Bulldozer00's Blog

Google recently re-appointed Larry Page as it’s CEO after a 10 year hiatus. From the following blurb in “The Product Shakeup At Google Begins”, it seems like Google is valiantly trying to return to its roots:

(Larry) Page famously has a low opinion of managers, especially product managers who try to tell engineers what to do. “People don’t want to be managed,” he is quoted in Steven Levy’s new book, In the Plex. Page is a big believer in self-management. At one point early on in the company’s history, he and Brin tried to get rid of all managers.

Even though it is certainly impractical to get rid of all managers once an org grows to a certain size, ya gotta love the irony of anti-management CEOs like Page, Nayar, and Semler, no? With guys like that watching over an org, you can be confident that they’ll be vigilant in keeping the manager-to-worker ratio low and that they’ll make sure managers do more than just plan, watch, control, command, and evaluate others. Of course, this philosophy doesn’t guarantee success, but it sure does make working for a company more enjoyable for the majority of people who work there – not just the management minority.