Google Management Method: Hive Mind, SEAL Approach
January 31, 2018
In the most unlikely source, I noted an insight about Google’s management style. The article which caught my attention appeared in the New York Post. Yep, the one with the big headlines and interesting photographs.
Titled “Why Bosses Should Let Their Employees Call the Shots” is ostensibly a book review. Navy SEAL Dave Cooper explains the key to management success in “The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. The book is apparently authored by Daniel Coyle, but the New York Post is probably not into the bibliographic minutia.
According to the New York Post’s understanding of the book by either Cooper or Coyle:
The advantage of a hive-mind culture can be seen as simple math. Encouraging risks and participation from all allows for a greater knowledge base and a stronger chance of someone presenting a non-traditional solution that otherwise might have been missed. Organizations that can successfully establish this sort of culture are best positioned to change the world.
Changing the world triggers the association with Google, the online advertising search giant, the solver of death, the creator of the Loon balloon, and the magnet which attracts the regulatory attention of the European Union. Yep, that Google.
I learned: that ads were not good. An engineer named Jeff Dean did not wait for a boss to tell him what to do. Nope, he innovated and solved the problem, noting “By 2014,” the AdWords engine was producing $160 million per day and advertising was providing 90 percent of Google’s revenues.”
The article states:
Authoritarian leadership has shown its limits. By calling on the intelligence and creativity of a select few, rather than employing every resource, these companies reduce their pool of ideas — and their potential for success. Organizations that encourage participation and creativity from their entire workforce will be the ones that succeed in an increasingly competitive and complex world.
Are their other approaches to management? Interesting question to which the answer is, “There’s no other choice.”
I would point out that the ad engine was inspired by GoTo.com, Overture.com, and Yahoo.com. I recall that Google settled a legal spat about the “inspiration” for about $1 billion.
Also, Jeff Dean, a former Alta Vista engineer, is a sharp cookie, but I am not sure he resolved the issues with ads in a short period of time. There were, I recall perhaps incorrectly, the need to figure out Chubby and other assorted problems.
Finally, the notion of a boss or bosses who distance themselves is an interesting one. However, when there is a question of responsibility, what’s a hive mind approach do to resolve the problem? Promote another person to be the boss.
Ah, the New York Post, tomorrow’s answer to management theory and organizational behavior. Now about those SEALs?
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2018
Google News Says Goodbye to Russian Propaganda
January 23, 2018
The United States is still reeling from possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Every other day has some headline associated with the Trump Administration’s ties with the great bear, but what they still remain unclear. However, one cold, hard fact is that Russia did influence online news outlets and media companies are taking steps to guarantee it does not happen again. Motherboard reports that “Eric Schmidt Says Google News Will ‘Engineer’ Russian Propaganda Out Of News Feed.”
Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has faced criticism that Google News still displays Russian Web sites in news feeds. In response, Schmidt responded that his company is well aware of the problem and have a plan to ferret out Russian propaganda. The top two Russian news outlets that are featured in Google News are Sputnik and RT. Both Sputnik and RT are owned by the Russian government and have ceaselessly argued their legitimacy. Their “legitimacy” allows them to benefit from Google AdSense.
Despite the false legitimacy, Schmidt said Alphabet is aware of Russia’s plans to influence western politics:
Schmidt said the Russian strategy is fairly transparent, and usually involves ‘amplification around a message.’ That information can be “repetitive, exploitative, false, [or] likely to have been weaponized,’ he said. ‘My own view is that these patterns can be detected, and that they can be taken down or deprioritized.’
The problem is that Alphabet has not really outlined their plans to deter Russian influence. Russian propaganda in the news bears some similarities to the Watergate Scandal during the Nixon Administration. We have yet to see the long-term aftermath, but it peeks our curiosity about how it will affect the United States in years to come.
Whitney Grace, January 23, 2018
One of Big Datas Giants Accused of Big Time Fraud
January 15, 2018
Palantir, one of the biggest names in big data has been praised for its innovative solutions since it began 2004. However, it has been getting attention for all the wrong reasons lately, as we saw in a recent Deal Street Asia story, “Palantir Holder Says Company Sabotaged Stock Sale to Chinese.”
One of Palantir Technologies Inc.’s early investors accused the data-mining startup of sabotaging his attempt to sell his $60 million stakes to a Chinese company so directors and executives could enrich themselves by selling their stock instead.
Marc Abramowitz, a 63-year-old lawyer and investor, contends that when Palantir executives got wind of his offer to sell his stock to Chinese private equity firm CDH Investments Fund Management Co., they sunk the deal by offering to sell their shares to CDH instead, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware. Palantir’s campaign to spoil Abramowitz’s sale demonstrates the Silicon Valley company’s “willingness to intentionally interfere with shareholder transactions in an effort…’
It may be tough to prove this in court, however. Palantir is famous for its secrecy, though that may become a thing of the past when they go public. Either way, this is an interesting look at the cutthroat world of big data and the potential things people do to stay on top.
Patrick Roland, January 15, 2018
Google: Hostile Climate?
December 4, 2017
I read “Periods of Misconduct by Google Leadership Has Reportedly Lead to a Hostile Climate Internally.” These days it can be difficult to determine what is verifiable and what is speculation or sour grapes.
The write up makes a claim which I found surprising; to wit:
it appears that relationships and misconduct had by leadership within the company has created a hostile climate, primarily for female employees…
The basis for the assertion is an article in the online publication “The Information.”
Some high profile names are referenced in the write up; for example, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and David Drummond.
I recognize some of these names. The article also references the “culture of allowed disobedience” which may be “in the world of technology.”
The original article in The Information is available at this link. Note that one has to enter an email address to access the source which originally reported about the management approach actualized at Google.
Interesting if true. One wonders if Russia’s possible private Internet for BRICS will embrace Google. I am wonder if others will have warm and fuzzy feelings toward Google if the assertions are accurate.
We live in interesting times. Management appears to have evolved since I first noticed Backrub in the late 1990s. Backrub? Now that’s an interesting moniker, isn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2017
A Clever Take on Google and Fake News
November 8, 2017
I noted this story in the UK online publication The Register: “Google on Flooding the Internet with Fake News: Leave Us Alone. We’re Trying Really Hard. Sob.” The write up points out:
Google has responded in greater depth after it actively promoted fake news about Sunday’s Texas murder-suicide gunman by… behaving like a spoilt kid.
The Google response, as presented in the write up, warranted a yellow circle from my trusty highlighter. The Register said:
Having had time to reflect on the issue, the Silicon Valley monster’s “public liaison for search” and former Search Engine Land blog editor Danny Sullivan gave a more, um, considered response in a series of tweets. “Bottom line: we want to show authoritative information. Much internal talk yesterday on how to improve tweets in search; more will happen,” he promised, before noting that the completely bogus information had only appeared “briefly.”
The Register story includes other gems from the search engine optimization expert who seems to thrive on precision and relevance for content unrelated to a user’s query; for example, the article presents some “quotes” from Mr. Sullivan, the expert in charge of explaining the hows and whys of fake news:
- “Early changes put in place after Las Vegas shootings seemed to help with Texas. Incorrect rumors about some suspects didn’t get in…”
- Right now, we haven’t made any immediate decisions. We’ll be taking some time to test changes and have more discussions.
- “Not just talk. Google made changes to Top Stories and is still improving those. We’ll do same with tweets. We want to get this right.”
Yep, Google wants to do better. Now Google wants to get “this” right. Okay. After 20 years, dealing with fake content, spoofs, and algorithmic vulnerability is on the to do list. That’s encouraging.
For more Google explanations, check out the Register’s story and follow the logic of the SEO wizard who now has to explain fake news creeping—well, more like flowing—into Google’s search and news content.
Does an inability to deal with fake news hint at truthiness challenges at Googzilla’s money machine? Interesting question from my point of view.
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2017
Twitter Customer Support and Access Control
November 6, 2017
I noted that an alleged employee of Twitter allegedly terminated the Twitter account of the alleged real Donald J. Trump. I scanned a number of news stories about this incident. I representative example is “A Rogue Twitter Employee Shut Down Donald Trump’s Account.” Now that’s access control. But what I found intriguing was an article on a Web site charmingly named Weasel Zipper. That site’s story was “Twitter Employee Who Deactivated Trump’s Account Was Not A Full-Time Employee, Rather A Contractor.” Perhaps Weasel Zipper was influenced by the New York Times’ story from November 4, 2017, which offered the “contractor did it” information? Who knows? The interesting angle for me is that Twitter has controls which allow an employee in “customer service” to kill an account. From my point of view, that’s “real” customer service and exemplary access control. What else can Twitter customer support do with regard to users, access, content, and filtering? Probably nothing: Just a fluke in a well-managed company.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2017
Google Management: Doing Better with Burgers
October 30, 2017
With pressure mounting on US search and social media companies to become more “responsible”, I noted that a high priority for Google’s CEO is a cheeseburger emoji. I read a rather tasty article called “Google CEO Makes Fixing Hamburger Emoji His Top Priority.” The write up points out that the Apple cheeseburger emoji has the cheese on top of the meat patty. The Google emoji puts the cheese on the bottom of the meat patty. It is good to know that when serious issues rise up to choke a bureaucracy, senior managers can respond. Management by example, pickle, and lettuce.
Stephen E Arnold, October 30, 2017
Alphabet Google: Accused Again by Ivory Towerians
August 31, 2017
I love the Alphabet Google thing. Big outfits paid me a few nickels and dimes to research the company’s technology and methods between 2002 and 2009. (Yep, the Google Trilogy thing.) After seven years of reading really exciting patent documents and Google technical papers, I shifted gears. Hey, cyber intelligence is for me, I decided. Change of pace. No ad technology in sight.
Now the string “Google” is appearing in my feeds about topics unrelated to online search and content processing, eDiscovery for cyber intelligence, and the musty, somewhat overhyped Dark Web.
The Google is “real” news, covered by a “real” newspaper. The most recent “Be woke about Google” write up is “Scholar Says Google Criticism Cost Him Job: ‘People Are Waking Up to Its Power‘.”
I highlighted these statements from the “real” newspaper’s article:
Every second of every day Google processes over 40,000 search queries – that’s about 3.5bn questions a day or 1.2trn a year. But there’s one question that Google apparently doesn’t want answered: is Google a monopoly?
.
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.“Everyday I see people waking up to the power of Google, Facebook and Amazon. We have to do something as a people, we have to do something through our government and address the power of these companies.
.
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.Google said it would “not be a fair characterization at all”, to blame Google for the decision. “I can confirm that our funding levels for 2017 have NOT changed as a result of NAF’s June post, nor did Eric Schmidt ever threaten to cut off funding because of it,” a spokeswoman said via email.
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.“Google is a very sophisticate [sic] team of people. They know how to spend their money and wield their influence in ways that usually get them what they want.
Yep, a he-said, she-said.
Several observations:
- Google is a bunch of moving parts. Based on my watching the company from Harrod’s Creek, I find it interesting that a concrete cause and effect relationship exists between a Google “action” and a management tactic. Google, like Microsoft, is more like a bunch of kayaks in a lake, not a speedboat racing to a rendezvous.
- The Guardian and some other European “real” news outfits are eager to punch Googzilla in the nose. Yep, there are some sore losers because Quaero (remember that effort to nuke the GOOG) flopped. If you relish European search, give Unbubble, Giburu, or Qwant a try. That will work out really well for in depth research.
- Google has not been particularly secretive about what it does. I recall telling a couple of Googlers that Google spat out high value information somewhat promiscuously. Guess what? None of the poobahs cared. I am not sure any of those with whom I shared this insight listened.
Net net: Google has been doing the Google thing since the company had to generate revenue. The company looked around, found inspiration in Yahoo’s GoTo/Overture model, and has been chugging along the same path for a couple of decades.
The idea of getting woke may sell newspapers, but it is old news and insight into how little “real” journalists and scholars think about the behaviors of large scale information systems. Goggle chugs along.
What’s the “real story”? For me, more attention paid to inventions which don’t make sense, ineffectual tactics which attempt to thwart Facebook’s social hegemony and Amazon’s retail juggernaut, and generating sustainable revenue from something other than advertising.
But these are not as nifty as a big, semi-chaotic company’s making life tough for an academic “team.”
Collateral damage, maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2017
The Tech Unicorn Ploy
August 28, 2017
This should not come as much of a surprise— Business Insider reports, “Nearly Half of Tech ‘Unicorns’ Rely on Tricky Math to Land Imaginary Valuations.” So dubbed because they were once rare, “unicorn” startups are ones that have achieved valuations of at least a billion dollars. That is “billion” with a “b.” According to a pair of business professors (from the UBC Sauder School of Business and the Stanford Graduate School of Business), there are now more than 200 such “rare” prospects globally. Why the apparent boom in unicorn birth rates? Citing a recent study put out by the above-mentioned professors, reporter Alex Morrell writes:
Many of [these startups] are using creative financing maneuvers to conjure imaginary valuation figures that don’t hold up to scrutiny, according to the UBC/GSB study, which examined 116 unicorns. It turns out, when you adjust the valuations to account for guarantees provided to preferred shareholders that dilute the value of common shares, nearly half of unicorns lose their coveted $1 billion status.
The article links to an interview with Will Gornall, the professor from UBC Sauder, that explains how he and co-researcher Ilya Strebulaev re-evaluated purported unicorns to discount the influence of such preferred-shareholder guarantees. They found nearly half sported fake horns, with 11% having been valued at more than twice their fair values. The article continues:
Here’s how it works: In later funding rounds, startups will negotiate a higher share price, but as part of the bargain they guarantee their investors certain protections — such as earning a minimum return on their money or guaranteeing they’ll be paid out in full before all other shareholders. ‘Specifically, we found that 53 per cent of unicorns gave their most recent investors either a return guarantee in IPO (14%), the ability to block IPOs that did not return most of their investment (20%), seniority over all other investors (31%), or other important terms,’ Gornall said. Even though this sort of thing has become normal, valuations haven’t caught up to the fact that providing additional protections to senior shareholders lessens the value of common shareholders. Treating the shares equally can significantly inflate the overall value of the company.
Overvaluation can, of course, help a startup attract funding, talent, and customers. For employees, however, such tactics can end up devaluing their compensation packages. Both workers and investors should be wary of over-valuation trickery.
Cynthia Murrell, August 28, 2017
Google: The Diversity Mix Up
August 7, 2017
Update August 8, 2017: The alleged author of the alleged essay about the alleged anti-diversity in the alleged area of the US known as “Silicon Valley” has allegedly been terminated. The alleged action means that the alleged individual is available for alleged “work”. None of that “rest and vest” malarky. See “Google Fires Author of Divisive Memo an Gender Differences.” Alleged gender differences do not allegedly exist. Allegedly that’s good to know before writing an essay and posting it so that alleged management practices are allegedly committed to a distribution system. This alleged activity is allegedly “real” news. Ah, science clubs. Ever entertaining.
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Update 2 August 8, 2017: Sundar Pichai, the fellow who is handling assorted hot tater tots for the Alphabet Google thing issued a memo called “Note to Employees from Sundar Pichai.” The write up said:
“This has been a very difficult time.”
Hey, great insight. That’s what makes Google a smart company. Well, sort of smart if one discounts the dust up in the European Union, the solving of death thing, and telling China it had to change. The point of the write up is that suggesting anyone who is biologically disadvantaged when a colleague is a bad thing. I noted this statement because I am stupid and I have to be told things multiple times. (Right, mom? Right, dad?)
“The pas few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree—while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct.”
There is nothing like a Code of Conduct? I wonder if Margrethe Vestager has a copy of that document?
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Beyond Search noted the diversity excitement at Alphabet Google, the legions of Google users, and the handful of folks who dare to take a stance against Google. Beyond Search has characterized Google-type companies as semi-adult science clubs. None of the write ups listed below reference this prescient and accurate parallel:
The Motherboard story about “Internal Viral.
The screed itself
The write up wanting empathy, just not for the author of the screed.
News flash. The likelihood of change is like a calculus problem with a student who is not into zero but not zero.
Our view in Harrod’s Creek is that one who does not comprehend the value of the Google-type of approach to actual practice and the subsequent PR infused activity may want to steer clear of a Google-type of company.
What is interesting is that this is another example of the increasing vulnerability of Alphabet Google. I could be like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and count the ways, but I will not. Ms. Barrett Browning was secretive and I thought that she might have been interested in laudanum. If true, she might have lifted a languorous hand to add to the Google diversity discussion.
But maybe not. She was into whipping up excitement for Italian politics, which may have been a comparatively more important topic.
The science club like thinker will reject Ms. Barrett-Browning’s interest. One cannot count, measure, or weigh passion. Interesting but not scientific. Talking is not counting, calculating, or analyzing real things, is it? Consider addomg emotional intellingence to screed’s about Google-like management methods and staff selection processes? Nah.
Stephen E Arnold, August 7, 2017
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