These naysayers claim that giving too much credit to an old
culture can be inhibiting. They see in it a desire to hide behind
old- fashioned values, to be comforted by familiar behavior.
For them, the notion of corporate culture is obsolete at best,
a handicap at worst. They think that new-economy companies,
where speed is of the essence, cannot be burdened with such a
long-term concept.
I do not agree. For me, a strong corporate culture remains an
essential asset, an incomparable element of cohesion, an indis-
pensable cement that holds together a company’s foundation. In
my view, ultimately, the absence of a strong culture becomes a
handicap.
The founders of Google and Netflix no doubt share this
opinion. They have given their businesses distinct cultures that
are consistently and actively references. This approach helps each
company, in its own way, attract the best of the best. This is why
I chose to dedicate the next two chapters to Google and Netflix,
two companies that are living proof that corporate culture is as
vitally important in new-economy companies.
I conclude this part with a few words on a culture that I know
well, that of my company, TBWA. We are not, strictly speaking,
a new-economy enterprise, yet our culture must remain totally
in sync with popular culture. An agency must sense its time.
Chapter 10
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
ON RECRUITMENT POLICIES
AND CORE VALUES
during the first half of the 20th century, people talked of
“house style,” “esprit maison” in French, as a way to describe
the spirit that leaders of corporations wanted to infuse in their
companies. Today this somewhat paternalistic concept seems a
little old-fashioned. And yet in many ways, corporate culture is
house style’s heir. It has become a formidable weapon for all com-
panies, including the most recent—and Google is no exception.
Google’s culture first reveals itself in its employee benefits.
The list is indeed impressive: free meals; massage treatments,
medical and dental care at work; onsite gym, swimming pool,
personal training, and yoga; company hairdressers; dry cleaners,
and car wash; incentives on hybrid car purchases; extended
maternity leave; life insurance; and so on. All of this has
obviously contributed to creating a laid-back atmosphere and
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an employee-friendly environment. But make no mistake, this is
not just about being kind. If Google is looking for ways to boost
employees’ well-being, it is doing so as a way to increase their
productivity.
Company perks, the wide range of services provided to
employees on site, save them precious time, which can then be
redirected toward their work. People stay focused on their jobs.
And they can fully enjoy their social lives without eating into
their work time.
But at the same time, Google’s culture obviously goes much
further than these staff privileges. It also includes many timeless
elements, fundamentals that constitute the basis for great corpo-
rate cultures and that have, over the decades, become constants.
This is why Google is both old school and new. And it can inspire
companies of the old economy as much as those of the new.
hr as a Science
Larry Page once said, “Google is not a conventional company.
We do not intend to become one.”1 Avoiding becoming banal is
an obsession.
It starts with the people the company recruits. Every year,
Google receives around three million job applications, of which
only 0.2 percent are hired. To filter and find the best, to recruit
tailor-made candidates matching its culture, the company has
developed a new approach to recruitment, one that is so parti-
cular that it has become famous. It is common knowledge that the
questions candidates are subjected to are tough and unnerving.
They have even inspired a bestseller called Are You Smart Enough
to Work at Google? The company only wants to hire the brightest
of the bright.
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97
On the one hand, Google obviously is looking for very specific
skills linked to the nature of its business. Most of Google’s jobs
require computing and coding capabilities. But at the same time,
it is also looking for specific traits of character. They are not
necessarily those you might expect to find in such a company;
for instance, humility. Google means intellectual humility. As
Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of People Operations
told The New York Times, it requires humility to step back and
embrace the better ideas of others. “Without humility, you are
unable to learn.”2
The proportion of people hired without university degrees
at Google has increased over time. Laszlo Bock has always been
in favor of this, “When you look at people who don’t go to
school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional
human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those
people.”3
New recruits feel privileged to have been chosen. Once
they’ve joined Google, after having traversed all the testing steps
they’ve been subjected to, everything is done to make them feel
at home and to build their self-confidence. To prove the point,
this is one comment from a mentor to a young employee, “Don’t
be afraid to ask questions—you don’t have to impress me. You
already have, and that’s why I hired you.”4
Google heavily uses data to optimize the potential of its
employees. As Kathryn Dekas, Google’s people analytics
manager explained, “All people decisions at Google are based
on data and analytics.”5 The company continually tests ways to
increase people’s physical presence at work and their well-being
in the office. It even has retention algorithms that predict which
employees are more likely to leave the company. Google has
turned HR into a science.
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a Fertile environment
From the outset, Google has given itself a strong, well-defined
culture, which is not the case in many companies born in the dig-
ital era. Some founders have even been described as anti-leaders
for having created a workplace that is judged to be too tough.
Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, and Jeff Bezos have been criti-
cized for their callous ways of managing, which have been decried
as being devoid of empathy for their employees. Jedidiah Yueh
underlines, “One of the great ironies of the technology world
today is how such broken people can create such perfect prod-
ucts.”6 The explanation comes from the fact that, for the leaders
of these companies, conceiving and selling a great product is the
only thing that matters.
Many have launched their own companies without having
ever worked someplace else. They never rode up th
e corporate
ranks to learn how to run a company—or to know what it’s like to
be an employee. Finally, they have not considered what a culture
built on openness and integrity could bring, although it would be
a good thing if they did. All the more so since, as Jedidiah Yueh
says, with a bit of exaggeration: “Anti-leaders power the technol-
ogy world. And the technology world rules the business world.”7
An opaque company with strict hierarchical organization will
inevitably confront difficulties. Transparency, entrepreneur-
ship, equality, autonomy, collective resolution of problems, and
open communications are valued more today than in the past.
We are living in a more horizontal, collaborative world where
culture should occupy an essential place because it gives life to
sentiments and perceptions that don’t come down from on high.
Google’s management understands that it cannot impose values
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
99
like optimism, confidence, creativity, cohesion, or agility, but it
can create a fertile environment that encourages these values to
thrive.
We should not, however, mistake Google as being an idyllic
company. Google is the target of attacks from across the globe.
There is a gap between its internal and external images. The
California company has struggled to bounce back from criticism
on the issues of transparency, of its monopolistic position, and of
tax evasion, all of which have harmed its public image. Person-
ally, I have trouble with its unconstructive position on authors’
rights.
But none of this affects the way Google’s employees feel
about their company. As we all know, Google is, in reality, much
more than an Internet search engine. The company is working
on driverless cars, carbon-emission reduction, robots, education,
and artificial intelligence, not to mention the scientific research
conducted into prolonging life expectancy. Google Venture, a
growth accelerator, invests in at least one new enterprise every
week. All this reinforces the pride employees have in their com-
pany. Google’s staff remains the company’s first and most fervent
supporter.
It’s interesting to see how Google, a firm from the austere
and quantitative world of data, has been able to build something
so qualitatively unique in such a short time. Google’s culture is
one of openness, autonomy, decision sharing, and success—to
such a point that many members of Generation Y, with their
limited and recent knowledge of the corporate world, actually
believe that Google is a pioneer in corporate culture.
Chapter 11
Patty Mccord
ON EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT AND
TALENT MANAGEMENT
as we’ve just seen, Google has a strong set of values. It
decided to encapsulate them into a catchy motto: “Don’t
be evil.”1 This phrase, deeply incorporated into the company’s
culture since early 2000, has been part of its code of conduct that
it communicates to its employees. In May 2018, the company
adopted an adjusted version, which is now “Do the right thing.”2
By keeping this at the forefront of its people’s minds, Google
continues seeking to influence its workers’ daily behavior.
Netflix also gives advice to its people. Here is a long list of
counsels given by Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer:
• Be quick to admit mistakes.
• Say what you think even if it’s controversial.
• Keep us nimble by minimizing complexity.
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• Re-conceptualize issues to discover practical solutions to hard
problems.
• Only say things about fellow employees you would say to
their face.3
A few years ago, McCord described the culture of her
California company in a 124-slide PowerPoint presentation.
Sheryl Sandberg, number two at Facebook, gave praise by
calling it “the most important document ever to come out of
the Valley.”4 These slides have since been viewed more than
18 million times.
In this presentation, McCord explains that Netflix wants
to grow fast, but without losing the values and effectiveness of
a small structure. For her, “Most companies curtail freedom
and become bureaucratic as they grow.”5 With growth comes
complexity. To protect themselves, big organizations imple-
ment procedures that may optimize operations, but hinder
creativity. For Netflix, the best way to grow is not by applying
rules, but rather by hiring the most brilliant people. The com-
pany looks for people who work on their own, but are fully
aligned to the company’s objectives, which they know down
to the slightest detail.
Netflix’s deck on corporate culture insists on the values of
freedom and responsibility. As Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO
and co-founder, says, the key lies in giving employees the power
“to make their own wise decisions on behalf of the organiza-
tion.”6 In an interview with Chris Anderson, TED’s curator,
Hastings explains that the company’s success is due to the fact
that so many decisions are taken at lower levels. “I pride myself
on making as few decisions as possible in a quarter. There
are some times I can go a whole quarter without making any
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Disruptive hr practices
Many of Netflix’s practices are unique. For instance, Netflix
has no set policy for paid vacations. There are no policies for
expenses, no bonuses, no annual evaluations, and no career plans.
At first, this may seem astonishing but Netflix’s management
sees it as common sense, and perhaps one day other companies
will as well. It’s already the case for some French start-ups.
People work at home, in the evenings, and on weekends,
replying to e-mails at all hours of the day and night. Considering
this fact, McCord asked herself why Netflix should count annual
vacation time if it doesn’t count the hours people actually work.
The company believes it should focus on what people do, not
the number of days worked. That is why there is no policy for
vacations. The number of days taken is left up to each employee
to decide. This idea might be judged as utopian anywhere other
than in Silicon Valley, where the culture of performance runs so
deep that no one would consider abusing it.
Netflix is unusual in almost all aspects of its company life.
Another surprising fact is that there exist no pre-set rules about
expense accounts or travel. Some staff travel in business class,
while others choose economy, but they all book their own tickets
and choose the best fares, even though the company pays. Net-
flix doesn’t use the services of a corporate travel agent. Its policy
is contained in just five words: “Act in Netflix’s best interests.”8
The company gives no kind of i
ncentive or bonuses because
it believes that its people are all top achievers, and so money
alone cannot make them want to work more or better. Employ-
ees have access to stock options, but not in addition to their sal-
aries. If they want to purchase shares, they have to accept an
accompanying salary reduction. It’s up to employees to decide
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with their families on the best balance of compensation. Unusu-
ally, these stock options have no vesting period, so they can be
cashed in immediately, which is another way Netflix is radically
different from other companies. Its management is against the
idea of imposing a years-long vesting period with the goal of
building employee loyalty. The firm thinks taking its people hos-
tage financially doesn’t make sense.
At Netflix, there are no formal evaluations. The company
considers them to be generally too ritualized and too infrequent
to support meaningful change. Instead the company encourages
multiple catch-ups throughout the year. For Netflix’s chief talent
officer, performance improvement plans (PIPs), like those often
used in other companies, are fundamentally dishonest. “They
never accomplish what their name implies,”9 says Patty McCord.
Finally, there are no career plans at Netflix. It’s up to each
individual to manage his or her career evolution and to show
himself or herself smart enough to seize the frequent opportu-
nities that present themselves in such a fast-growing company.
Netflix believes that for an extraordinary career you need luck
and talent—two things that the company cannot provide.
a Contrasting Culture
We may be intrigued by such a compelling culture, one that gives
such value to individual talent, but that does not mean it should
be idealized. The way in which this culture is actually manifested
on a daily basis is ambiguous.
On the one hand, the search for excellence at Netflix is
reflected in its desire to attract the best, be it external talent
for occasional collaborations or internal staff. It hires the most
renowned filmmakers. In 2018, it released movies directed by
the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Soderbergh.
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Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, produced by Netflix, won the Golden
Lion at the Venice Film Festival. On the other hand, the substan-
tial investments it makes in the production of original content,