How Google’s Laszlo Bock Is Making Work Better

By NPR Staff
Google is famous for its hiring practices and work environment. Laszlo Bock shares a few of the company’s secrets.
Google is famous for its hiring practices and work environment. Laszlo Bock shares a few of the company's secrets.
Google is famous for its hiring practices and work environment. Laszlo Bock shares a few of the company’s secrets.
Google is famous for its hiring practices and work environment. Laszlo Bock shares a few of the company's secrets.

How Google’s Laszlo Bock Is Making Work Better

By NPR Staff
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(Image: Luciano Lozano/Getty/Ikon Images)

Google’s philosophy about building a successful workforce is based on a simple assumption: people are fundamentally good. So, Google tries to give each of their 62,000 employees as much autonomy and ownership of the work they do as possible. 

That means taking power away from managers, making each employee a shareholder, and giving everyone direct access to Google’s top executives. 

How’s it working out? This week, Shankar talks with Google’s Senior Vice President of People Operations (Google-speak for Human Resources) Laszlo Bock about how one of the world’s biggest tech companies recruits, trains, and keeps its talent.

The Hidden Brain Podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Kara McGuirk-Alison, Maggie Penman and Max Nesterak. Special thanks this week to Daniel Shuhkin. To subscribe to our newsletter, click here. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, @karamcguirk, @maggiepenman and @maxnesterak, and listen for Hidden Brain stories every week on your local public radio station.

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