Reading John Battelle's Searchblog: The Times Does the Google Backlash Story

"Now, Google... founders have learned to say the right things in public about past practices (Sergey, for example, told me he regrets the seemingly haphazard way his company hired in the past few years..."

This is another key lesson on how you hire: You must always behave decently throughout the interview.

Often bigger, sometimes arrogant companies see themselves as hiring rather than recruiting, and get a sort of snotty "why should you be allowed to work here" attitute as opposed to remembering it's a chance to enrich your company with talent.

My personal experience: I interviewed at a certain company and they made me so angry I not only declined to move the process further, I ended up at their competitor where I worked extremely hard-- let's say, with personal motivation-- to create a viable alternative to their product. Which, thanks to the humble and talented people I worked with, as well as plenty of motivation, it definately is.

So an interview is not only a place to make friends, it's a place to avoid making enemies.

nuff said.

according to RED HERRING | Magazine Preview: 20 Outstanding Entrepreneurs Under 35.

That makes me a old mogul?

Congrats Scott, ya make us all proud!

Every company is (should be) driven by a vision of what they are, who they are and what is important to being that thing. Typically that vision is shaped at the highest level, by a CEO who either collates or creates that vision, often out of a combination of gut and research.

Start-ups in particular are often born out of a single gut feeling from one person, and that idea is then relentlessly pursued. We have the classic story from the president of Oxo about his arthritic wife, and how that led to a singular vision of tools for people of impaired mobility. And of course, Netflix, born of Reed Hasting's hatred of late fees.

Later, companies frequently form tightly coherent cultures that hold the vision collectively-- think of "the HP way" for instance, or the sometimes cultish Google with their relentless passion for search. Who else would have seen mail as a information retrieval problem?

B2B's naturally form vision in a different way, designing it to please their customers, either from a massive cash-cow, or from a powerful market. Small design shops have sometimes nearly been ruined by their relationships with one big company that feeds them... and tells them who they are.

Recently I've noticed a new way of shaping a vision-- a web 2.0 way, if you wish-- that many start-ups are embracing. Emergent Vision. At a recent SDForum event, I heard the CEO of SocialText speak about his company-- how they launched the technology and let the customers tell them what it was for. This closely echoed words I'd hear at Gel a couple years back form the CEO of Meetup... they put up tools to help people meet not really knowing why people would meet. They didn't predict the political role they played, but they certainly embraced it.

Smart companies have long adapted their course based on customer research. But I think only now we are seeing more companies launching new technologies not really know what they are for, but trusting that someone will. I did a quick 2x2 to illustrate my thinking.. please feel free to add additional companies or ideas in comments and I will incorporate...