One of my goals for this year is to up my SEO game, so I decided I would read a book about SEO every now and then. I picked up this book thinking it was about SEO, but it’s not. It’s written by Eric Schmidt, who spent a decade as Google’s CEO, and the book is really about Google’s organizational structure and how it was founded and grown into the giant it is today. While it wasn’t the book I was hoping to read, it was certainly interesting and gave me a lot to think about.
Schmidt covers everything from the idea that launched Google to the mission, vision, and core values that have driven every decision they have made, even if the decision they ended up making didn’t initially seem like a good business investment. Then he discusses how those core values have influenced everything from hiring/firing/promotions to the way they run their meetings to how/whether to expand into foreign markets.
Throughout the book I was surprised at how entertaining, and even funny it was. Schmidt tells engaging stories to emphasize each point, and even cracks jokes at regular intervals throughout the book. The result was that I didn’t feel like I was reading a business book, despite the fact that my kindle kept showing me ads for things like The Financial Times while I was reading it. Much to my surprise, it was a very enjoyable book that provided significant enlightenment when it comes to Google’s culture as a startup and how that culture guided its decisions as it grew into a tech giant.
Admittedly the book was written almost a decade ago, but I still found it pretty hard to reconcile the rosy image Schmidt likes to paint of his company with the one that is currently being sued for alleged antitrust violations. Schmidt specifically talks about the benefits of making it easy for your customers to leave you because that forces you to create a better product, and yet it seems like all Google has done lately has been to make it more difficult for people to use search engines other than Google, including making deals with computer and mobile-device manufacturers to ensure google.com is the default website to which each browser opens.
Then there’s all the ways Google collects and uses our personal information. Is that in line with their mantra, “Don’t be evil”? Is that keeping the user’s best interests at heart?
Keep in mind, I’m normally a defender of Google. I really do think that, at the end of the day, their goal is just to help people find the content they’re looking for, but at the same time, there have been too many inconsistencies between what they consider high-quality content that can rank organically, versus showing people ads when those ads don’t meet Google’s supposed quality standards, just their financial standards.
It was also eye opening to get a look at the idea that their famous “20% rule” is more like their “120% rule.” They expect their engineers to spend nights and weekends working on projects for Google, even when they’re not getting paid to do so. Schmidt says it comes from hiring very smart people who love what they do, but I say that’s a recipe for burnout, and it explains why I’ve heard people who work at Google talk about how unsustainable it is. I love writing, but even I need a break from the keyboard every now and then.
In the end, I do recommend reading this book, but take it with a grain of salt.