I find this revelation interesting as I know people who work at Google and apparently management are extremely anal when it comes to minimalistic design. Top culprit: Marissa Mayer. It is good that they allowed him to do whatever he wants because playing around with Google+, I do really like the UI.

I wonder how many startups allow their designers to have free rein over their product.

I always try to come ot the table with ideas, but I encourage my designers to overrule me on design decisions. We'll roll something in to our product and at least try it. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and we end up re-working something. I always resist the urge to pull an "I told you so". I find that designers are far more willing to compromise on revisions driven by user needs when you give them ownership over the process.

FWIW, Marissa Mayer is now VP of Location and Local, so she has no direct line over Google+.

I know Andy from folklore.org stories - that was great.