Startup founders who cash in, join Google, and are unpleasantly surprised to find that they are now just another middle manager who founded some startup nobody's heard of or cares about.
The empathy for the customer doesn't exactly ooze from the essay ("at the expiry of my three year mandatory retention period" == "now that I am all paid up").
Part one of the fix is vague management cliches, high minded mission statements and war metaphors. I seriously doubt Google lacks these.
And the fix for endless middle manager meddling? Endless reorgs? "Winnow the layers of middle management" (read: reorgs), and mandate that customers, support staff, and managers all waste their time on a weekly heart to heart (you'll note that the author doesn't mention going through the exercise himself).
> Maybe managers like the author are the problem... Startup founders who cash in, join Google, and are unpleasantly surprised to find that they are now just another middle manager..
The author was a Distinguished Engineer at Google and before founding AppSheet he was a Partner Architect at Microsoft. Holds a PhD.
I found the article very well written and would trust it over any other media reports.
Startup founders who cash in, join Google, and are unpleasantly surprised to find that they are now just another middle manager who founded some startup nobody's heard of or cares about.
The empathy for the customer doesn't exactly ooze from the essay ("at the expiry of my three year mandatory retention period" == "now that I am all paid up").
Part one of the fix is vague management cliches, high minded mission statements and war metaphors. I seriously doubt Google lacks these.
And the fix for endless middle manager meddling? Endless reorgs? "Winnow the layers of middle management" (read: reorgs), and mandate that customers, support staff, and managers all waste their time on a weekly heart to heart (you'll note that the author doesn't mention going through the exercise himself).