Ego is essential to breaking through those tough barriers and new opportunities. Disregard for risk. Is this really what is needed when Google is being criticized for falling behind its competitors in innovation.
I also don't think that creator's ego is a factor in product's success. There are many egotistical entrepreneurs with successful products. People might not like creators, but they like the product.
So isn't the best strategy to let the market determine if something is worth it or not? I'm sure G+ has got its valuation...
No, it is not. If I decide to change the design of a bicycle to have square shaped wheels I have not innovated. I have instead made it objectively worse.
I think to innovate is generally accepted as meaning to improve upon something in some way. I don't think G+ improved anything, as its abject failure in the real world demonstrates.
Yahoo search did make money with banner advertisements, and when that was doing well people called Yahoo search innovative. Innovation is used like a buzz word. Truly anything new, even if it is poorer than the previous product is innovation, it may not sell, but it is innovation!
IMHO if Google had just kept G+ on its own (working hard on fixing the "ghost town" byproduct of evolved privacy features, and providing decent APIs), adoption numbers could have been lower in the short term, but the product would have survived in the long run. Integration with other Google products should have come naturally, not forcefully. Then we would have got a modern social network people actually wanted to join, instead of a tainted product stinking of corporate malfeasance.
Modern management is trying to apply command and control to creative endeavours, and usually forces everyone to fail.
Sometimes it's possible to wander around, rejecting the views of everyone else and creating a perfect product. More often you get something no one wants.
A better approach is to have enough time and money to walk in the right direction, carefully. No matter how many times I think of the idea of a start up running ahead I think of disorganised mob, not a disciplined army.
The goal is to take a disciplined army into the unknown.
not a rabble egged on by a crazy guy, or a goose.
High egotism -> high conscious opinion of one's self (compensating for low subconscious self-worth), need for external affirmation of self-worth, and propensity for aggression and meanness in the pursuit of that affirmation.
Low egotism -> content with self-worth, unreactive to external criticism or praise, willingness to do what is "for the greater good" regardless of short term challenges and resistance, trusting one's self to achieve the best outcome in the end.
We could call it "The Book of Graham".
When a group of very smart people get together, there is a tendency for them to try to show themselves as being the smartest. This can lead to less-desirable situations where people don't share or cooperate as freely as they should. In the worst cases the situation could become antagonistic with individuals or entire teams and departments refusing to talk to each other. Now in a group of smart people, walks in a person like Sundar Pichai, someone without ego, who always defers to the other person, who might put himself/herself down to make the other person feel better. When two people in the group get into a conflict on an issue (remember this is a group that can get into religious wars over which brace style to use), it will be that person who mediates and gets the team going again. When the team has to vote on a new leader, that person is likely to get the most votes because he/she is the person everyone has the least issues with. Such a person who avoids conflict is able to act as transcendental force. People are more willing to listen to such a person or do what he/she says because they don't feel threatened by him/her.
Someone like Steve Jobs who always puts himself above everyone else, could also act as a transcendental force as long as people agree to that. But if someone like Steve Jobs was to start at the bottom of the organisation, and moves up the ladder to its top position, it would be by putting other people and teams down. These people might harbour a grudge or ill-will and be less likely to do what the new boss says. It is not a strategy without its downsides (For example why did someone as incredibly gifted as Steve Wozniak end up leaving Apple?).
By promoting similar people to leadership positions, Pichai is creating a environment where people with great talent but less taste for politics can also get their voice heard. I think such an environment is good for creativity to flourish.
"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."
Not to take anything away from Sundar Pichai's accomplishments, but Tamil Nadu, from where he hails, is decidedly not "one of the poorest states in India." It has the second largest gross state domestic product in the country. [1]