Catching up over dinner with my brother recently, I heard about his Mountain View trip.
You’d think the most impressive bit of his various meetings and networking soirees would have been him meeting CEOs and miscellaneous big names for such social networking giants as Twitter and Facebook. Yeah. Not for me. What I fell in love with was – believe it or not – Google. Yep. Anti-corporate me still loves a good outside-the-box concept applied functionally. The working atmosphere of gigs like theirs has always sounded pretty awesome what with its informal nature (I remember thinking that theme was pretty cool the first time I heard about how low-key the creators of Facebook were with their setup and clothing alike).
But it’s not just the no-ties-no-frills dress code that got me.
(Wait, why are his flip flops at the cleaners? #deepthoughts)
What I like is the psychology they inject into the working atmosphere.
There’s this “rewarding failure” thing, for instance.
And Astro Teller says it’s a big part of the company’s success.
So painfully true.
When I’m looking at a number figure as my finish line (even if I myself set it), it becomes exactly that and no more. It’s a daunting finish line. A thing to put off, break past, and then fcck off for the rest of the night until I have to begrudgingly do it again tomorrow. That applies to any job I’ve ever had. Even now, when I get good conversational comments on articles I’ve done that I myself am judging (that I’d prior felt I failed as a writer and human being to construct cohesively as a literary piece), this validation suddenly spurs me to do better. It’s that whole positive feedback loop – if you say something positive to someone, their brains will want to jump on the “yes-and” train to think what other blood they can suck out of the creative turnip to make it better and keep getting rewarded. Telling someone their work falls short or giving them a creative cap can be a “what could’ve been” killer.
Ever go for ten more minutes of a jog, swim, or bike trip than you’d planned?
And the quality of that extra mile is better than the whole hour long sesh you just did? Creativity is kind of like that. When you’re doing it because you want to – you go extra hard on diesel grade genius fuel. That’s where the magic happens. Except you can’t put a time limit on a Eureka idea and Google knows that. By encouraging a barrage of new ideas, you eventually happen on a billion dollar gem. Time may be money in other companies, but when you make bank off ideas, morale is money. You hack that, and your staff will want to eat, breathe, live, shiz, die, and then reincarnate into a stew of their own neverending neural fireworks just so they can present it to you on a platter like a scene outta Beauty and the Beast.
Speaking of platters – the other smart psych-hack they do is at meal time.
You know that feeling you get when you dine on the company credit card?
And the four figure bill arrives?
And you remember that you’re not personally responsible for covering it?
Yeah. Google don’t play that.
The whole mentality of money traveling between employees, employers, and clients breeds that kind of “I’m getting away with it!” familiar feeling that fuels a good portion of my waking life motivation to do anything at all. Thing is, when that’s happening within the company for which you work, it’s a kind of mindset that, I imagine, could burrow itself easily deep into your sub-consciousness to sprout like sneaky seeds until it finally blooms into an entire orchard full’a fractional penny pilfering from the company you resent for being richer than you and hoarding all the dough.
(Apt assessment, Milt. Maybe we can cut the cake more evenly.)
I say “I imagine” when talking about these dark seeds (that are always funnier to watch sprout out of a comedy fantasy narrative than IRL) so that I sound less geeky and more relate-able when I post proof. Like these studies done on this tangled-web test of graduating deception that starts benign before spreading.
So instead, they nix that whole mentality of dinner win vs. the man by offering a Chop House style cafeteria – complete with free food – of all types.
(I purposely posted this non-biased vlog because I feel like shitty sushi still doesn’t detract from the fact that: 1. there’s other stuff and 2. it’s free. My brother – when we used to drink together – used to explain “There’s two types of beer: Guinness and Free”. He wasn’t wrong. And now, when it comes to sustenance, I tend to feel similarly. So long as there’s free fruit or veg around, I’m unlikely to turn my nose up at it.)
And finally – best for last – what’s inside of Google X.
The secret lab.
The Groom Lake of Google.
So furtive is this factory of genius that regular ol ‘Google plebeians aren’t even allowed to chat with the elite fleet who brain-toil in the underground lab. And what’s that underground lab like? Supreme – in its simplicity. It’s basically just this big warehouse-style set up in disarray with project pieces floating about – and it’s that way on purpose. If you’re a creative person, you can appreciate why.
If not, Einstein can help you out:
(I don’t clean my work station until I need to empty my mind and start fresh.
Effs my flow up.)
Instead of many three-piece suit businesses that will demand you meet a certain quota, number of tasks, standards, protocols, and all the rest of the soul sucking parameters – there’s a big “sky’s the limit” placeholder marked with an “X” at Google-X – along with the rest of Google.
In the end, I’m not sure this makes me forgive them for buying Dropcam (so the government owned conglomerates can spy on us with robots, obviously). But it’ll definitely help lubricate the onset of Stockholm Syndrome.
Ya know – when they kidnap me to siphon out the supergeniusness I share online for free.
#ImWaitingBoys