In a remarkable admission for a senior public company executive, Google Chairman and longtime former CEO Eric Schmidt told Gigaom: "At Google, we give the impression of not managing the company, because we don't really. It sort of has its own borg-like quality if you will. It sort of just moves forward."
If the executives ultimately responsible for "managing the company" to ensure it proactively respects users' privacy, vigilantly guards against security and data breaches or property infringement, is not really "managing the company," it now makes sense why Google has so many privacy scandals, and security and property infringement problems.
Generally protecting privacy, security and property rights are not engineering goals unless company management and managers have internal control and management focus, systems, processes, and procedures to ensure they are a priority to engineering teams.
Google's lack of interest in management execution is evident in Google's:
Equally remarkable in Mr. Schmidt's comments to Gigaom was his description of Google as "Borg-like." Given that Google has a famous "Don't be Evil" credo and "The Borg" is generally viewed as an ultimate metaphor for evil in science fiction. It is telling that Mr. Schmidt chose that metaphor to describe Google's management essence.
In sum, management is essential to protect users' privacy, security and property.
- Mr. Schmidt's admission that Google management and managers don't really manage explains a lot about Google, and even more why Google has so many public policy vulnerabilities.
