Building a 'Googley' Workforce

"If you're not failing enough, you're not trying hard enough," said Richard Holden, product management director for Google's AdWords service, in which advertisers bid to place text ads next to search results. "The stigma [for failure] is less because we staff projects leanly and encourage them to just move, move, move. If it doesn't work, move on."

Holden said Google tried three different ways to make use of the radio advertising company it bought for $102 million this year, dMarc Broadcasting, with little success. The goal was to sell radio ads through an online auction system similar to AdWords. But, Holden said, "I would not describe what we've done as a failure," because Google finally came up with a model that he expects to work.

Google's innovative streak is apparent throughout its campus, where buildings have been reconfigured to be environmentally friendly and let light stream into interiors through glass-walled workrooms shared by three or four employees. In addition to glass cubicles, some staffers share white fabric "yurts," tentlike spaces that resemble igloos. This week Google announced that it would install 9,000 solar panels on its buildings to generate electricity for its campus.

Along interior hallways, employees scribble random thoughts on large whiteboards strung together. Outside, they whiz by on company-provided motorized scooters or mingle on grassy areas and chairs under brightly colored umbrellas.

Innovation reaches one corner of Google that most companies neglect: food. Each of its 11 campus cafes is run by an executive chef with a theme catering to the culture of people working in that particular building. This year Google opened Cafe180, a cafeteria that supports local organic farming by serving only products from within 180 miles of the campus.

Google's anything-goes culture begins and is maintained with a rigorous hiring procedure similar to those used for admission to elite universities. Underachievers need not apply, unless they stand out in some way. Experience and grade-point averages for recent college graduates matter, but also factored in is "whether someone is Googley," said chief culture officer Stacy Sullivan.

"It's an ill-defined term -- we intentionally don't define that term, but it's . . . not someone too traditional or stuck in ways done traditionally by other companies," Sullivan said.

Each prospective hire is interviewed by at least five staff members, who ask a series of questions intended to make them understand how the candidate thinks about solving a problem. Getting the right answer is not necessary.

Abraham Egnor, a 25-year-old hired three months ago, fits the Google look. At work, Egnor wears his black hair long down his back, colored with a tint of green, a black T-shirt, backpack, cargo pants and sandals.

He said the interview process was tough. "I got a sense one of the persons who interviewed me was being somewhat antagonistic to see how I would respond," he said. "He said that I don't have a college degree, so how would I know certain things. My response was there may have been things I didn't learn -- I don't know. But I think I pick up on things very quickly."

Another job candidate told Google interviewers that his worst qualities were that he was lazy and short-tempered, but was working on it. He wasn't hired.

"We skew toward people who like to solve problems -- the bigger the problem, the better, rather than those who settle in and say, 'okay, I'll do that for 30 years,' " said Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president of "people operations." Learning continues on the job across a wide range of subjects through Google's "tech talks" with well-known people invited to speak on campus much like guest lecturers in college.

On a recent visit, chief executive Eric Schmidt moderated a discussion about women and war with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda to a standing-room-only crowd. In the back, a Google employee with a long silver braid held his pet African Grey parrot on his finger.

Google executives know it will be hard to replicate such experiences as it opens offices in so many cities and countries.

Sullivan said she's thinking of ways to export the culture, such tapping longtime employees to serve as "Google ambassadors" and develop in-house videos about what it means to be Googley.

But Sullivan doesn't want it to be too formal. That would be un-Googley.

"We're not trying to solve a problem," she said. " But we want to ensure we're thinking about it and watching over it. Our culture is one of our most valuable assets."