I'm Feeling Lucky_ The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 - Douglas Edwards [52]
Sergey's perspective on "launch first, iterate later," was nothing if not consistent. "I don't think we should have any meetings about a project like this," he said, "or any group emails except the one to users announcing the launch. Having everyone involved in every issue is not a good use of anyone's time."
Sergey wanted one person to take charge: Salar. As product manager (PM), Salar could talk to Karen to set up the web page, to Marissa or Bay to check on the UI, and to me for branding, then work with an engineer to make changes if necessary. Salar had no training as a PM—no ivy-covered MBA, no internship at an overpriced consulting firm, no career spent hauling himself one rung at a time up a corporate ladder. But Sergey thought he was bright enough to figure it out. Sergey felt the same way about Susan, who soon left marketing to take on a role similar to Salar's. More important, Larry and Sergey trusted them not to get in the way of what the engineers wanted to do.
Larry officially anointed himself chief of products in March 2000, taking charge of the entity coalescing around the kernel of product management. He would oversee any project requiring engineering resources—the "Googlettes" hatching all around the building—including the directory and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) search for cell phones. Larry decreed a meeting be established at which views would be heard from all corners of the Plex, disagreements would be aired, and edicts would be issued. He dubbed it "product review." Google had birthed a process.
Product review met in Larry and Sergey's office. I arrived early to get a seat on the black pleather couch. Otherwise, I'd have had to balance my laptop while sitting on a three-foot rubber ball. A large metal exoskeleton—the prototype for Larry's book-scanning project-held a camera and an array of lights pointing down at the coffee table in front of me. Karen White, Marissa Mayer, Jen McGrath from the front-end team, and Craig Silverstein worked around it, connecting cables to a projector so we could display mockups against the office wall.
Sergey leaned back in his desk chair across from us, reading and eating a sandwich. It was hard to tell if he was paying attention.
Marissa set the agenda, determining which products to discuss and who should be at the meeting to present the case for or against proposed changes. Marissa was twenty-four. A slim, blond Wisconsinite, she was well versed in UI issues and she never met a problem she didn't try to fix—immediately. Her mind worked so quickly that her buffer overflowed, filling all available conversational space with a flurry of words. She would download what she was thinking, punctuate it with an ellipsis laugh, and then preemptively address all objections or alternative viewpoints that could conceivably be expressed. It took me a while to get used to, even though I had dwelt among New Yorkers.
Marissa took the role of product review gatekeeper as seriously as an embassy guard in a hostile nation. She ardently argued her views about the best way to help Google prosper while protecting the inner sanctum from antagonistic ideas. Over the months to come, as she began casting a larger shadow on both the product-development process and Larry's personal life, she would iris down the exposure others had to the chief of products. We were, of course, free to talk with Larry outside product review, but since the meeting was now the place where decisions were officially made, those conversations could easily be viewed as redundant and a waste of Larry's time.
No one wanted to waste Larry's time.
Larry himself remained unassuming about his new role. He sat at his desk at the far end of the cramped office, glancing up from his array of computer monitors when we presented