An East Coast supermarket chain shows that a business can generously train its workforce and profit handsomely

One way Page tries to keep his finger on Google’s pulse is his insistence on signing off on every new hire—so far he’s vetted well over 30,000. For every candidate, he is given a compressed version of the lengthy packet created by the company’s hiring council, generated by custom software that allows Page to quickly scan the salient data. He gets a set every week and usually returns them with his approvals—or in some cases bounces—in three or four days. “It helps me to know what’s really going on,” he says.

Page has little patience for the bureaucracy that most large companies require. In 2007, he noticed that having an assistant made it easier for his coworkers to schedule meetings with him. “Most people aren’t willing to ask me if they want to meet with me,” he says. “They’re happy to ask an assistant.” That was an undesirable situation, Page says, “because my favorite meeting is the absence of meetings.” So one day, Brin and Page abruptly got rid of their assistants.