How Google Works

Google’s former CEO and its former SVP of products set out the management model they operated, aimed at a reader running a company rather than at a reader curious about Google. The recurring claims: hire for learning ability rather than experience and let those people — the book’s “smart creatives” — set the agenda; organise in small teams around products instead of processes; keep decisions with whoever is closest to the information; and found strategy on a technical insight rather than on market research.

Why it’s on the list: On the “when you have time” half of Fil Arons’s list. A primary-source description of how one of the most consequential companies of the era chose to run itself.

Where I saw it: @FilArons’s November 16, 2025 recommended-reading list.

Connections

• Google — the company the book describes from inside.
• Eric Schmidt — the author, and the CEO whose tenure the book covers.
• Alphabet — the holding structure created the same year the book was published.
• Hiring — the practice the book spends the most pages on.