[plinkplonk]

Facilitators who (on the average) make a lot more money than and have the ability to review/reward/promote/fire etc the people they 'facilitate'. That makes them "bosses" in my book. What distinguishes real 'facilitators' from bosses is that they don't have any power over the people they facilitate.

How are the Google bosses 'more like facilitators' if the power equations are unchanged?

[nostrademons]

Does this mean that because I don't care about getting promoted or fired, my manager is not actually my boss? Does it mean that I don't actually (and have never actually) have a "boss"?

(This is a serious question - I think that there is a solid argument that your boss has no power over you if you don't actually care about having a job. But I'm not sure that the majority of HN - most of whom believe you need to have sold a startup to reach that point - would agree with me.)

[plinkplonk]

well that dodges the point made. If you don't care about what your boss thinks or whether you have a boss or not, you don't have to work at Google where the bosses are "more like facilitators" .

This is like saying "If I am not afraid of torture or starvation and don't fear death, what does it matter if I am in a concentration camp? They have no (real) power over me". This is technically true, but somewhat unimportant in a discussion over whether concentration camps and torture are evil or not, and whether "Arbeit macht frei" is a genuine slogan or hypocrisy.

The point made is that "bosses are facilitators" is a bunch of HRSpeak and has no real meaning, even at Google.At best it is a vague ideal layered over real differences in power and compensation.

Which is fine of course, thats just the way the world is structured these days. In the olden days, I suppose the feudal lords said the same things to the peasants, "we are just here to do the nasty things that you don't want to do. Please ignore our castles and silks and focus on working your fields, we are just facilitating your efforts. We are all the Children of God after all" ;-)

What really makes somebody a boss is that they have power to affect your career and otherwise exert power over you (and a genuine facilitator doesn't -they have to persuade you to act a certain way). You may have a temperament to not care about the effects of such power being exerted over you (you may be indifferent to being promoted or fired for e.g) but then you can be just as happy at any BigCo,and don't have to bother with Google HR blather about 'bosses being facilitators' etc.

That said (and I don't want to drag this too long, so signing off with this response), your attitude is a healthy one to adopt, as long as you have(or are working towards acquiring) the chops to always have choices of jobs etc. I am sure Peter Norvig, Guido Van Rossum etc don't spend bandwidth worrying about the points they score in some arbitrary HR metric. Having or acquiring real power (or choices, which is often the same thing) is always a good strategy.

[judk]

The relationship you describe is not the Google model.

Managers can be the same or lower level in the seniority system than people they manage.

[k__]

Wouldn't it be better (/cheaper) to get a bunch of personal assistants for the engineers?

[judk]

Assistans aren't quite the same as managers. People managers manage people, help them get wider perspective on their work, pursue training opportunities, monitor performance, connect with relevant coworkers, and make decisions related to keeping the larger team moving in a common direction. That is a valuable skill, but a level N $x-earning contributor doesn't need to be people-managed by M>N $y > $x

Check out the "skunkworks" model for similar examples.

[rbanffy]

Have you ever been the manager of 30 incredibly smart people?

I can say from managing 10 very smart developers that no one can be their "boss". You have to make them want to do what needs to be done while convincing your own manager they are doing it. I you order them too frequently to do something they think is bad - for the product, for the company - they'll end up quitting.

It's like herding cats.

Edit: it's also a lot of fun.