bo
oks (^) i
n (^) b
rie
f
151
economist Vilfredo Pareto, has traditionally been used to
describe economic phenomena. Irwin defines Pareto op-
timality as “a state in which you cannot improve things
on one frontier without making them worse on another
frontier.” Irwin explains this in an especially charming
way, with reference to the claim of the great essayist A.J.
Liebling that he wrote faster than anyone who wrote bet-
ter, and better than anyone who wrote faster. The point
here is that Liebling didn’t have to be the best writer or the
fastest — he just had to occupy a point on the continuum
of expertise where his overall value was maximized.
This kind of mix of abilities is in fact a hallmark of what we have come to
think of as the Silicon Valley way. Go to the offices of a venture capital firm, for
instance, and you will find that most of the partners have a degree in a technical
field — often computer science or electrical engineering — combined with operat-
ing experience, leavened with a bunch of interpersonal skills acquired along the
way. So the question for Irwin becomes essentially how do you become such a
Pareto-optimized manager, able to glue different parts of an organization together?
The answer, very roughly, is by sampling, and often by failing. Irwin brings
on stage a number of appealing characters, and the reader winds up cheering for
them as they stumble through career quandaries, winding up on the right path
only through trial and much error. When Daniel Eckert, a former marine logis-
tics expert cast adrift in the civilian world with little to offer but a thorough
knowledge of the C-130 military transport plane, finally starts finding his foot-
ing working in bank transaction processing, you breathe a sigh of relief. In Irwin’s
telling, it’s this process of experimentation and even confusion that creates the
abilities that are truly prized in a world of permanent reorganization. In essence,
it’s your way out of being just a cog in the corporate machine.
There is, however, a certain amount of inherent tension in this story, and to his
credit Irwin recognizes it. He notes how Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google,
believed that in its adolescence Google hired too many “glue people,” who sat be-
tween departments and slowed down the processes they were supposed to speed up.
(It’s a story that Schmidt still tells often.) This is something of a puzzle for Irwin,