Comments on: Maverick: The Story of Semco, an Amazing Workplace

By: BrainFuel » Working for the city is a safe job

BrainFuel » Working for the city is a safe job — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:44:16 +0000

[...] So this got me thinking. Is there a way to combine both of these worlds. I think that profit sharing plans are a start, however I like some of the things that Semco does in Brasil. They basically put people in charge of their salary along with the ability to hire and fire their managers. Since their co workers can also vote to remove someone, there’s a lot of incentive to be fair. [...]

By: Chris Tingom

Chris Tingom — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:08:07 +0000

I think what Semco does and what Google do are completely separate.

Are there any good books out on the inner workings of Google?

What I see at Google is this: an amazing waste of money, too much bloat, and a search engine that is amazing and holding this bloat together.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:44:06 +0000

So, how would you compare the environment at Semco to that of Google, as discussed in this article? Who's Really Running Google? - Forbes.com While Forbes doesn't really poo-poo on the unusual employee-centric control model of Google and Semco, I think it does highlight how following that model can potentially cause a company to quickly spiral out of control if not handled absolutely right. Almost seems to me that attempting to manage the "absolutely right" decisions would be more time consuming and stressful than managing typical business models.