*Become indispensable in a role where you are directly responsible for driving billions of dollars in revenue.

I think Seth Godin's book Linchpin talks about this - but I've only skimmed it.

Step 1: Become an executive

Step 1 is to be really fucking good at your job, whatever that job is. Ideally that job would be in a unit that is directly responsible for driving revenue growth. That will probably lead to you becoming an executive at some point, but that would be a symptom of your success, a necessary evil, not the starting point.

Especially in a company like Google, which has a cultural disdain for empty suits, if your goal is to "become an executive" you'd never find yourself in his position.

I've been really good at my job, and never became an executive. I think there's more to it than that.