december 7, 2005Newsweek is running this article on Google's Ten Golden Rules. They are, well, no different than what most companies have anyways. What's the difference? Is it just because the name "Google" is attached to it? Probably. The article is a complete fluff piece promoting Google (although, when I went to read the article, it was choked full of MSN ads, how ironic). Check some of these out.
- Hire by committee, that's how it was at Sony and that's how it is at Yahoo! Ask any new hire at any company and you'll find that they also had to talk "to at least half-a-dozen interviewers".
- Cater to their every need -- onsite car wash, good meals, onsite dentistry, gym -- check, all available elsewhere.
- Pack them in -- "Almost every project at Google is a team project, and teams have to communicate. Uh...yeah, like other companies don't do projects in teams. And communication within the team, that's something radically new?
- Eat your own dog food -- Employees using their own product. Check. At Yahoo!, we have access to all of our products months before they are released in beta stages. We are all sworn to secrecy, so you won't be hearing anything here on ultramookie, but most of us do use our own products. When you are an internet company, letting your employees use your own products is a no-brainer.
- Encourage creativity. As opposed to companies that encourage dullness and duplication of old ideas? Bah!
- Data drive decisions. Wait a minute! I think this one is a good one! "At Google, almost every decision is based on quantitative analysis." You mean all other companies have monkeys in the back randomly pulling levers to make decisions? Wow!
The list goes on and on. All of them standard industry practices. It is just sad that everything that has the name "Google" attached to it seems like some gold colored poop. Maybe I am just a little more cranky today because I am sick, but I am getting seriously tired of all this Google stuff. Yea, they are a great company and I am glad they are around -- who else would give Yahoo! a challenge? -- but, what is tiring is the media's constant attention with them. I mean, can they do wrong? Oh yes, they can. Google Base is so out there that no one really understands it and the only people that are using it seem to be pron pushers, spammers, and otherwise jokers.
Beats me. One day there will be a new hot internet company and the gold shine on Google's poop will come off.
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