Google’s Bottom-Up Innovation Versus Apple’s Top-Down Approach

Google’s bottom-up innovation versus Apple’s top-down innovation We often think Google gives up on products too quickly, as with Google+ and many others. Yet its product-management ability deserves admiration: it shuts things down immediately when they are not working, without worrying about saving face. This impression largely reflects Google’s longstanding bottom-up innovation model and a culture highly tolerant of failure. When this philosophy works, it produces killer products such as Paul Buchheit’s bottom-up Gmail project. When it fails, Google decisively abandons projects such as Buzz, Wave, and Glass. Its financial strength, supported by advantages including high gross margins, and its determination to cut losses help it manage the risk. Google also acquires externally, as with YouTube, Google Maps, and Android. After buying YouTube, it was willing to abandon its own Google video service despite substantial investment. Other highly successful companies take a very different approach. At Google, ideas can come from anywhere, and many projects advance simultaneously. Apple, by contrast, is top-down, concentrating more resources on fewer projects. It keeps a small product line and often develops only one major product at a time. One philosophy is not necessarily better than another. What matters is finding product-market fit (PMF) sooner than competitors. Google was also very fortunate to achieve PMF before exhausting its funds. Had it run out of money before AdWords succeeded, its great search business might have failed before finding product-market fit. Today’s Google would not exist.