Google Execs Spill Secrets in Illustrated Guide

— -- Some of the Google's top brass are letting everyone in on the secrets of what makes the the search giant so successful.

Eric Schmidt, the company's former CEO who is now executive chairman, and Jonathan Rosenberg, an adviser to the current CEO Larry Page, opened up about the biggest lessons they learned in their new book, "How Google Works."

If you were more of a Cliff's Notes person, you're in luck. The duo released an illustrated slideshow today highlighting the key principles of their book.

Here are some of the biggest secrets the duo had to share about how they helped make Google work.

Slow doesn't work.

Hire amazing people who can do amazing things fast.

"These are product folks who combine technical knowledge, business expertise and creativity."

Individuals and small teams can have a huge impact.

"They can create new ideas, experiment, fail, and try again, and get their success to a global market," Schmidt and Rosenberg write.

Case in point: The infamous Google X lab, where some of the company's most forward-thinking projects have been born, including Project Ara, the modular smartphone, and the self-driving car.

Don't just invest in those people -- listen to them.

"Listen to the lab coats and not the suits, and get the lab coats to produce prototypes, not slideware," Schmidt and Rosenberg write.

Perhaps the biggest tenet embraced by Google:

Ideas come from anywhere! That includes the amazing, the mediocre and the terrible. You never know until you try.