Google D’oh!

Posted by Jim Stroud

January 31, 2006

I was flipping through the latest issue of Business 2.0 (my favorite zine) and read an article on Joshua Schachter, creator of Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking startup.

The article describes the rise in popularity of Schachter’s company and how it was eventually acquired by Yahoo after he considered offers from Microsoft and Google. What I thought was most interesting in this article were the comments he received in a meeting with Google.

To quote, “We don’t need idea guys-we’ve got plenty of them. We just need developers.” The article continues with “Now Google was wracked by internal debate over the value of Del.icio.us.”

How dangerous is it when a company believes it has a monopoly on innovation? Ask your hiring manager! Over the years, I have wanted to slap many hiring managers and clients for not being open enough to (at least) chat with certain talented individuals simply because they do not fit a certain mold. So what if the candidate is only 6 months shorth of your experience requirement? When you take into account that thy have created (and sold) applications to three competitors and has a patent pending on a device that could directly impact the entire industry as we know it.. sigh… Nevermind, I will go back and find you the perfect square peg for your round hole.

All too often hiring managers want to bash recruiters when they fail to produce a technical messiah that exists only in the hiring manager’s minds. Innovation in any company, must begin with an across the board acceptance that there are no monopolies on innovation, change is constant and the last person I did not hire is on their way to improve things for my competitor.