Two things. First, it seems that the HC has thus far been doing a pretty good job selecting candidates. People seem very happy with how Google is doing overall, and it's widely thought that the engineers there are on the whole fairly good at their jobs. Maybe things would be better if decisions could be made by individuals throughout the company. But it also seems like this could lead to more bad apples, and eventually to organizations full of them, like the MSN org at Microsoft. Being on a committee makes it psychologically easier to reject candidates, which is probably a desired effect.
Also, who do you propose might make the decision if not a committee? Managers certainly can't be allowed to, at least not unilaterally, because they have all kinds of conflicts of interest that might encourage them to hire subpar people.
I don't think "committees are universally bad" is a widely held view. For example, almost all companies are led, ultimately, by a committee (a board). They have their uses. Maybe hiring is one of them.
Now, about cult followings. One of the guys in that story, Bogdan, is famous for terse denials of various sorts of requests that might be sent his way (e.g. for more bandwidth, for a certain service in a datacenter, etc.). This was true to the extent that for a long time googlers on the kernel team maintained an extension at /proc/bogdan. When cat'd, it would print things like:
I don't think "committees are universally bad" is a widely held view. For example, almost all companies are led, ultimately, by a committee (a board). They have their uses. Maybe hiring is one of them.
False. The board has the power to fire the CEO. They do not have the power to "lead" the company.
The executive board is led by a single person (the CEO) and that one person makes all the ultimate decisions, except for those which he delegates to his or her executive team.
Committees are pretty much universally bad. Their main purpose is diffusion of responsibility and inflation of work. I'm not saying this specific committee didn't work - there are always exceptions - but most committees are disastrously bad at getting anything done.
Committees are good for one thing: making sure that risky decisions aren't made. In some cases that can be good - for example, in some cases (eg: safety committees) risky == bad.
Note: Obviously, in some cases risky == good, too
Note 2: Group-think (eg, bay-of-pigs) is a counter example.
This Bogdan guy sounds a lot like Paul the Prophet: "I remember a guy who worked as a mainframe tech for a bank back in the late '60s who went by the name "Paul the Prophet," and had a dyed-green mustache. He was the only employee of that bank other than janitors and loading dock people who didn't wear a tie to work, but he had unique skills his bosses needed, so they put up with him."
Also, who do you propose might make the decision if not a committee? Managers certainly can't be allowed to, at least not unilaterally, because they have all kinds of conflicts of interest that might encourage them to hire subpar people.
I don't think "committees are universally bad" is a widely held view. For example, almost all companies are led, ultimately, by a committee (a board). They have their uses. Maybe hiring is one of them.
Now, about cult followings. One of the guys in that story, Bogdan, is famous for terse denials of various sorts of requests that might be sent his way (e.g. for more bandwidth, for a certain service in a datacenter, etc.). This was true to the extent that for a long time googlers on the kernel team maintained an extension at /proc/bogdan. When cat'd, it would print things like: