- A new book by BuzzFeed journalist and author Alex Kantrowitz gives readers a sneak peek into the business practices that keep tech giants like Facebook and Google on top.
- "Always Day One" digs deep into Amazon's culture of invention, Mark Zuckerberg's obsession with feedback, and how important collaboration is to Google.
- The book includes insider gossip about Google employees mocking Marissa Mayer, who left the search giant to become CEO of Yahoo, and how Mark Zuckerberg once matched with his wife's friend on a dating app.
- "Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Stay on Top" by Alex Kantrowitz is on sale now.
- Click here for more BI Prime stories.
In 2017, CEO Jeff Bezos asked an all-hands Amazon staff meeting: "What does Day Two look like?"
After a short pause, the billionaire answered his own question: "Stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death."
Bezos' question forms the basis of the new book from BuzzFeed reporter Alex Kantrowitz, "Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Stay on Top".
Written over several years, the book offers exclusive access to a host of previously unrevealed insider tidbits, including everything from Google employees mocking outgoing exec Marissa Mayer to Mark Zuckerberg matching his wife's friend on a dating app.
But beyond industry gossip, "Always Day One" gives readers an unparalleled overview of the business secrets, corporate structures, and employee cultures that make the likes of Facebook, Amazon, and Google so successful.
We broke down some of the key lessons from "Always Day One":
Mark Zuckerberg constantly asks for feedback at Facebook
While Facebook might have garnered a reputation for ignoring criticism in public, Mark Zuckerberg is said to be much more responsive to the opinions of those close to the company.
He regularly hosts internal Q&As to find out "what people are thinking... what the tone is", Facebook HR head Lori Goler told Kantrowitz.
Employees also chat constantly in hundreds of internal Facebook groups, discussing products, asking questions and rating their executives' performance.
Zuckerberg is also said to hold "Give and Take", a 2014 book by organizational psychologist Adam Grant, in very high regard.
The book breaks people down into a combination of two of four categories: "agreeable" and "disagreeable", or "givers" and "takers".
Kantrowitz's book suggests Zuckerberg kept Peter Thiel, the notorious venture capitalist, on Facebook's board because he was such a useful "disagreeable giver".
Don Graham, an early investor, said: "Mark wanted him to stay because Peter was such a loud voice putting forward ideas that Mark disagreed with."
Sundar Pichai emphasizes collaboration at Google
Google uses its own applications, like Docs, Spreadsheets, and Slides, to keep track of meetings, finances and deliver presentations – and makes these almost universally accessible throughout the company.
When an employee spots a colleague they want to work with, but don't know personally, they can connect with them via Google's intranet "Moma".
Because Google workers constantly revise shared documents, Kantrowitz reports that the firm maintains an "unwritten rule" banning them from attaching documents to emails, saving them from working on multiple versions of the same file at once.
Linus Upson, a Google VP, described CEO Pichai to Kantrowitz as "very thoughtful...he's very good at listening to other people".
But Kantrowitz notes Pichai has struggled with internal dissent in recent years, such as when thousands of staff staged a walkout in protest against the company's record on sexual harassment.
He writes: "Pichai and his deputies have rolled back the company's openness...in moves meant to preserve the culture's good elements while mitigating controversy and protest.
"But it's hard to have it both ways."
Jeff Bezos fosters efficient innovation at Amazon
At Amazon, memos pitching new ideas must be six pages long and "narratively structured." These memos never contain individual authors' names, only the name of the team.
One ex-employee told Kantrowitz putting one of these six-pagers together was akin to writing science fiction: "It's a story...of what you believe the future is going to be."
After sitting in on a meeting, in which senior executives read through your memo for an hour or more, those pitching are barraged with questions.
If the six-pager is approved, Amazon gives them a budget to recruit a team and get to work making their dream into a reality.
Kantrowitz is sure to acknowledge a big part of the reason Amazon execs are free to be so creative is because there is a huge pool of laborers to draw on to do the dirty work, who are unlikely to ever submit their own six-pager.
Apple might be in need of a culture change
Kantrowitz doesn't hold back in his criticism of Apple which, like many, he sees as having struggled since the death of Steve Jobs.
"Democratic invention is rarely encouraged, people and ideas are constrained by hierarchy, and collaboration is held back by secrecy," he writes.
As Kantrowitz describes it, Apple has continued to refine its existing products – like the iPhone and the Mac – while floundering in the search for new products.
He puts much of this down to the way the company is managed, saying even many of Apple's own employees are kept in the dark about its plans.
Those who are in the loop are forbidden from discussing anything with their coworkers, friends, and spouses.
Citing poor sales of the widely panned HomePod in 2018, Kantrowitz writes: "Apple's bets to create ambitious new products...are failing.
"And Apple's refinement culture, a relic of the Jobs era, is to blame."
Business Insider approached Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple for comment.
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