Google's Internal Competition

George P. Alexander Jr. writes in his blog about a different perspective on life at Googleplex:

"Do you know that there is so much internal competition in Google? For instance, there are some situations when a project is set to start its life cycle, that there is, on a parallel other teams that work on the same project (and if I'm right, sometimes the identity of the opposing team members or even this aspect of parallel teams existing for a project is not revealed until a later time in the SDLC). The final product that gets released belongs to the team that comes with the best proof of concept AND / OR the best design AND / OR the best pilot AND / OR the best final product AND / OR the best something else based on various parameters."

It seems that Google uses both competition and collaboration to deliver great products, but it's weird to work at Google as an undercover programmer.

Related:
Inside Google Campus
Xooglers (ex-Googlers )
Google Office