How Google Works

by Eric Schmidt

What could be true in five years?

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and read her a passage from one with the chipper title of “On the Sufferings of the World”:

It reminds us of our favorite quote from Jim Barksdale, erstwhile CEO of Netscape: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.”40

often quotes Debbie Biondolillo, Apple’s former head of human resources, who said, “Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader.”

“Well,” someone replied, “the schedule says it’s not supposed to be released for several more weeks, so we can test it further and make sure it works.” “Right,”

I can’t imagine this conversation ever happened

Everyone’s fun when they’re dancing to Billy Idol and swigging an Anchor Steam.

Since the plan is wrong, the people have to be right. Successful teams spot the flaws in their plan and adjust. So how can a new venture attract great people and other important things (like financing) without having a plan?

Product leaders create product plans, but those product plans often (usually!) lack the most important component: What is the technical insight upon which those new features, products, or platforms will be built?

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

Start by asking what will be true in five years and work backward.

Similarly, deciding who gets promoted should also be via a committee rather than a top-down management decision. Our managers can nominate their people for promotion and act as advocates throughout the process, but the decision itself is out of their hands. The reasons are the same as they are for hiring: Promotions have a company-wide impact, so they are too important to be left in the hands of individual managers. But with promotions, there is an additional factor favoring a committee-based process.

One last note: There are some people who actually enjoy firing. Beware of them. Firing instills a culture of fear that will inevitably fail, and “I’ll just fire them” is an excuse for not investing the time to execute the hiring process well.

John Dewey, an American philosopher and writer, said that “a problem well put is half solved.”124 In Dewey’s time, which spanned the latter half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, putting a problem well would usually entail an opinion and an anecdote.

They’ll bobblehead nod, then leave the room and do what they want to do. So to achieve true consensus, you need dissent. If you are in charge, do not state your position at the outset of the process. The job is to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, regardless of their functional role, which is harder to achieve when the top dog puts a stake in the ground.

This conflict-based approach works only if it is managed by a single decision-maker who owns the deadline and will break a tie.

The decision-maker gets to decide how long recess lasts, then ring the bell.132

The letter stated that Eric “focuses on management of our vice presidents and the sales organization. Sergey focuses on engineering and business deals. [Larry focuses] on engineering and product management,”

There is a simple trick to getting this right. When ending a debate and making a decision that doesn’t have 100 percent support, remember these three words: “You’re both right.” To emotionally commit to a decision with which they don’t agree, people have to know that their opinion was not only heard, but valued. “You’re both right” accomplishes this. It tells the person whose argument lost that there are elements of truth amidst the rubble of their failed position. It provides an emotional boost—people like hearing that they are right. And fortunately, it is often true,

the decision-maker must ensure that everyone who was involved does one of two things: disagree but commit, or escalate publicly.

Meetings should have a single decision-maker/owner. There must be a clear decision-maker at every point in the process, someone whose butt is on the line.

The decision-maker should be hands on. He or she should call the meeting, ensure that the content is good, set the objectives, determine the participants, and share the agenda (if possible) at least twenty-four hours in advance. After

Even if a meeting is not a decision-making meeting—for example it’s designed to share information or brainstorm solutions—it should have a clear owner.

Meetings are not like government agencies—they should be easy to kill. Any

Meetings should be manageable in size. No more than eight people, ten at a stretch (but we would seriously discourage this). Everyone in the room should be able to give their input. If more people need to know the result of the meeting, make sure you have a process for communicating it rather than bringing them in as observers, which lowers the quality of the meeting and people’s ability to talk openly.

Attendance at meetings is not a badge of importance. If you aren’t needed, leave, or better yet, excuse yourself ahead of time.

Timekeeping matters. Begin meetings on time. End them on time. Leave enough time at the end to summarize findings and action items. If

If you attend a meeting, attend the meeting. Multitasking doesn’t work. If you are in a meeting and using your laptop or phone for something not related to the meeting, it’s obvious your time is better spent elsewhere.

Good news will be just as good tomorrow, but bad news will be worse.

When people travel, ask them to put together a “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”–style report on what they did and what they learned.