"If I were to be hiring, I'd follow Amazon's method and hire ex-Amazonians over Google's, by a significant margin," says Russell. "Not that Googlers are bad, just that I'd prefer Amazonians."

"But if I were to be selecting a place to work, I'd choose to work at Google over Amazon," continues Russell, "because it's a much nicer place to work."

Management Structure 
Russell describes Google as a "centralized command-and-control product and engineering organization," with a "parallel yet somewhat independent business/sales organization."

"Google is led by engineers or product people--at least, that's their focus--and sales serve their needs to monetize the products."

Amazon's structure, on the other hand, is driven by business need.

"Leaders aren't necessarily engineers, product, or salespeople," explains Russell. "Yet because they dive deep into the technology, they understand the technology too."

According to Russell, Google can get big changes done faster when they're decided from on high because the technology is consciously organized and there's usually one person doing each thing, with not much overlap, and it's relatively easy to navigate.

"But Google is much less agile when it comes to responding to changes in markets or learnings, as decisions are centralized and made further up the chain of command," Russell continues. "In a sense, Google operates like a giant government with central planning."

In contrast, Amazon can get small changes done much faster, as decision-making is pushed downwards as far as it can go.

"But this can lead to duplication," says Russell. "And major centralized changes take a long time to get done as so many people need to take action--and it's also difficult to mandate. In a sense, Amazon operates like a capitalist economy with no central planning."

Russell says the respective management structures also affect how both companies set goals.
Google universally uses "Objectives and Key Results" (OKRs), a goal-setting framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes, because it's relatively easy to see what each team is working on. 

Amazon's goals process is relatively well-developed, but not nearly as structured or transparent as Google's.
"Amazon's goal setting process is much harder to navigate and coordinate. They would benefit from adopting OKRs widely, especially when it comes to transparency."

From Russell's perspective, Amazon's management style and processes are often more transferrable to other companies that Google's, because that style is more systematic and structured, and the processes more mature. Not to mention that few companies can match Google's high profit margins.

"Take innovation, for example," says Russell. "Amazon is very disciplined and thorough when coming up with new ideas, while Google just tries things out and hopes they work. Google can afford to do that, and it works out overall--but Google's approach is not transferrable without Google's margins, while Amazon's approach works for every company."