Perhaps a few more mails at Microsoft, but there are a few other notable differences that I’ve observed.

At Microsoft, important decisions often started with a lengthy email that would start a discussion that in turn would eventually graduate into a meeting to try and resolve differences. And this might itself lead to the creation of a PowerPoint presentation somewhere along the line.

At Google, lengthy emails are comparatively rare, perhaps because the Gmail editor is relatively weak. Instead, it’s the norm to create a short document that outlines a problem and potential solutions, and then people will iterate in the document with comments and proposed revisions. It’s more common to come to consensus without needing a meeting in my experience.

It’s interesting how the tools drive the process: and ironically how the (better and more powerful) Word-based mail editing experience in Outlook can lead to more mails and more meetings!