She applies artistic judgement combined with emotional labor. She makes the interfaces work and leads the people who get things done.
Marissa led the way in forcing Google's start page to be as spare as it is. She counts the number of words on that page and fights to keep the number as low as possible.
Google works because the interface between the engineers and what the public wants and needs is so tight. Someone at Google has figured out how to help the company solve our problems (ones we didn't even know we had). Marissa is often in the position of being that interface.
She didn't get assigned to those jobs. She just did them.
If you could write Marissa's duties into a manual, you wouldn't need her. But the minute you wrote it down, it wouldn't be accurate anyway. That's the key. She solves problems that people haven't predicted, sees things people haven't seen, and connects people who need to be connected."
