Google Could Have Failed!
I bet you’re curious. Here’s why:
In 1999, the two leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist firms — Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — decided to invest $12.5 million each in Google. However, this was on a condition.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin had to hire a seasoned executive to run the business side of the company.
The co-founders were good at creating products and optimizing the search algorithm for best performance, but they needed “adult supervision”.
This led to the appointment of Eric Schmidt as the Chief Executive Officer of Google.
Schmidt was already a big guy in Silicon Valley. He served as the Chairman and CEO of Novell. He was the Chief Technology Officer and Corporate Executive Officer at Sun Microsystems Inc. He even had a Ph.D.
Imagine his surprise when he was shown his office — an 8-by-12 office, just enough for him, his desk, and his little chair.
To make things more uncomfortable, he walked into the office to find out that he was going to share the office. And yes, he was the newly-appointed CEO of Google.
That was a big frog to eat and swallow.
CEOs don’t share offices. They own the floor and a personal elevator.
He could have simply said “gentleman, I am the CEO and my title is on the door. Kindly leave.”
When he asked his ‘roommate’ why he thought it okay to move in. The guy simply said “I was in a six-person office. It was crowded and your office was empty.” The CEO simply replied “fair enough.”
And they became colleagues.
At that time Google’s annual revenue was $120 million. Schmidt was looking for a way to increase it. He called the VP of sales to discuss possibilities. The VP could not go beyond a forecast of $124 million.
Fortunately, Schmidt’s ‘roommate’ built the analytics that could accurately predict revenues given the available data and circumstances.
The advantage of data analytics helped Schmidt to grow annual revenues from $120 million to $675 billion by the time he stepped down as CEO in 2011.
Now, imagine if he had sent his ‘roommate’ out.
“A dash of insubordination is the secret to Google’s success.” — Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.
Maybe insubordination isn’t totally bad after all. Maybe space is what you need to provide to let creativity grow.
Many leaders are too quick to crack the whip. They want to make an example of a renegade junior. Yeah, it is understandable when some actions are against the company’s interest. And you may need to remove the cancerous cells before the whole system shuts down.
But, do you take second thoughts to know why something has happened the way it has? Or you just crack the whip immediately.
Alphabet — Google’s parent company — is a trillion-dollar company. By the fourth quarter of 2019, Google had 92.96% of the search engine market. And according to Fortune, Google has ranked number 1, for six consecutive years, on the list of the Best Companies to Work For.
Google employs rebellious and revolutionary minds — like the guy who moved to the CEO’s office for space and convenience.
Before you crack the whip, look beyond the act. Look at the intention.
You can’t expect everybody to be the same. Some people’s genius is in their difference. The early Apple didn’t like Steve Job’s effusiveness and obsession over every single detail. He mandated an artistic design of the internal parts of the early Apple computers. Hardly does anyone do that.
Discipline is great, but many of the things we attach to it aren’t really necessary. For instance, punctuality is great, but as long as I’m getting my job done and increasing targets, I may not have to be the first person to clock in. I may prefer to work a little at home.
Allow deviancy. Not everyone will conform to norms and opinions.
If the world was simply black and white, it would have been a boring checkerboard. Thankfully, we have red, pink, green, and 50 shades of grey.
Originally published on Ourhoodspace.
