An interview with Peter Norvig, Google's Research Director

Peter Norvig is currently Director of Research at Google Inc. and from 2002 to 2005 he was responsible for Google's core search algorithms. He is co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field and at least 50 other publications in computer science. Previously he was head of Computational Sciences at NASA, making him NASA's senior computer scientist.

I had the opportunity to privately interview Peter at the DEMOfall 08 conference in San Diego where Peter was featured in the closing panel discussion on technology trends in the Internet area.

As you may know, Google grows in part by acquiring newer smaller companies. In fact, being acquired is the strategy of choice for many young companies. If you are managing a young company, you should be interested in what companies like Google look for when deciding to acquire your company or not. If you know what they look for, you will be able to better prepare yourself for acquisition.

Peter Norvig is someone who Google frequently consults when making acquisitions of smaller companies. Obviously, in his position, Peter would be asked to comment on the quality and importance of the technology being acquired. Also obviously, Peter could comment on the quality of the engineering talent in your company. It would be an interesting question to ask what kinds of technology and talent Google is looking for right now. But that is not what I am interested in because the answer will be obsolete in six months.

What I wanted to find out from Peter was something more subtle: How does Google determine whether your people and your managers will perform within the Google environment. You have to know the answer because you have to prepare for this intimate examination. No matter who you want to be acquired by, you have to be prepared to be examined closely as people, as leaders and as a team.

So I asked Peter, what does Google look for in the people it is acquiring. Or more specifically, what does Google find as problematic when it looks at the people it is acquiring. His answers were as follows:

First, rigidity. Google does not want its acquired people to resist changing their product or technology because of a "this was my baby" attitude.

Second, an inability to go from being a big fish to being a small fish in a big pond.

Third, grandiosity -- the kind of people who feel they have to change the world through their individual work, and won't accept a team-member role.

Fourth, an excessively shoot-from-the-hip decision making style. Google has the resources to permit an information-based decision-making process and expects management to use these resources. (I am sure this is more nuanced in practice, since Google would not want leaders who suffer from analysis paralysis.)

Fifth, team leaders who do not respect and groom the talent in their teams.

I should clarify here that these answers are paraphrased, not literal spoken by Peter. So to make sure of my accuracy, I asked Peter to review this blog and he verfied these were his answers.

If we had more time, other criteria would have emerged in our interview. I am willing to bet for example that Google is also on the watch for addictive personalities, power or ego obsessed managers, people unable to take direction from senior management, etc. In any case, knowing what an acquiring machine such as Google avoids in the people it acquires is something you should carefully consider if you are hoping to be acquired.

Dispatch from DEMO

This is the first post in the new Intelliversity Journal, serving technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. I am on-site today at the DEMOfall 08 Conference in San Diego, where the latest information technology and technologists are on display. What a great gathering it is this year. The press staff of DEMOfall 08 were kind enough to grant me access knowing we are an infant publication -- because of the fascinating nature of our mission:

To communicate the human side of the technology business so that investors can make an informed decision about WHO they are investing in, not just WHAT they are investing in.

I was fortunate today to interview Google's Director of Research Peter Norvig on the topic of how Google evaluates the character and leadership ability of a management team when considering an acquisition. I will report on this interview in depth in my next post.

I will also be interviewing venture capitalists Eric Tilenius, Chris Greendale and Krishna ("Kittu") Kolluri on the question of how they find out who they are really dealing with when they consider funding a young company. How do they find out if the founders are sufficiently driven, competitive, honest, flexible, capable of new innovation, open to coaching, and able to lead their teams through difficult times -- without relying just on references and track record? In fact, what ARE the character traits most important to the venture capitalist when considering a company to be funded?

Stay tuned for the results of these fascinating interviews.