Management in Google

Frederick P. Brooks wrote in The Mythical Man-Month that managing engineers is like herding cats. However, if you take that to Google, you have to think in a different scale. You are not herding cats; you are herding hyper-developed mutant felines who are more knowledgeable than the herder. However, managers in Google are extremely effective; they simply trust their people and let them loose, they just get rid of the stones in the way. Of course, this takes a lot of courage; Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister described this as an Open Kimono policy in Peopleware . I didn't believe this could happen, but it does. It certainly shows that Google not only hires class A engineers, but also, class A managers.