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I have a different takeaway - Leaders from Google like Nikesh Arora, Marissa Mayer, Vic Gundotra don't succeed outside of Google because Google has a very uniqu

I have a different takeaway - Leaders from Google like Nikesh Arora, Marissa Mayer, Vic Gundotra don't succeed outside of Google because Google has a very unique culture and team environment, and success does not come from individual leaders at Google - it comes from teams.

w1ntermute 10y ago
A counterexample is Sheryl Sandberg, who was Google's Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations from 2001 to 2008.
- mapgrep 10y ago
  That is an excellent counterexample. She seems to have been instrumental at Facebook in building up revenue and transitioning to mobile.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  I like this counter example. I also think Sheryl knows that she can be the kingmaker and not the king to be successful. She is a driving force behind Mark Zuckerberg's success. Of all the folks mentioned, I put Sheryl in the rare breed category who has very high emotional intelligence.
  - w1ntermute 10y ago
    > I also think Sheryl knows that she can be the kingmaker and not the king to be successful. Another example of this is Uber's Ryan Graves. He was Uber's original CEO, but was replaced in December 2010 by Travis Kalanick[0]. At that point, Uber's success was by no means ensured, but Graves stuck with it, and now he's a billionaire anyway[1]. 0: https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/22/uber-ceo-super-pumped-about-being-replaced-by-founder/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/22/uber-ceo-super-pumped-abou... 1: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/03/02/uber-billionaires-garrett-camp-ryan-graves http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/03/02/uber-billio...
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chubot 10y ago
I wouldn't agree with that. Vic was not successful inside Google -- he was successful at getting promotions but not at delivering a successful product (or revenue for that matter.) He had a short tenure at Google, and I don't consider him part of the culture -- he was always more of an outsider. Marissa had a lot of impact, but not as an executive. Contrary to popular belief, she never reported to the CEO. She was always 2 or more levels "down". She basically made the jump from non-senior-VP to CEO by changing jobs. She just didn't have that much experience at the CEO level, and that showed. He had a bit of bad PR, but Tim Armstrong seems to have had some success as CEO of AOL, at least by the metric of investment return (I became an AOL shareholder and the stock did modestly well under his tenure). I think if there's any criticism you can make, it's that Google's ad technology gushes revenue, and that may be taken for granted by executives until they don't have it at another job. Huge amounts of revenue solves a lot of problems.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  Vic did create a sticky product - so hard to get rid of Google Plus.
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robk 10y ago
Nikesh was a very different kind of leader inside Google and many would disagree about him being a Google culture fit very well. Sales at Google is run almost arms length from core eng
iwontreddit 10y ago
Or they aren't any smarter or dumber than anyone else but just got lucky to hitch a ride on a rocket. Success is more about being at the right place at the right time rather then being the right person. It wasn't nikesh, marissa, vic, larry or sergey that was important. It was the idea of google. > - it comes from teams. Even if you moved the entire team to softbank, it's not going to change much. Google was the right idea at the right time. Has nothing to do with "culture,people,etc". Lots of tech companies have the culture of google. In other words, somebody has to be google, somebody has to be facebook, apple, microsoft, etc. We just think that some people have some magical secret or some magical talent. But it's just a simple matter of somebody having to win and everyone else having to lose.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  Good point. > Success is more about being at the right place at the right time rather then being the right person.

w1ntermute 10y ago

A counterexample is Sheryl Sandberg, who was Google's Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations from 2001 to 2008.

mapgrep 10y ago
That is an excellent counterexample. She seems to have been instrumental at Facebook in building up revenue and transitioning to mobile.
perseusprime11 10y ago
I like this counter example. I also think Sheryl knows that she can be the kingmaker and not the king to be successful. She is a driving force behind Mark Zuckerberg's success. Of all the folks mentioned, I put Sheryl in the rare breed category who has very high emotional intelligence.
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  > I also think Sheryl knows that she can be the kingmaker and not the king to be successful. Another example of this is Uber's Ryan Graves. He was Uber's original CEO, but was replaced in December 2010 by Travis Kalanick[0]. At that point, Uber's success was by no means ensured, but Graves stuck with it, and now he's a billionaire anyway[1]. 0: https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/22/uber-ceo-super-pumped-about-being-replaced-by-founder/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/22/uber-ceo-super-pumped-abou... 1: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/03/02/uber-billionaires-garrett-camp-ryan-graves http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/03/02/uber-billio...

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chubot 10y ago

I wouldn't agree with that. Vic was not successful inside Google -- he was successful at getting promotions but not at delivering a successful product (or revenue for that matter.) He had a short tenure at Google, and I don't consider him part of the culture -- he was always more of an outsider. Marissa had a lot of impact, but not as an executive. Contrary to popular belief, she never reported to the CEO. She was always 2 or more levels "down". She basically made the jump from non-senior-VP to CEO by changing jobs. She just didn't have that much experience at the CEO level, and that showed. He had a bit of bad PR, but Tim Armstrong seems to have had some success as CEO of AOL, at least by the metric of investment return (I became an AOL shareholder and the stock did modestly well under his tenure). I think if there's any criticism you can make, it's that Google's ad technology gushes revenue, and that may be taken for granted by executives until they don't have it at another job. Huge amounts of revenue solves a lot of problems.

perseusprime11 10y ago
Vic did create a sticky product - so hard to get rid of Google Plus.

deleted 10y ago

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robk 10y ago

Nikesh was a very different kind of leader inside Google and many would disagree about him being a Google culture fit very well. Sales at Google is run almost arms length from core eng

iwontreddit 10y ago

Or they aren't any smarter or dumber than anyone else but just got lucky to hitch a ride on a rocket. Success is more about being at the right place at the right time rather then being the right person. It wasn't nikesh, marissa, vic, larry or sergey that was important. It was the idea of google. > - it comes from teams. Even if you moved the entire team to softbank, it's not going to change much. Google was the right idea at the right time. Has nothing to do with "culture,people,etc". Lots of tech companies have the culture of google. In other words, somebody has to be google, somebody has to be facebook, apple, microsoft, etc. We just think that some people have some magical secret or some magical talent. But it's just a simple matter of somebody having to win and everyone else having to lose.

perseusprime11 10y ago
Good point. > Success is more about being at the right place at the right time rather then being the right person.