How to win Google and Influence Engineers

Blogger. Dodgeball. Many others under NDA. I forget. This rare behind the Google burka of how deals are cut - Care of Brad Feld. Interesting. Arrogant. Interesting. Agree : phones are dead. Email Rules. Here's one quarter of The Rules !

Email Rules - Phones are very yesterday. Voicemail is so broken. Until someone can really make it easy for me to extract a number from a voicemail, file the message away for later, label it, quickly find it again, search over it, forward it, reply at my convenience, etc etc, I am going to stick to email. Email is awesome (especially Gmail). It allows me to ensure that I get back to you. It also helps me bring in all the folks within the company whose input would matter on your topic. So, please, please, please - email. If you insist upon calling, you will hear a message saying that I won't check your voicemail anyway. So, before you think me rude, I implore you to please send email.

Google is Bottom-up - That last point reminds me that Google buying/partnering decisions are made bottom-up. Meaning, product managers and engineers are your ultimate clients. Sure the deals may be signed by VPs, but they are just endorsing the recommendations and leadership taken by the PMs. Our executive team truly empowers folks here to get done the deals needed in their spaces. You want to partner with Google Talk? Our CEO is not going to drive that. The Product Manager for Google Talk will be your guy. So, my advice is to avoid shooting for a meeting with a bigwig and instead, know your audience. I assure you that your deal will get done faster.

Threats don't work - A surprising number of people write to me saying "If you do not act in 5 days I am taking this to Microsoft . . . " or "This note will be forwarded to Terry Semel . . . " I am very inclined to let those proposals go. To me, partnerships are as much about the partner as they are about the technology. I am not psyched about working with people who want to coerce me into action. Microsoft and Yahoo are both awesome companies, with solid engineers. They are both tackling big problems and having a lot of success with many pieces. I think each of us has our strengths, and, in the end, it might just be possible that one of them might make a better partner for you. While I wouldn't seek your exclusivity upfront, please give me a break on the threats. I would rather you spend that energy on explaining why Google is uniquely positioned to make a great partner for you. Thanks.

Don't assume we have thought about X already - One of the most entertaining things for me to do is read the blogs and see how much credit folks give us for our alleged next moves in a particular area. They presume we have a big honking master plan document somewhere and have the next few years set forth step by step. Truth is, we are constantly learning. We tend to launch early and launch often. However, this doesn't mean we have it all figured out. You have a killer idea for us? Are we missing the big picture? Can you help us? Fire away. For instance, you guys who have been thinking about VoIP for years and years, what would you do if you were Google, and how can you work with us to get that done?

Bottom line is that I/we want to work with you and your company! Partnerships are an essential part of our strategy and have been the impetus for massive value creation at Google. We humbly admit we can't begin to accomplish a fraction of what we would like to without teaming with others. That said, as you can imagine, we are beyond busy, so I beg your forgiveness if sometimes I am not able to get back to you on a timely basis. Hopefully keeping all of the above in mind, we will get more done together. So, send those proposals and let's do some cool deals! Thanks.