Who's who of Google hires

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"The main reason for me to leave is that eBay does not absorb innovation at the pace I enjoy, and its focus is narrower than Google," Monier told blogger John Battelle, author of "The Search," a book about the search giant. "And frankly, I'm dying to peek under the hood and see the infrastructure they have created. For someone like me, it's the ultimate Christmas toy."

After nearly a year without a head of public relations, Google finally hired one in October 2005. In classic "think big" fashion, it hired Elliot Schrage, formerly Bernard L. Schwarz senior fellow in business and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The company also has keyed into top university talent. In December, Google hired Andrew W. Moore, a professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, to be head of Google's new Pittsburgh engineering office.

And in May 2005, Google hired Alan Davidson, former associate director for advocacy group Center for Democracy & Technology, to handle its government relations in Washington, D.C.

Several noteworthy international hires were Nikesh Arora, formerly chief marketing officer at T-Mobile, as vice president of European operations in November 2004, and Jimmy Chou, former president of China operations for UTStarcom, as sales and business development for greater China in October 2005.

In addition, the company has hired plenty of open-source engineers, including Sean Egan, lead developer of the GAIM instant-messaging application, who was hired in October 2005 to work on making Google Talk interoperable with other chat software; Ben Goodger, a lead engineer on Mozilla's Firefox browser, hired in January 2005; and Brian Ryner, another Mozilla software developer, hired in March 2005. Another noteworthy hire was Guido van Rossum, author of the Python programming language, who was hired in December 2005.

That's not to mention executives and employees who come from companies Google acquires, like former Apple hardware designer Andy Rubin, whose mobile start-up Android was purchased last year. Rubin also co-founded Danger, the maker of the Sidekick smart phone which Google co-founders Brin and Page were fond of.

While Google easily recruits high-profile executives, scientists and engineers, it puts most employees through a rigorous, multi-interview hiring process that can take months.

"It is hard to get in there unless you are a luminary and then they bring you right in," said Gary Stein, director of client services at consumer research and consulting firm BuzzMetrics.

"Interestingly," Sullivan added, "I think they're still trying to find a (chief) cook."

[SqlserverCode]

Do you want to work for Google?

Do you want to work for Google?

Could you answer these questions?

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-interview-questions-they-are.html" target="_newWindow">http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-interview-questions-they-are.html</a>

[bit-looter]

too much of a good thing..

Microsoft used to hire in a similar fashion look at the mess windows is. Some times when windows break you can actually notice that someone simply neglected to do their job. One thing about big companies is that no matter how exciting they may seem, at the personal level your job is going to be fairly mundane. Alot of these people think they're going on a joy ride until they find themselfs writing code to make uploaded files save to the right directory, there is no excitement in that. Most of these people are clearly looking for challenge I don't think there is enough challenge to satisfy each of them, that is when we will start seeing crappy products from google.

[Cyrus_K]

Message has been deleted.

[nazzdeq]

Not that smart...

Google was started by Brin &#38; Page, not all of those VPs and
"smart" people from other companies. Those smart people
weren't really doing much anyway. Let's see:

Bosworth-BEA Architect - have you seen the mess that is
Weblogic?
Brilliant - well.com - ok, who ever used the well?
Cerf - what have you done for me lately?
Davidson - govt relations? hmm, not doing too well it seems.
Egan - Google Talk? Crappiest chat program out there.
Hertzfeld - worked on original mac team. Has been.
Lee - Google China - not much left after the censoring.
Lucovsky - MS architect - we all know what a mess windows is.
Manber - chief of amazon A9 - nobody uses that.
Monier - Alta Vista guy - got lunch eaten by Google already.
Moore - prof. of robotics. - distraction for Google.
Schrage - con. of foreign rel. - Google's not doing well in
relations dept.

Add up the salaries of these guys and I seriously doubt you will
get a positive ROI. You just get publicity that you're hiring a
bunch of smart people.

What value or advantages has Google gained by hiring these
people? Not much.

[t8]

Wrong assumption

Most of what you have pointed out shows genious mixed with a lack of management or opportunity. Google already has plenty of opportunity, and if they can manage well, which they appear to be doing, then the sky is the limit. All those smart people under one roof coupled with good manangement would make any company fearful, including Microsoft it seems.

The sky is the limit for Google and they are on a roll. They just need to figure out how to keep the momentum going. If they can do that, they will travel far and change the Internet landscape forever.

Google sees the value of the Internet probably more than any other company out there. Unlike Microsoft, they don't have a conflict of interest or to put it another way, a non-Internet product to protect.

They can innovate on the Internet as much as they like and according to their budget and vision, which they have plenty of.

I say good on them and I look forward to seeing their future offerings.

[neonorm]

New OS

"... some observers ... feverishly speculate that Google is developing an operating system that would compete with Microsoft."

Google is definitly in a position to make such a move given enough time. But would google be able to live up to their motto of "Do no evil"? I sincerly doubt it, but I would still like to see them try. Google has been steadily pushing valuable and popular new tools. They have come up with some really great ideas, and bad ones. MS needs new ideas, not rehashed versions of ideas older then me. Google can deliver new ideas, but can they do so in a full OS? I hope that Google puts competition back into the consumer OS market, or at least prompts MS to get their act together!

Note: I realize that Everest-size problem that this would be considering how total and complete the MS OS monopoly is, but one can dream!

[jimmy230984798]

I wonder...

I wonder how many Chinese nationals they have working for them, and how many of those employees love it that they're working for their government while working for a major US corporation at the same time. Shame on google for being evil in how they've blocked so many websites from spreading the concepts of freedom and liberty to those who have none.

Cheap Slave Labor

Google has hired H1-B workers in the past, and is
likely continuing to do so. I wonder if they are
getting the same stock option package and salary
as the big-name hires.

More likely, the H1-Bs at Google are being used
as subroutine coders, kind of like a cross between
The Matrix and that big row-boat in the Hercules
movies. Don't be Evil?

I suspect that the big-name hires are, at least
in part, being used as fig leaves.

Cheap Slave Labor II

On 9/6/2005, Google hired an H1-B Software Engineer
for a salary of $56202. This is a violation of
US immigration law, in that the prevailing wage
for such a job is around $92000.
(case I-05249-2022795)

On 08/29/2005, Google hired an H1-B Network
Reliability Engineer for a salary of $62000.
The Department of Labor prevailing wage database
does not have such a title, but I suspect that
this person would be making about 30% more, if
they had a green card.

On 02/07/2005, Google hired a Network Engineer
for a salary of $65000. This is also a violation
of US immigration law.
(case I-05038-1540433)

Between October 2004 and September 2005, Google
hired 260 H1-B workers.

Don't be Evil, Indeed.

[geo11101]

Eric Schmidt is the biggest Mafia puppet in the US. He is bad news for apple users. http://endmafia.com