podcast
Google’s success with innovation is due to a combination of traits. Some, like their ownership of the search and online advertising categories, can’t be readily emulated. Other operational and cultural traits can be emulated (I wonder how many CEOs who read HBR will actually try).
- Build platforms that scale so you can move from prototype to finished product quickly
- Encourage lots of incremental innovation; test in the production environment in which they will run
- Learn how to treat knowledge workers and how to extract their maximal effort
- Build a high tolerance to failure
Regarding the last point, I’ve long thought that Google’s 20% time was less an innovation engine as it was a get-used-to-failure engine. In other words, most of what comes out of the 20% time will fail—that’s okay.
Ironically, there’s some question about whether or not the end users will be able to keep up with and absorb Google’s rate of innovation.
It’s worth reading.
Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine
- Bandit
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