned as they helped build the company. The authors explain how technology has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers, and that the only way to succeed in this ever-changing landscape is to create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom Eric and Jonathan dub "smart creatives."

Covering topics including corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption, the authors illustrate management maxims ("Consensus requires dissension," "Exile knaves but fight for divas," "Think 10X, not 10%") with numerous insider anecdotes from Google's history, many of which are shared here for the first time.
In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale. How Google Works explains how to do just that.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman's perspective."―Kirkus

"An energized and exciting primer on creating a company and workforce prepared to meet an inspiring future."―Publisher's Weekly

"Chairman Eric Schmidt and exec advisor Jonathan Rosenberg pull back the curtain to reveal how the company created its unique culture of workplace innovation."―Fortune

About the Author

Eric Schmidt served as Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011 and transformed it into a global technology leader. He is now Google's executive chairman.

Jonathan Rosenberg joined Google in 2002 and managed the design and development of the company's consumer, advertiser, and partner products, including Search, Ads, Gmail, Android, Apps, and Chrome. He is currently an advisor to Google CEO Larry Page.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00HUU13Y0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing; Illustrated edition (September 23, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 23, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 11036 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 303 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #305,935 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #138 in Workplace Behavior
- #146 in Company Histories
- #577 in Company Business Profiles (Books)

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4.4 4,120 ratings

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Eric Schmidt
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Eric Schmidt is a technologist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He joined Google in 2001, helping the company grow from a Silicon Valley startup to a global technological leader. He served as chief executive officer and chairman from 2001 to 2011, and as executive chairman and technical advisor thereafter. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a culture of innovation. In 2017, he co-founded Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative that bets early on exceptional people making the world better. He serves as chair of The Broad Institute, and formerly served as chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He is the host of Reimagine with Eric Schmidt, a podcast exploring how society can build a brighter future after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Jonathan Rosenberg
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Alan Eagle
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Alan Eagle is an author and executive communications consultant, helping leaders and companies shape their stories and communicate with clarity. He spent 16 years at Google, partnering with executives to communicate the company’s story to clients, partners, employees, and the public. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Dartmouth College and an MBA from The Wharton School.
Alan is the co-author of the books How Google Works, Trillion Dollar Coach, and Learned Excellence, and the author, all by himself, of seven letters-to-the-editor published in Sports Illustrated. He has never won the New Yorker Caption Contest.
A Northern California native, Alan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and golden retriever. Their four twentysomething children come by from time to time.
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Don Hutchison

Smart, engaging read with useful, immediately applicable insights.

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2014

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Eric and Jonathan cover a vast territory in their engaging discussion of Google's leadership in our software driven era. While their Google specific comments are singularly informed and compelling, I suspect their most valuable lessons are those applicable to virtually any venture. Many of these are recurring thematics within discussions of modern leadership, but rarely have so many useful concepts been so well and accessibly summarized as in "How." Despite 30 plus years in the business I furiously jotted margin notes throughout the book, reminding myself for instance, of the primacy of purpose, as illustrated by the story of a company, beginning with why it is important that it exists; the defining competitive separation afforded by traction and momentum or, get big fast; speed kills; iteration informs. This is a great read; informative, smart and wise, as reflected by their admiration of John Wooden and his aphorism "it's what you learn after you know it all that counts." For those interested I'll summarize below my 'Top 10' of the books many quality, illustrative elements. There are abundant actionable insights in this book and of course, the occasional tendril of presumption. Overall, my sentiment about the book is summarized by my ordering copies for my sons, nieces and nephews, regardless of the sectors they work within, or majors they are pursuing.

My 'Top 10' of appreciated observations:

1. Crowded work spaces fuel contagious energy and spontaneity; the physical presence of team members matters.
2. Keep management lean, with numerous direct reports per manager to assure leadership is crisp and micro-management rare.
3. Ignorance is not bliss, knowledge is instructive; share virtually everything about the company's business with all employees.
4. Smaller teams for building products; larger to sustain and grow.
5. Deliver transformative products, driven as much or more by insight as evident market demand. PS: platforms with leverage win.
6. Leaders don't delegate hiring; hire smart, curious learners and pay handsomely for impact.
7. Be mindful of your career objectives; sketch the larger ambition, then plan its execution, while remaining smartly opportunistic.
8. Spend 80% of your time on the stuff that generates 80% of your revenues; the new is seductive, but keep your focus balanced.
9. There are only a few truly important messages; assure they are heard: to quote Eric: "repetition doesn't spoil the prayer."
10. It's what you do that counts.

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Don

How Google Works – A Great Human Resource Practices Book

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2014

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I read How Google Works on two flights before attending a ThinkHR executive off-site meeting. Good timing! Every manager at your company should read this book. HR included. It contains a wealth of wisdom. It also embodies a significant challenge to employers. It sets forth a "new age" of human resource and management practices. These practices are not for the timid, mediocre or control freak. They are for those that trust smart people and want to be part of creating something special.

While there is a measure of old wine in new bottles, it is the implementation of these practices which is so exciting and challenges us to rethink the role of human resources. Having read the books criticisms I agree the Google approach will not work in every environment. It is young male centric (ping pong and beer anyone?). It’s also easy to say how wonderful you are when you’re at the top. GM was once wonderful and at the top too. Google is rich and can afford to do many things other companies can’t do or don’t want to do. I don’t expect to see McDonalds giving every service employee 20% of their time off to help reinvent the company.

What follows are some the key points gleaned from the book.

The purposeful use of languaging. Right out of the gate Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page describes the culture of Google. The following phrases are used in the forward and throughout the book "autonomy of thought", "moonshot thinking", "incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time", “focus on the user” Page recognizes the importance of defining a culture. To what degree can you help leadership in delivering the message?

Keep a spreadsheet ranking the company’s top projects. Google did this for years with its top 100 projects. What are the top dozen projects in human resources and how are they ranked? Are they in alignment with the company’s list?

Don't live by schedules. This is in alignment with the TQM ideas of Dr. Edwards Deming who said you manufacture towards perfection not towards a tolerance. Likewise when you put a deadline or date on something you manage the project towards it. Google realized it had to loosen the reins and allow its engineers the freedom to move fast. Not according to any deadline. And yes, we have to schedule meetings and the like. This is a conceptual point being made.

Product excellence is now paramount to business success. Not the control of information, not a stranglehold on distribution, not overwhelming marketing power (although these are still important). This is largely because of better informed consumers. For the consumer this is a good thing. The same concept applies to managing the workplace. Employees are better informed than ever too. Top employees can insist on management excellence…or work someplace else.

The primary objective of business is to increase the speed of product development and quality of its output. The only way to do that is to attract and hire what Google calls "smart creatives". Here's a list of smart creative characteristics: technical knowledge, hands-on experience, an expert in doing, analytically smart, business smart, competitive smart, user smart, new ideas smart, seriously creative, risky creative, self-directed creative, open creative, thorough creative, communicative creative. No smart creative has all these characteristics. These are the type of employees that can get a job anywhere. It is not about finding them but rather attracting them.

Hiring is the most important thing a leader does. This does not differ from what Peter Drucker, Jim Collins and every other management expert has told us. Problem is half of the companies choose to execute on it better than the other half. To be effective, there has to be a culture of execution when it comes to great HR practices. Is it more important your mangers hire fast or hire right?

Employees at Google have the freedom to solve any big problem that stands in the way of success. Google's culture turns their engineers into problem-solving ninjas.

Diversity. Google's approach is simple: "it doesn't matter who you are, just what you do". There are critics of Google who claim this diversity doesn’t exist.

The rule of seven. This is an interesting conversation. It's hard to manage 27 employees. Many experts, including me, have recommended a limit on direct reports. Google does just the opposite. They feel that if somebody has too many reports then they won't have the ability to micromanage them. We must test to find out what approach works best in our environment.

"Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader" Debbie Biondolillo, Apples former head of HR

Overworked in a good way. Every company is rightfully concerned about the excessive stress placed on its workforce. Google believes that highly engaged employees stress only about their desire for accomplishment and little else. Not everybody agrees. Many a working parent has commented on the brutal reality of this overworked approach (put the kids to sleep and check in for the next three hours).

A culture of "yes" – as opposed to a culture of "no". HR, who has been painted squarely in the corner of no, needs to communicate yesses better. Let leaders and workers know the yes agenda (you have one…right?). Create skunkworks, experiments, tests, etc. so you can fail quickly and find out what works. This can be a real challenge for HR executives as their personality profiles reveal a personality geared towards rules and conformity, not experimentation. They're very concerned about any judgment that may come with mistakes made. Not exactly an innovators profile. Time to get over it.

Have fun, at your own expense. A good sense of humor can keep people humble. Google gives example after example of how they poke fun at themselves.

Open, open, open. While Google has its critics about openness on the outside, it is determined to create an open culture internally. Google believes openness is the only way to deal with a rapidly changing, chaotic business environment. Yes it can get sloppy but falling behind the times due to stagnation at ever accelerated rates is not an option. "With openness, you trade control for scale and innovation."

"You must wear something". Eric Schmidt's answer to the question of what the Google dress code was.

"Don't be evil" Another mantra at Google. While few would profess a desire otherwise, at many companies it is not a mantra attached to a commitment. Enron being the classic example. Highly productive managers, with good numbers, can get away with brutish tactics at many a company. The don't be evil mantra can avoid many lawsuits, agency investigations, media problems and employee turnover.

"Giving the customer what he wants is less important than giving him what he doesn't yet know he wants". Such as an amazing HR experience. Maybe HR must give CEOs what they didn’t know they wanted: a kick ass HR department. Curious-if you could create an X prize for human resources what problem would you try to solve?

"If you focus on your competition, you'll never deliver anything truly innovative” This is true for your HR practices too. Yes it's fine to learn from other company experiences. It is even better to generate your own. To be a great observer of your own environment, condition and opportunities.

"It didn't matter if the person would be an entry – level software engineer or a senior executive; Google made it a priority to invest the time and energy to ensure they got the best possible people". One would think this level of commitment to excellence would be common but it is not. Google believes the higher you go in the organization, the more attached executives should be to the hiring process Google also believes that hiring should be peer – based, not hierarchical, with decisions made by committees.

"The objective is to create a hiring culture that resists the siren song of compromise.”- A song that only gets louder amidst the chaotic whirlwind of hyper growth.

Hire "learning animals" or people with a growth mindset. When you do, offer training and growth opportunities. Problem is most people do not have a personal learning culture. Perhaps one out of ten do… at best. One reason there is no substitute for required learning, as most won't do it voluntarily.

Interview questions:
• Reflect on a past mistake you made. What did you learn from it?
• What books are you reading right now?
• Take them through problematic case scenarios
• "Could you teach me something complicated I don't know". A favorite interview question by Sergey

Identify candidates who asked thoughtful questions

Conduct 30 minute interviews and limit yourself to four. My feedback is why do they impose an artificial limit if their mantra is to not live by schedules? I say take the time you need to make a great hire.

Create a hiring packet for executives including a one page summary with all the key facts and supporting material. There is no substitute for a well prepared hiring system.

There is always an "up" opportunity available at Google. It amazes me when people must leave organizations to grow. What a waste of human capital investment

Test yourself: “if you could trade the bottom 10% of your team for new hires, would your organization improve?”

Another test: “are there members of your team whom, if they told you they were leaving, you would not fight hard to keep? If there are employees you would let go, then perhaps you should.”

The first step in the decision-making process is to understand the data. The next step is to engage in an open dialogue where opinions and objections are welcome. There's a bias for action and a decision must be made and that is the ultimate responsibility of the executive.

Google believes in daily executive team meetings. Short meetings that are action oriented. My only feedback is to make sure that is what happens. Why the meeting, how long, what outcomes, get it done.

Many chapters of the book focused on communication and decision-making. I saw nothing I would label as new. The principles for communication and wise decision-making have been with us for thousands of years and half of executive teams apply them better than the other half. Seems like Google does a good job of it.

Have a playbook. Google challenges its business leaders to have a playbook with notes on how to communicate to employees, bosses, directors, customers, etc. For example, a playbook for one on one meetings, or to discuss performance, manage relationship with peer groups, innovation/best practices, etc. Again, a bit of old wine in new bottles. Playbooks, scripts and SOPs have been around for years.

Innovation. The end of the book is spent on this subject, something near and dear to the DNA of Google. But it should also be near and dear to the DNA of every company and career. According to Google innovation "entails both the production and implementation of novel and useful ideas". It also requires much optimism. If you want to be innovative you have to "think big". This means you set goals that are almost and often unattainable.

20% time. Allows its engineers and presumably others time to experiment, test, identify novel projects and find others interested in supporting them. How do you catch up for the company that gives its engineers that level of freedom? Odds are you don't.

Conclusion

I regularly speak to company CEOs. They continue to state their greatest business concerns center on the ability to hire talent, get them to produce, keep them engaged, and retain the star performers. While this book is a self-serving manifesto, How Google Works provides a formula how to do each of these critical business objectives in a great way. It is as insightful as any human resource book you'll ever read. A strategic HR executive would well embrace the Google approach.

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Management lessons on how this tech giant has continued its dominance. I loved it.

Reviewed in Canada on June 5, 2022

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Druid’s Book Club

Quick Take: Business management lessons on how the tech giant Google has continued its dominance. I loved it.

Longer Take:

I read “How Google Works” a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I decided to read it again.

“How Google Works” is written by a former Google CEO (Eric Schmidt) and former Google Head of Products (Jonathan Rosenberg). The book contains lessons from a decade at one of the most successful companies in history. They touch on an array of topics that they believe have contributed to Google’s success – Culture, strategy, innovation, talent management, etc. The book revolves around the idea that a business’s success in the information age hinges on its ability to attract and motivate the best and brightest (what they call “smart creatives” – Smart people who work hard and are willing to question the status quo).

“How Google Works” is filled with invaluable wisdom for running any company (even if you are not a behemoth like Google). To illustrate these lessons, Eric & Jonathan share numerous stories from the inner workings of Google.

If you’re into business management/strategy books, I cannot recommend this one highly enough. I’ll probably read it again a few years from now.

Some of My Favourite Quotes:

“We understood … that the way to fend off Microsoft was continuous product excellence, yet we also understood that the best way to achieve that excellence was not via a prescribed business plan, but rather by hiring the very best engineers we could and then getting out of the way.”

“Messiness … is a frequent by-product of self-expression and innovation, it’s usually a good sign. And squashing it, which we’ve seen in so many companies, can have a surprisingly powerful negative effect. It’s OK to let your office be one hot mess.”

“…it is the quality of the idea that matters, not who suggests it.”

“The best cultures invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many interesting things to do both at work and at home. So if you are a manager, it’s your responsibility to keep the work part lively and full; it’s not a key component of your job to ensure that employees consistently until forty-hour workweek.”

“When Israeli tank commanders head into combat, they don’t yell “Charge!” Rather, they rally their troops by shouting “Ah’cha’rye,” which translates from Hebrew as “Follow me.” Anyone who aspires to lead smart creatives needs to adopt this attitude.”

“Giving the customer what he wants is less important then giving him what he doesn’t yet know he wants.”

“If you focus on your competition, you will never deliver anything truly innovative. … Be proud of your competition. Just don’t follow them.”

“For a manager, the right answer to the question “What is the single most important thing you do at work?” is hiring. … The higher up you go in most organizations, the more detached the executives get from the hiring process. The inverse should be true. … hiring well takes a lot of work and time. But it is the best investment you can make.”

“Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong…”

“Pay outrageously good people outrageously well, regardless of their title or tenure. What counts is their impact.”

“The best way to retain smart creatives is to not let them get too comfortable, to always come up with ways to make their jobs interesting.”

“Because people seldom leave over compensation, the first step to keeping them is to listen. They want to be heard, to be relevant and valued.”

“…the best way to avoid having to fire underperformers is not to hire them.”

“If you’re not sure if a course of action is right, the best thing you can do is try it out and then correct course.”

“One of the most important decisions any business leader makes is how to spend his or her time.”

“Innovative people do not need to be told to do it, they need to be allowed to do it.”

Druid’s Top Entrepreneurship Lesson: Hire the right people (Smart, hardworking, creative) and then give them the freedom to help make your business great.

João Prima

Great book with incredible insights

Reviewed in Spain on January 1, 2024

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book full of many information of how they managed things inside the company, and many tips to apply or try to, in your business!

Vishal kumar

Biggest treasure on Amazon India

Reviewed in India on November 25, 2023

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This book is very useful and full of valuable information.

One person found this helpful

Rui Saraiva

Great insights. Easy reading.

Reviewed in Brazil on March 12, 2019

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Read it in two weeks. It was a great reading. Lots of insights on how to hire, who to hire, how to lead innovation, meetings, objectives. How to make tough questions with the objective of staying relevant.

One person found this helpful

Rodrigo Morales

Envío en tiempo

Reviewed in Mexico on July 20, 2018

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El pedido llego en tiempo y forma y el libro es muy simple, ideal para una inducción a Google por ejemplo para generaciones pasadas yo lo ocupé para el equipo de e-commerce de mi compañía como una retroalimentación.

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