1 post tagged “bureaucracy”

{this is a techie post. the rest of you, move along}

Mike Arrington, over at TechCrunch, reports that:

The controversial Google “Tips,” where Google promoted certain of their own products over organic search results, have been quietly pulled down.

The real problem with many large software companies today is the tremendous weight of doing anything.

Software patents, process manuals, governing bodies, approval processes. It matters more at many of these companies what formatting your document is using for the proposal than it does what you are proposing. The best possible result of that is Microsoft today. A company so encumbered by bureaucracy and cruft that it takes them half a decade to create some software.

This is what Sanaz Ahari was responding against when she and Steve Rider created Start.com. It was about a small team (that worshiped Google) working on a product without the process (not to say they weren't following best practices, just that they were able to be light and nimble). They were coding, testing, and supporting -- all themselves.

Why am I bringing this up? Because this kind of vitriol from VIP's like Mike Arrington is exactly the sort of thing that transforms a company like Google into a company like Microsoft (or what MS was originally founded to be the polar opposite of: IBM). Every time that the company comes under siege for not thinking about every single locale or every regulations body or everybody's feelings, more and more process gets layered on top of the engineers. It keeps getting worse until it gets to the point where a software engineer cannot change one single word without getting it approved throughout the company. Think about what that does to the potential for creativity and innovation.

Promoting their own products? Are you kidding me, Mike? Do you honestly believe that this was some Marissa Mayer-spun plot to make some extra bucks? NO! This was simply some sweet, young engineer who thought wouldn't it be great if when you searched for calendar related items, it would let the user know about their new Calendar product. That's it. No diabolical machinations. But then again, Arrington has had an axe to grind with the "Do No Evil" corp for quite some time.