Reverse Engineering Google's Innovation Machine - HBR.org

"Even among internet companies, Google stands out as an enterprise designed with the explicit goal of succeeding at rapid, profuse innovation. Much of what the company does is rooted in its legendary IT infrastructure, but technology and strategy at Google are inseparable and mutually permeable—making it hard to say whether technology is the DNA of its strategy or the other way around. Whichever it is, Iyer and Davenport, of Babson College, believe Google may well be the internet-era heir to such companies as General Electric and IBM as an exemplar of management practice."