Seattle Startup Life

I subscribe to a ton of magazines. I have stacks of them spread across 2 houses. Most I don’t get to on time (within their published month), some I do briefly, and some I re-read over and over again. The best magazine this month was by Fast Company, profiling their “most innovative” company, Google. Here are some great quotes and practices for business.

“I have this open-door thing every day, where for two hours, I just sit at my desk–it’s like office hours–and whoever wants to come by and show me stuff can. I get to see a bunch of the cool and interesting demos, and engineers get quick feedback. We need to move fast, and we need employees to want to move fast, too.“- Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products and User Experience

“Innovation is superfragile. It’s like a flower in early spring, where just the wrong weather will kill it. It’s very easy to kill, by having the barriers of entry too high, by requiring people to say yes to something. We try very hard to let people innovate sort of freely.”
– Douglas Merrill, CIO and VP of Engineering

“”The culture has been literally built for innovation and for engineers. We’re not told by some consultant who studies the market for six months and then says, ‘Here’s what the market wants.’ We get an idea, launch quickly, and learn from the market. That’s the equivalent of unwrapping an onion skin. You don’t get real insight until you listen to the market and peel back the first layer, then another and another….

Most engineers will work on one or two teams, typically five-to-seven person teams–the project manager, quality assurance, three to four engineers. They’re responsible for getting their stuff done. That is much different from a top-down organization. Often we don’t even know where we’re going at first.” Shannon Maher, Engineering site director (London)

Google people just “get it.” I hope to have a shred of their innovation when I grow up.