Curious how other companies are in terms of leadership strategy and overall organizational alignment (clear goals, owners, work streams). I've been at Google for a few years now, and before that at Amazon. The two companies could not have been more different. At Amazon I found a lot of clarity on strategy, goals, ownership, etc. That helped us move fast towards outcomes, and be very focused. Even when "thinking big" it was easy to drive clarity with leaders on what impact we'll be delivering, who would be the owners, and what decisions we needed to make. At Google it feels like everybody's running around like chickens with its head cut off. No leaders are making any concrete/clear statements about goals (and if they are, they're strong eng leaders, never product leaders), no clear owners, organizational structure that exacerbate confusion and inefficiency. All those lead to poor product outcomes in terms of impact, innovation, speed of delivering... So I'm curious, which one of those is more representative of the other companies out there from your experience? I'm thinking of leaving Google (post recession) because I don't like this company culture, but not sure if it'll just be the same elsewhere, and therefore boomeranging to amzn is what I should really be considering.
This is a relevant post on this topic https://open.substack.com/pub/jackiebavaro/p/hot-take-google-has-a-company-strategy
Thanks for sharing. Read it all and can very much relate. Based on that, sounds like from the writer's experience at least MS and Asana also not reassemble Google's model (yay).
I can tell you that DocuSign is definitely in the Google camp. Duplicated upon duplicated workstreams, product managers that never look up and over, complete lack of strategy. Features focused mentality, customer problem gets completely lost. Everyone is running around like a chicken w their head cut off because product will not put a stake in the ground and define something (anything). It results from a bottom up culture and complete lack of leadership and vision. Needless to say I’m looking for a new job because I don’t see how this will get reconciled in our competitive landscape. We haven’t innovated anything due to fear or changing the “moneymaker” sign product area. Maybe I should look at Amazon…. Anyway, to your question, solidarity. I have fears/questions about where it would be similar as well.
I mean docusign should not even be an independent company. I wonder how incompetent the leaders must be to still have a dysfunctional product org
Sounds rough. And familiar.
I was at amazon and twilio is similar. Strategy has to be bottom up. Top down strategy is not a very appealing place to hone your PM skills
Hmm I would argue that Amazon is top down.
Depends . Aws yes, devices no
If you don’t like everybody's running around like chickens with its head cut off, definitely don’t come to meta
I thought meta had a strong PM culture. Not the case?
Meta is the same, maybe worse than Google at this. Everyone tries to be bottoms up and there is tons of scope conflict and conflict across teams. Half planning is the only time you'll have a chance to cobble together any long term thinking, but you'll be forced to integrate leadership's newest priorities. It's a mess, but things keep moving forward
I feel the same. It's very frustrating when your personal performance is held accountable as an IC. Your freedom to "own" areas is smoke and mirrors. Politiking just pushed lower down the chain.
Smoke and mirrors!! Exactly.
Currently in TM with Google. What level are you both and what org? Any sense if either make a difference?