Brief
Google, an internet company and web-search system of the same name, was founded in 1998 by two graduates of Stanford University Sergey Brin and Larry Page. In 2004 the private company has turned into public. After 10 months since IPO Google with market capitalization of $80 billion became the most expensive media company in the world, competing not only with its direct rivals, but even with software leaders including Microsoft. During two years after IPO period Google has almost doubled its market capitalization and its stock has soared from $85 to a recent $483. The verb “to google” has become a synonym of “to search in Internet”.
Culture
The Google’s corporate culture has already become a legend about work paradise on Earth. Among a wide range of the Googlers’ perks is free food in company’s excellent cafeteria, free laundry, automobile oil-changes, car washing, gym, massage, etc. If you’re a googler, you can study Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and French, attend subsidized exercise classes, ask a personal concierge to arrange dinner reservations and even take your dog with you to work. Engineers are famously required to devote 20% of their time to pursuing projects they dream up that will help the company. Google News, Gmail, and the Google Finance site all emerged from that 20% time.
At the end of 2002 Google had nearly 700 employees. All of them - if they're still around - are now fully vested on their initial stock-option grants. Initially Google paid below-market salaries because leaders believed that the stock's upside was large. Lately company has begun paying salaries that are competitive with the rest of the tech market. Experienced engineers can expect to make about $130,000 a year and receive 800 options and 400 shares of restricted stock when they join. New MBAs can get between $80,000 and $120,000 and typically receive smaller option grants.
In 2007 Fortune named Google the “Best Company to Work For”. Its rivals say that when they are lucky to find an excellent professional, they certainly found that he or she has been already made a job offer by Google. Only during 2006 Google snapped up about 230 brilliant engineers. Recent additions include software superstars Louis Monier, director of eBay advanced technology research, and Kai-Fu Lee, a top-flight researcher at Microsoft.
At present time the number of Google’s employees is about 10000 and continuing to grow. 16 new people are hired every day and sometimes the company is lucky to make a job offer just after two interviews. But what is common for the old-residents and every newcomer is their readiness, ability and desire not to “write code”, “sell ads” or even ‘create ideas”, but to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Leadership
Another legend around Google is its founders – Stanford University graduates Sergey Brin and Larry Page. In 2004 each of them received salaries of $150 000. Having become billionaires after IPO in 2005 and 2006 they (and also company’s CEO Eric Schmidt) stated they would work for $1 per year salaries. So far Brin and Page are famous as “wrong billionaires”. They prefer unpretentious style of life centered on their work. They also don’t have fancy cars, choosing ecologically clear Toyota Prius equipped with hybrid engine. Interesting to notice, that one more perk for googlers is that if an employee wants to buy a hybrid car, the company will give him or her $5,000. During several first years Larry Page and Sergey Brin met with almost each successful candidate personally. Eyewitnesses say that Brin could come to an interview in roller skates or dressed as for a carnival.
The main principle the Google Guys are guided by in their leadership practice they described in the Letter from Google Founders, widely distributed before IPO: “Our employees, who have named themselves Googlers, are everything. Google is organized around the ability to attract and leverage the talent of exceptional technologists and business people. We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled and hard working stars. We hope to recruit many more in the future…Talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world... We are focused on providing an environment where talented, hard working people are rewarded for their contributions to Google and for making the world a better place”.
Background Links
Letter from Google Founders
«Why Is Microsoft Afraid of Google?», Wharton
Google is No. 1: Search and enjoy, Fortune
Revenge of the Nerds - Again, BusinessWeek
