Reverse Engineering Google's Innovation Machine

"In the Pantheon of internet based companies, Google stands out as both particularly successful and particularly innovative. Not since Microsoft has a company had so much success so quickly. Google excels at IT and business architecture, experimentation, improvisation, analytical decision making, participative product development, and other relatively unusual forms of innovation. It balances an admittedly chaotic ideation process with a set of rigorous, data-driven methods for evaluating ideas. The company culture attracts the brightest technical talent, and despite its rapid employee growth Google still gets 100 applicants for every open position. It has developed or acquired a weide variety of new offerings to augment the core search product. Its growth, profitability, and shareholder equity are at unparalleled levels. This highly desirable situation may not last forever, but Google has clearly done something right."