Book Review: How Google Works

How Google Works is a book as broad as the company it describes. It dives into explanations of Google’s HR strategies, internal structure, board of directors, and more. There’s a description of their 20% time, the way they hire people, how people communicate with their supervisors and subordinates, description of their many non-core projects, and more. But at the center of every lesson, there’s one key theme: Google structured everything deliberately. This isn’t to say there was some master plan; certainly nobody could have imagined what Google would become today. The best way to illustrate my point is, as usual, through examples.

If you were to visit a city like New York or Boston, your ability to navigate the city is limited only by your understanding of public transportation. Nowadays, that understanding comes easier than ever before: you just check it out on Google Maps. And while this feature of Google Maps seems crucial to their ability to gain market share, there wasn’t some master plan to include it with Google Maps. In fact, it was a side project, one dreamt up by a team of creative, talented engineers who had some extra time on their hands. In that sense, transit directions on Google Maps was very much an accident. But in another sense, it happened exactly the way Google wanted it to. Those engineers were particular people with a set of particular talents and characteristics, selected through a carefully designed recruiting and hiring process. The “free time” they used to create this project is actually a company-wide requirement to work on something new each Friday, internally known as “20% time.” During this time, Google’s so-called “smart creatives” are required to work on something outside of their day-to-day work, as long as it relates to the company’s mission. Google’s higher management didn’t decide to include public transit in Google Maps, and perhaps didn’t even think of it. Instead, they created an environment that fostered that kind of innovation, stretching from the first interaction they have with potential employees continuing all the way through the design process. If you read the book, you’ll see this kind of careful design throughout Google’s development process. And I think their unwillingness to grow unless they were growing the right way, ironically, is the main reason they grew so fast.

The book itself was pretty easy to read. There’s a good deal of humor in it, and it’s clear that the authors sought to have fun with the writing of it. I enjoyed reading the book, and between its readability and my free time oner winter break, it took me less time than I expected (given the book’s length). Altogether, I recommend you give it a read!