I can't give citation, but someone was talking about an assessment unit in the army that tried to identify candidates to fast-track to more senior command positions. What they found was that there was no reliable way to determine such candidates. Unpromising candidates went on to great things, and the so-called promising ones didn't. The assessor wryly noted that despite the failure, enthusiasm for assessment didn't abate.
One thing that struck me years (decades) ago was when I was working for a company as a programmer. I happened to see the CVs of the candidates. On the basis of less than 15 minutes, I came to the conclusion that they were all likely to be as good as the other. There was perhaps one lemon in the group.
Some companies are very successful, and obviously employ bright people. There's a mindset of "manifest destiny", and of course a certain conceit.
I think that there was a talk at Google about how companies rise and fall. He said that Google will eventually fall. Nothing lasts forever. (Although I will say that a company like Microsoft has beaten a lot of history as to how long the edge can last). One Google employee raised a hand and asked how it could be prevented. You could tell it in their eyes and manner of speech that they thought that the sheer brilliance of their minds would prevent such a thing from happening. I can't remember what the response was, but I think it was along the lines of "you can't". Time and tide happen to all men.
I thought about this, and I did come to one interesting idea: spinoffs. Google may do better for their shareholders if they explored the idea of spinoffs. How so? Well, we've seen the sheer volume of projects that have been started and abandoned by Google. Presumably the logic behind this is that they'll encounter, by chance, another project that will propel them to the next level.
The idea is good, but there's a snag: Google is too successful. This leads them a lot of dilettantism. They try this, they try that, they try the other. Then they get bored, and go back to their ad revenues.
Let's take Google+. At one point, people speculated that it would usurp Facebook. There was even an animated gif where a bus with the Google logo above it smashes into a car with the Facebook logo above it. As we now know, Google+ disappeared and Facebook is still strong. Perhaps a better strategy would have been to spin off the Google+ division, retaining only a 20% stake. This has two effects: 1) it creates a smaller division with less diseconomies of scale, 2) the new division is pot-committed. Failure is not an option. Success is by no means guaranteed, of course, but success is more likely when there's a gun at your head.
I can't give citation, but someone was talking about an assessment unit in the army that tried to identify candidates to fast-track to more senior command positions. What they found was that there was no reliable way to determine such candidates. Unpromising candidates went on to great things, and the so-called promising ones didn't. The assessor wryly noted that despite the failure, enthusiasm for assessment didn't abate.
One thing that struck me years (decades) ago was when I was working for a company as a programmer. I happened to see the CVs of the candidates. On the basis of less than 15 minutes, I came to the conclusion that they were all likely to be as good as the other. There was perhaps one lemon in the group.
Some companies are very successful, and obviously employ bright people. There's a mindset of "manifest destiny", and of course a certain conceit.
I think that there was a talk at Google about how companies rise and fall. He said that Google will eventually fall. Nothing lasts forever. (Although I will say that a company like Microsoft has beaten a lot of history as to how long the edge can last). One Google employee raised a hand and asked how it could be prevented. You could tell it in their eyes and manner of speech that they thought that the sheer brilliance of their minds would prevent such a thing from happening. I can't remember what the response was, but I think it was along the lines of "you can't". Time and tide happen to all men.
I thought about this, and I did come to one interesting idea: spinoffs. Google may do better for their shareholders if they explored the idea of spinoffs. How so? Well, we've seen the sheer volume of projects that have been started and abandoned by Google. Presumably the logic behind this is that they'll encounter, by chance, another project that will propel them to the next level.
The idea is good, but there's a snag: Google is too successful. This leads them a lot of dilettantism. They try this, they try that, they try the other. Then they get bored, and go back to their ad revenues.
Let's take Google+. At one point, people speculated that it would usurp Facebook. There was even an animated gif where a bus with the Google logo above it smashes into a car with the Facebook logo above it. As we now know, Google+ disappeared and Facebook is still strong. Perhaps a better strategy would have been to spin off the Google+ division, retaining only a 20% stake. This has two effects: 1) it creates a smaller division with less diseconomies of scale, 2) the new division is pot-committed. Failure is not an option. Success is by no means guaranteed, of course, but success is more likely when there's a gun at your head.