Microsoft and Apple are renowned for screaming at their engineers. Both companies, along with Facebook, have been in survival mode since their inception. About 90% of Silicon Valley and it's sister locations are in a fearful and angry mode, suing at the drop of a hat.
This kind of urgency is dangerous for the uninitiated. New manufacturing facilities in nations with workers eager to please, pressed into fast updates, strict manufacturing schedules, and ever increasing cost cutting, coupled with a deep sense of fear coming from recent experiences of devastating poverty, commit rookie mistakes that cause tragic accidents of monumental per-portions and a suicide rate that takes your breath away.
I understand the survival mode. I've been there, job on the line, competition nipping at your heels, companies you know being snuffed out of existence. Fortunately I had the counsel of parents who came from the same background and gave me an example of how to have fun at work.
Business is dominated by male straight line thinking. Keeping the customer happy by making a quality product, in an efficient manner (cheap), safety, communications, all pile in to make business a not so fun place to work.
Every so often a business comes along that masters these basics so well that they can work on making work fun. This in turn reduces turnover, improves company moral and attendance and focus that it allow them to make more money, and allows them to tweak the workplace in such a way that it becomes even more fun which makes it more efficient and so on.
Google is such a business. Improvement and change is not a panic stricken tedious chore but joyous fun.
That's why fun is dangerous. Not for Google or their employees. Fun is dangerous for Google's competitors.
Most tech companies are wolverines. Lonely survivalists that are smart but cutthroat.
Google is a family of otters. They swim in the code that drowns their competitors. They chase enough fish dollars to make themselves fat (all the better to float in the cold water of code) and nothing really is a threat to them.
Here's my summary: It's important to master the basics of your business. It's even better to master the basics so well you can have fun.
