OCTOBER 3, 2005
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_40/b3953093.htm?chan=tc
Managing Google's Idea Factory
Marissa Mayer helps the search giant out-think its rivals
In late 1998, when Marissa Mayer first heard about a small outfit called
Google, she barely batted an eye. The Stanford University grad student was
urged by her adviser to pay a visit to two guys on the computer science
building's fourth floor who were developing ways to analyze the World Wide
Web.
But Internet startups were as common as hay fever in Silicon Valley. Mayer,
then 23, was leaning toward taking a teaching gig at Carnegie Mellon
University. And the thought of joining up with the university's techies
wasn't exactly appealing. "I knew about the Stanford PhD types," she muses.
"They love to Rollerblade. They eat pizza for breakfast. They don't shower
much. And they don't say 'Sorry' when they bump into you in the hallway."
Fortunately for both Google Inc. (GOOG ) and Mayer, she had a change of
heart. A headhunter persuaded her to reconsider the search startup, and she
ended up joining Google in early 1999, as a programmer and roughly its 20th
employee. Since then, Mayer has emerged as a powerful force inside the
high-flying company. Her title, director of consumer Web products, belies
her power and influence as a champion of innovation. Mayer has her hands on
virtually everything the average Google user sees -- from the look of its
Web pages to new software for searching your hard drive. And she helps
decide which new initiatives get the attention of the company's founders and
which don't.
It's no small task. Co-founders Larry E. Page and Sergey Brin have long
declared their mission is to "organize the world's information." Yet only in
recent months has the staggering scope of their ambition come into full
relief. Google is moving to digitize the world's libraries, to offer all
comers free voice calls, to provide satellite images of the world, and
perhaps to give away wireless broadband service to millions of people.
Google really seems to believe it can make every bit of information
available to anyone anywhere, and direct all those bits -- whether text,
audio, or video -- through its computers before they hit users' brains.
ROCKET RIDE
Mayer doesn't handle all this herself. One of the key reasons for Google's
success is a belief that good ideas can, and should, come from anywhere.
Page and Brin insist that all engineers in the company have one day a week
to work on their own pet projects. An ideas mailing list is open to anyone
at Google who wants to post a proposal. What Mayer does is help figure out
how to make sure good ideas bubble to the surface and get the attention they
need. The task is becoming more complex as Google grows, with a workforce of
4,200 now and revenues on track to hit $3.7 billion this year.
It's increasingly important, too. Google's rocket ride has attracted a swarm
of competitors, from giants Microsoft (MSFT ) and Yahoo! (YHOO ) to upstarts
like Technorati and Exalead. They're all aiming to take away a chunk of
Google's search traffic, which puts a premium on the company's ability to
develop other technologies. "People are used to typing in Google to search,"
says Chris Sherman, editor of the industry newsletter SearchDay. "But its
competitors are doing a really good job of rolling out quality features and
products." Microsoft Corp. has even explored taking a stake in America
Online Inc. so that it can claim for itself the millions in revenues that
Google gets from providing AOL with its search technology.
The woman charged with helping come up with Google's response is a tall,
striking blonde with blue eyes. At 30, Mayer still carries herself with the
erect posture of the ballet dancer she was in her youth. She grew up in
Wausau, Wis., a city of 40,000 about 3 1/2 hours northwest of Milwaukee. She
aspires to live up to the example of her grandfather, who served as mayor of
Jackson, Wis., for 30 years, despite being crippled by polio as a child.
In Wausau, Mayer was one of the top debaters on her high school team. Then
the brainy teenager decided to try out for pom-pom squad and made that team,
too. To some who knew her, Mayer was making a point. "She wanted to smash
the image of the airhead cheerleader," says Jim Briggs, Mayer's high-school
debate coach. Her debate team ended up winning the Wisconsin state
championship; her pom-pom squad was the state runner-up.
A large part of Mayer's success at Google is due to her ability to travel
easily between different worlds. When she first joined, the company had
something of a high-school cliquishness, albeit in reverse. At lunch, the
coolest kids -- in this forum, the smartest geeks -- sat together. On the
periphery, sales and marketing folks gathered. Mayer could hold her own in
either realm. "She's a geek, but her clothes match," says one former
employee.
Mayer continues to bridge the gap between MBAs and PhDs. She helps decide
when employees' pet projects are refined enough to be presented to the
company's founders. Such decisions are often made through an established
process, with Mayer giving ideas a hearing during her open office hours or
during brainstorming sessions. Yet she is also good at drawing out
programmers informally, during a chance meeting in the cafeteria or hallway.
During a casual chat in 2003, a worker told her about the project of an
Australian engineer, Steve Lawrence. He was developing a program to track
and search the contents of his computer, which ran on the Linux operating
system. Knowing Google had to figure out a way for people to find stuff on
their own computers, Mayer tracked Lawrence down and asked him about
developing a version of his software to search any PC. He was enthusiastic,
so she helped assemble a team to work with him. The result: Google
introduced its desktop search in October, 2004, two months before Microsoft.
"Marissa has been very successful as the gatekeeper for a lot of these new
products," says Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google.
Part of Mayer's challenge is realizing when certain formulas falter. For
years she ran the company's Top 100 priorities list, which ranked projects
by order of importance. But as Google's workforce grew, the list soared to
more than 270 projects. Last year Google execs decided it had run its
course, and shut it down. "People don't get attached to the processes
themselves at Google," says Bret Taylor, product manager for Google Maps.
"It's very unusual. Even at small companies, people tend to say: 'This is
the way we do X."'
Mayer's typical workday starts at 9 a.m. and doesn't end until about
midnight. Her glass-walled office is intentionally situated across from the
engineering snack area, where programmers grab evening coffee or munchies.
Often on these late nights, engineers will bend her ear as they take a
breather from their work, bringing her up to date on the countless ideas
percolating through the ranks. "I keep my ears open. I work at building a
reputation for being receptive," she says.
This theory is in action on a sunny Friday afternoon in September. Mayer
walks around her office, shared with an assistant and two other employees.
Outside the door, seven or eight programmers and product managers have been
milling about since 3:30. Most wear jeans, tennis shoes, and checkered or
striped shirts, all untucked. Some pace the hall and talk quietly on their
cell phones. Others sit on chairs, their arms folded, waiting patiently.
OFFICE HOURS
At 4 p.m., her three-times-a-week office hours begin. It's a tradition Mayer
brought over from her days at Stanford, where she taught computer science to
undergrads. Over the years, such meetings have spawned some big ideas,
including Google's social-networking site Orkut.
First to enter her office are a pair of techies -- a man and woman in their
mid-20s. Sitting across from Mayer, separated by a desk with a Dilbert
coffee mug and a toy robot still in its box, they forgo the pleasantries and
launch into hushed banter. The duo is stumped over which languages the
Google Web site should be available in. Although it is already translated
into more than 115 tongues, from Arabic to Zulu, they wonder whether they
should proceed with more obscure choices. Before one minute elapses, Mayer
interjects. Google shouldn't be the arbiter on languages. Just include
anything considered legitimate by a third-party source, such as the CIA
World Fact Book, she says. "We don't want to make a large geopolitical
statement by accident."
In ones or twos, all the visitors get a brief hearing, typically five
minutes. She gently rebuffs one group seeking to put a link to Hurricane
Katrina information on Google's home page. The site for hurricane victims,
she argues, isn't useful enough yet. She brainstorms with a product manager
on how to measure and compare the freshness of Google's search results
against its rivals'.
One of the final groups marches in to discuss a personalized search product.
Many pundits describe personalization as the Holy Grail in search. An engine
that knows your preferences and interests intimately could tailor the
information delivered to improve results. Google has been offering
rudimentary personalization for a year, but more is expected in the future.
With two people in Mayer's office and another on speaker phone, she grills
the trio about the service's name. She's not enthusiastic about the initial
suggestions. "You're killing me," she says.
After a few minutes of discussion, Mayer presses the group on the product's
features. Google's top brass is having its next product-review session
shortly, in which nascent ideas get either fast-tracked or sent back for
further tinkering. So Mayer asks the big question: "O.K., let's take it to
Larry [Page]. Are you guys ready to product review tomorrow?" They assure
her that they're set to go.
Office hours are just one way in which Mayer connects with inventive
engineers and managers. Another is Google's ideas mailing list, the e-mail
thread to which anyone can submit or comment on an idea. At times, the
thread more resembles a form of techie Darwinism. Google newcomers who
proffer an especially obvious suggestion ("Why don't we search blogs?"), or
something off-topic like how to arrange the cafeteria tables, often suffer
withering rebukes. "It's about 50% new ideas, 50% indoctrination of new
employees," says Mayer.
It's all part of a culture not for the faint of heart. Google oozes with
what one ex-employee calls "geek machismo." Intellectual sparring can get
heated. In the cafeteria, "food gets thrown," says the former employee.
What Mayer thinks will be essential for continued innovation is for Google
to keep its sense of fearlessness. "I like to launch [products] early and
often. That has become my mantra," she says. She mentions Apple Computer and
Madonna. "Nobody remembers the Sex Book or the Newton. Consumers remember
your average over time. That philosophy frees you from fear."
It's just one way Mayer tries to maintain the search company's original
culture. That's no easy task. Movie night, for instance, used to be a piece
of cake when perhaps 100 employees descended on a local cinema. Today,
organizing such an event is a full-time job. Yet Mayer handles several of
these a year, from picking a movie with the right geek cred (say, Star Wars:
Episode III) to ordering thousands of tickets to writing the software that
lets her track who has received them. "She still walks around with a laptop,
handing out all the tickets beforehand," marvels Google's Silverstein.
It makes sense for Mayer to stay in such close touch with the swelling ranks
of Googlers. She may need every one of their bright ideas to keep the search
giant ahead of the competition.
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