A bit about my product management summer at Microsoft

September 10, 2007

I ended up in Seattle this summer, interning as a product manager with Microsoft.  My product was an edition of SQL Server, but first I’d like to talk a bit about the MBA internship opportunity at Microsoft.   Everything I was told by the second years last year about it being a fun and event filled experience turned out to be completely accurate and true.   
EXECUTIVE SPEAKERS: Every week we a number of top executives from around the company speak to us about their experiences at Microsoft and outside the company.  There were 60 of us (as opposed to  1,000+ “technology” interns in Redmond) and the general structure of these meetings was a brief 15-20 minute introduction talk by the speaker in the beginning and then an hour long Q&A session.   Some of the best speakers that I remember were Chris Capossela, Steve Ballmer, and Jay Allard.  There were about 20 or so speakers total.  
INTERNAL OUTREACH: As an MBA intern, I would not hesitate to reach out to school alums or to even the executive speakers.  Most people I reached out to were very receptive and were willing to grab lunch or coffee with me, or a group of interns.  I arranged about 10 sessions outside the main intern activities, and it was a great way to explore other parts of the company.  I heard some other interns arranged a lot more of these sessions….but I really enjoyed my group and my work, so did not have as much incentive to go exploring.   
ORGANIZATION SIZE: Redmond many many Microsoft buildings, but the feel is still fairly small, since the groups tend to be based together and are not very large.  But, the interesting aspect of it is that you may find some random people you lost touch with in the past. For example, I found a couple of old friends from undergrad, as well as a guy I knew from high school in Richmond, VA! It’s a small world, but if you also put 30k of techies together in one place…chances are you might meet someone you knew before.
FOOD: Besides a great time, it also meant free lunch, since each speaker picked up the tab for whatever was catered to the meeting.    Not as nice Google’s amazing food, but still a nice touch.  Speaking of food, the cafeteria’s are actually quite impressive and had a surprising variety.   I still tended to stick to sandwiches, but they had ingredients like fresh avocado and all kinds of pastes (tomato basil, pesto, hummus, etc.), and cheeses that I don’t normally see at delis.  There were also ethnic cuisine’s such as Indian, Pho, sushi, etc.
SOCIAL EVENTS: Anyways, back to the internship.   Beyond the speakers we also enjoyed a number of planned events that showed us Seattle in the best light.    These including kayaking, going to the tallest building in Seattle, dinners, happy hours and a stint at a local bar “casino” where we played for fake money, but still had a lot of fun.    The recruiting staff put a lot of time and effort into making sure that our summers were enjoyable, and it really showed.   We also went to a couple of Mariners baseball games at Safeco field. Both times we hung out at the MSFT luxury box, and it’s a completely different way to watch a baseball game! Additionally, there were countless raffles for all kinds of prizes including X-box 360s, trips and restaurant certificates….of course I didn’t win anything, but there were probably around 50-60 prizes throughout the summer.  
NIGHTLIFE: As far as nightlife, Seattle has a lot to offer in this category from dive bars, to lounges, to dance clubs to afterhours places open till 4 or later (though unfortunately no drinks after 2).  So overall, from the social perspective, the internship was a lot of fun.  I would however also mention that you would need to explore the city on your own or with a couple of friends and not depend on the intern class to necessary organize social events as a group.  I would not say that the intern class hung out a huge amount together, though there were times we came together outside Microsoft.   This apparently differed from the previous two years, when the interns threw a bunch of parties for themselves and went out a lot, but I would say play it by ear as intern classes vary from year to year.
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: The corporate housing at Harbor Steps was quite impressive and affordable.   This was especially good since I did not sublet my place during the summer and was hurting.    The apartments are well furnished and are located in the heart of Seattle. There at least three large nightlife areas nearby and it is also right next to the famous Pike’s market where you can get all kinds of produce (if you cook) or grab a bite to eat at a number of great places.  There is an option to stay closer to work in Redmond, but very few people take it and I don’t recommend it. 
COMMUTE: The commute is not that painful, especially if you can get a carpool together of 3 or more people.  It’s about 25-30 minutes to Redmond and about 35-45 minutes to get back with 3, but could take an hour or more if you don’t have the use of the 3+ carpool lane.  The carpool was also great because I got to know some of the interns much better who I otherwise may not have spent much time with. Some of the discussions we had in our car were really cool and informative.  I actually feel like I learned a lot each time.   During the carpool people also generally discussed their projects, which provided me with valuable insight into other areas of the company – a very cool thing especially if you had no clue one area could have been so much fun or another so boring.
INTERNSHIP PROJECT DETAILS: Well, I think that about sums up the social aspects of my internship and now I will move on to my responsibilities.  While I will not discuss my project in much detail, I would say that I received an impressive amount of responsibility from my team and the test was significant and impacted the overall SQL Server product.    The entire team was very open and receptive to me. They worked hard to ramp me up and help me understand the business.  I learned a ton during the summer regarding product management, specifically about positioning and messaging.   
WORK LIFE BALANCE: My days usually lasted from 8:15am to 6pm, but I did at times do a bit of work from home or on weekends. This was however my decision and not something that I felt obligated to do.  The work life balance within my group also seemed to be good.  The flexibility was impressive – as some came in at 7, while others at 10.  Everyone was pretty much gone by 7pm, though judging by email threads, some continued to work from home into the evening.   
WEATHER: The weather was hit and miss this summer, as it started off quite cold, but then became gorgeous in July, only to become a bit more cloudy towards end of July and be amazing in the last few weeks of August.   I heard the winters can be rough, but I also heard that September is the truly amazing time to be there.   As far as rain, well the kind of rain that Seattle gets doesn’t seem to compare to east coast as far as intensity, but it definitely drizzles more often.  

Posted by Eugene B at 11:42am
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My sunny summer days at Google…

August 29, 2007

So I too, like 20 or so other Wharton students (actually, no one really knows the exact count), was an intern at Google in Mountain View, CA this summer.  Unlike Igor (see blog below this one) who worked in the NASO part of the Sales organization which manages Google’s largest advertisers i.e. Fortune 1000 clients, most of us were hired into the Online Sales and Operations (OSO) group which basically manages the rest of Google’s client base (a.k.a. the “long tail”).  Since Igor provided such a thorough summary of a day-in-the-life of an intern, I’ll shed some light on how our OSO summer program was structured and what my own project involved.

This year was the first time that OSO offered a formally structured MBA summer program, hiring over 70 students from top schools including Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern, Kellogg, Columbia, etc.  Most of us stayed for 10-12 weeks and were offered the choice of three different start dates depending on when we finished our school terms or if we had pre/post internship travel plans.  Because of the short duration of the internship, we were all assigned internal consulting projects that addressed current business problems OSO faced.  Although this was not reflective of the people management aspects of the full-time OSO Manager position, it was a great way for us to get immersed into the Google culture and observe what the full time role is like.  To guide us on our projects, we were each assigned a ‘host manager’ from the different functional and product divisions within OSO such as AdWords, AdSense, Consumer Operations, Checkout, YouTube, OSO Engineering, etc. 

I worked in the Consumer Operations (ConOps) division this summer which is responsible for providing support to all the users of Google’s 35+ consumer products like Search, Gmail, Maps, Earth, News, Toolbar, Apps, etc.  My project involved looking at the division from a high-level organizational perspective (as opposed to digging deeper into product-specific issues), identifying the key business and structural challenges it faced and recommending an action plan for addressing these challenges.  I also helped with developing a training program for new managers and worked with a few other ConOps interns on figuring out a global resource allocation model.

However, it was definitely not all work this summer - the MBA recruiting team did a great job of organizing social events for us including baseball games, boat cruises, cooking classes, winery trips, etc.  All this, in addition to the usual perks at Google (food, food and more food), made for a very fun and rewarding summer! 

Posted by elfreda at 1:57pm
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A day in my life at Google (Sales Operations)

August 24, 2007

Here is what my typical day (if there is such a thing) at Google looked like:

6:45am: Wake up, shower, get dressed, walk 4 blocks down one San Francisco hill and 4 blocks up another to get to the Google shuttle stop

7:25am: Get on the Google shuttle. For the next hour I have a few choices: work in semi-comfortable position, take a well-deserved nap, or read. I usually do some combination of all three.

8:30am: Finally arrive on the Google campus in Mountain View. The temperature is at least 10 degrees warmer than in San Francisco, and it’s definitely sunnier as well.

8:30am-9:00am: I check my e-mail, prepare for my upcoming meetings, and catch up with my officemates. I share a small office with two colleagues and a cute little dog. My officemates are a Strategic Partner Manager and a Technical Account Manager, both responsible for helping launch large merchants that have signed with Google Checkout.

9:00am: Breakfast time. Breakfast is usually a quick affair, just some fruit and yogurt. I usually get a chance to catch up with Justin and Jace, the two other MBA interns in my group. It’s difficult to resist the gourmet breakfast options of omelets, sausages, and pancakes, but I am trying to be good this summer.

9:00am-12:00pm: Time for morning meetings. I try to schedule at least 2-3 meetings for this time every morning. I have 3 projects this summer. The one that takes up more than half of my time is analyzing the sales processes for Google Checkout. My goal is to identify process gaps and inconsistencies across different sales teams, and implement and document changes. Because Google Checkout is still very much a startup product, sales teams are running at a 1000 mph, without much time to think about creating efficient, scalable processes. So, most mornings I try to focus on this project, scheduling meetings with impacted groups and then taking some time in the afternoon to develop my analysis.

12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch. Anything you might have heard about Google food is true — the food is amazing and the choices are almost unlimited with 15 (or is it 16 now?) different cafe options on campus. My favorite place is the No Name Cafe. It’s on the main campus, a short walk from my building. I usually try to schedule lunch with someone, either with one of my colleagues in Checkout or with people throughout the company.

1:00pm-2:00pm Team meeting with Strategic Partner Managers (post-sales) team. After around the horn of top issues for each manager, we do a deep dive on the marketing plan for the new Google Checkout iGadget. Marketing team is visiting for this discussion to give a quick presentation on the new gadget, and solicit input from the team. After a quick discussion, a few decisions are made, and the gadget is scheduled to be launched in only 2 weeks. In the next couple weeks, we may discover a few holes in those decisions and revise them, but for now, the decisions are made. Everyone brings their laptop to meetings at Google, so it’s also a good time to catch up on some e-mail, because my GoogleMail inbox gets full really quickly here.

2:00pm-3:00pm Meeting for my other project. My second project is to analyze the mobile marketplace and to recommend a Google Checkout mobile strategy in the US. I am gathering information for this project from three different types of sources: web research, conversations with mobile experts at Google, and interviews with current and potential Google partners.

3:00pm-3:30pm Meeting with my manager, Sales Operations Manager for Google Checkout. Her role is to work with Sales director on anything and everything that he needs done: from developing sales strategy, to preparing executive briefings presentations, to dealing with HR issues. I meet with my manager at least once a week, sometimes more, depending on what is going on with my projects. Meetings with her are very informal and she usually leaves the agenda for these meetings up to me. I asked her for some feedback on my presentation in the last meeting, and so today is the day to review my progress and get direction on my process analysis. She has been a fantastic manager – pushed me hard and provided meaningful and insightful feedback.

3:30pm-4:30pm: Mid-afternoon slowdown and catchup. Between a ton of e-mails in my inbox, interesting conversations with my officemates, going to get frozen yogurt at a downstairs cafe, and catching up with other interns I spend my time on things other than work. This is also the time to go to leadership lectures and other events on campus. Catch up with another intern as we walk over to the John Edwards talk together.

4:30pm-7:00pm Productivity time. Feeling that I am falling behind in at least one of my projects, and refreshed after the previous hour, I get down to building presentations and Visio diagrams. At any given time, I have at least 2-3 presentations in play, and I usually use the afternoons to develop them. It’s also the time when things slow down a bit at the office, no more meetings, and people are beginning to head out. A good time to do some heads-down work.

7:00pm Time to call my wife in Philly. Being on different coasts for the summer isn’t easy, but having a daily call at roughly the same time helps create some semblance of normalcy.

7:30pm-8:30pm: Workout. The Google gym gets very crowded around 5-6 pm, but by 7:30 in the evening it’s usually not as busy. I usually see at least a few other interns here. Good to get a workout in after a full day of work.

8:30pm-9:30pm: Grab dinner to go from one of the Google cafes and head on the bus home. Dinner is not as exciting as lunch, but it’s free food and I can eat it while making my way home. I try not to work on the bus home, and usually just watch a DVD on my laptop.

9:30pm-sleep: Hang out with my roommate, watch a bit of TV, make plans for the weekend, play poker, read, relax. Not much time to actually enjoy San Francisco during the week, but it’s nice to have at least an hour or two to relax at home.

Posted by igorl at 9:34am
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Google: a buy, not build company?

October 08, 2006

All the net’s atwitter with news of the as-yet unconfirmed Google acquisition of online video leader Youtube. Even if the whole thing falls apart (or never existed) it’s interesting that most are finding it plausible, at the least.

Does our collective willingness to believe that this deal makes sense hint at a sea-change in perception of Google? Several years ago, when the company’s future was so bright Messrs. Page and Brin wore shades, few of us would have imagined that the company’s efforts to dominate markets it entered would fail to take in the way that Google Video has.

Perhaps the deal signals a new realisation that even a company that hires, feeds, and handsomely remunerates some of the most brilliant software developers can’t possibly dominate every market it enters, even if it tells those developers to spend 20% of their workday goofing off. The market (comprised of thousands of firms and tens of thousands of innovators) will always outsmart a single company over the long run.

Posted by Vladimir Cole at 6:36pm
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A technology-safety paradox

October 07, 2006

We tend to assume that navigation systems, autopilot systems, and other technical advances make travel safer. The net effect is that they probably do.

But there are instances in which they might make us less safe. Philip Greenspun faults aviation technology for the recent mid-air collision of two jets at 37,000 feet, noting that autopilot programs put planes on inevitable collision courses.

He writes, “If you replaced the precise autopilots with imprecise humans, planes would be less likely to encounter one another.”

In the aftermath of this collision, are pilots wresting back control of their planes?

Posted by Vladimir Cole at 1:57pm
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Wharton tech blog, resuscitated

October 02, 2006

Sorry about the hiatus. No excuses for it. We’ve got some new students who want to write for the blog and who soon will begin posting. If you happen to be a student or alum of the University of Pennsylvania interested in blogging about the intersection of business and technology, drop me a line.  

Posted by Vladimir Cole at 9:19pm
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Flexible Fuel Technology and Consumer Savings

April 24, 2006

In light of recent gas pump sticker shocks, alternative fuel technologies are gaining in prominence. Toyota has hit the ball out of park with Prius hybrids and most of US manufacturers are announcing flexible fuel vehicles that can run on fuel containing 85% of ethanol (aka E85 formulation).

In general this is a good news for the environment, but in the short run, the brunt of the cost seems to fall on the consumer. Recently I have contemplated purchase of a new car, and as a part of decision making process I have traded off the variants of vehicles with conventional technology, hybrid technology and E85 flexible technology. Hybrids generally carry the price premium and with (my) average 5-year mileage become price compelling choice at average gas prices of $3.25. Your break-even may vary based on number of miles and highway/city mix. So, looking at future of high gas prices, this is a price compelling variant. Hey, and it makes me feel good that I am doing something to reduce the carbon emissions (even though I am a Terrapass member and hence drive emission-neutral vehicles).

E85 solution seems not nearly as price compelling. Flexible fuel vehicles are comparably priced to those running on regular gas. While E85 is generally lower priced than regular gasoline, it packs lower amount of energy per unit volume, so car consumption goes up by about 30%. Recent survey of Illinois gas stations (only Mid-Western states seem to publish E85 price survey data - if you know of a national price database, let me know) reveals that price discount for E85 relative to regular gas is only 11.5%. So, at $3.00 regular price, you’d be paying about $2.67 for E85. But, if you get 20 miles out of a gallon of regular gas, you’d get only about 14 out of E85. Thus E85 effective price per gallon is actually 26% higher than that of regular gas. In terms of carbon pollution, you can claim that you are releasing only 15% of new emissions (if you assume 100% of E85 emissions come from previously released carbon emissions captured by plants).

Posted by info at 7:52pm
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Google your brand

April 16, 2006

By eschewing conventional banner ads and flashy, er, Flash campaigns, Google has historically trailed Yahoo! in catering to the needs of traditional advertisers looking to increase brand awareness or improve positioning.

However, it looks like that is about to change.

Google’s personalized homepage offers a new module promoting the upcoming “The Da Vinci Code” movie that is part brainteaser, part contest, and all advertising.
It cleverly ties into Google’s history of creative recruiting, and it manages to promote both Google and the movie at the same time. I think we can expect to see more types of this opt-in branding from Google in the coming months.

At least it’s better having Pontiac co-opt your brand…

Posted by info at 2:11pm
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Is $0.99 music download expensive?

February 25, 2006

Recently I stumbled on a rant by a self proclaimed digital enthusiast and real-life investment professional that goes by web alias Thomas Hawk.  Mr. Hawk was particularly taken by the announcement that the iTunes Music Store (ITMS) sold over one billion legal downloads, and proclaims that everybody that buys music from the ITMS is a sucker (his words not mine) because they are locking themselves in to the Apple’s proprietary DRM format.

Brushing aside Mr. Hawk’s misconceptions such as:

  • Crystal clear MP3 (dude have you heard of lossless encoding?)
  • Legality of buy a CD, rip-it, return it scheme he proposes
  • Apple’s DRM is awful (again, his words not mine - obviously Mr. Hawk is not aware that Apple licenses DRM in use on ITMS, thus it’s not Apple’s strictly speaking.  Also, awful is an interesting way to describe a relatively seamless technology without any other relevant benchmark)

This piece prompted me to think about one real question: What is the price I am actually willing to pay for a song?  To make things simple I consider only two variants: buying a song through ITMS or by going to a physical store, buying a CD, and then ripping it to a digital file or doing whatever else I want.  I have covered some music subscription service issues in this blog about one year ago.

We know what the first alternative gives us: You pay $0.99 for a song, it’s in 128kbps AAC (aka advanced audio coding - a part of mpeg4 format with quality roughly equivalent of 160kbps mp3). You can burn it as many times as you want, you can transfer it to up to 5 computers, listen it on as many iPods as you want. Sorry other players are not supported, but really - who cares?

On the other hand if I go to a store to buy a CD, in addition to the price of the CD I actually have to pay cost of my time, because I really can’t use it to do something else (like spend an afternoon in the park with my son). So what’s the time commitment:

  • 55 minutes to go to the store, find/select a CD, check out, come home
  • 5 minutes to rip the CD

OK, so if I am an average American and I make about $39K (2002 census data adjusted by 1.5% average annual real wage growth in last 4 years), which means that one hour I spent purchasing a CD just cost me about $19.5 in lost wages. (And I am not even going to go into how much I value my free time but it’s definitely more than $19.5).  Those of you with higher wages, go ahead, make the adjustment: the end numbers are actually going to be really funny.

In addition to the cost of my time, let’s say that I am an average American living about 10 miles from the mall driving an average efficient car that gives me 20mpg.  Thus, I’ll consume about 1 gallon of gas during this trip costing me about $3. (I don’t have an exact statistics on this, but if you are going to beat up $3 number, remember that you are paying for a car usage, insurance, etc, and that your alternative is to take a bus or a train - if there are any - in which case you will be paying about the same).

So for an average American total looks like $22.5 plus the cost of the CD. 

BUT!, you say,  I am not going to the store to do only this, I am running a bunch of errands. OK, fine. Average mall store purchase is about $90 according to ICSC research, so if an average retail cost of a CD is $12 (don’t have a precise statistics for this, but I seem to remember RIAA claimed some such number recently), then my percentage of total spending allocated overhead to purchase this CD is $3 ($12/$90 x $22.5 = $3), on top of which I need to carry the cost of the CD

Masterpieces excluded, there’s only between 1 and 3 good songs on an album, so (optimistically) I am paying a dollar to purchase the CD in the store, plus 1/3 of the sales price.  If we use the average CD price (my CDs somehow always end up being much more expensive than average, but hey, at least I am not average in something), the total per song is $5.

Is paying $4 differential for being locked into the Apples "awful" DRM a lot?  I guess it depends. This back-of-the-envelope analysis suggests that the likely outcomes for DRMd music industry behavior are:

  • Random hit songs, and experimental music (where longevity and flexibility is not an issue) will be purchased via ITMS (or alike)
  • Masterpieces that have a long-term value will be purchased in a more durable format which is flexible and allows higher fidelity and portability.

And what if a brand new format comes along in 3-10 years?  Well, heck, I just might spend that $1 to purchase the song again. At least I am not investing $4 in an non-interest bearing account at RIAA bank!

Posted by info at 10:57pm
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What to do when your products become commodities?

February 23, 2006

Wtclogo_2006_hires_1At Wharton Technology Conference, Matt Espe, CEO of IKON Office solutions will shed some light to IKON’s transformation from technology provider to business partner.

Matthew J. Espe
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
IKON Office Solutions

In today’s digital economy, innovative technology is your ticket into the ballpark. To win the game, businesses must move from a technology-vendor model to strategic business partner approach — assessing companies’ needs, and applying the right mix of leading technology and value-added services to effectively meet those needs, and drive efficiency throughout the enterprise. Join IKON Chairman and CEO Matthew Espe as he discusses IKON’s transformation from a commodity hardware vendor to a solutions and services business. Espe will discuss the importance of cultivating a partnership with customers, versus simply selling technology, and the critical role services play in this approach.

Posted by info at 11:49am
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