Fast facts about GOOGLE Slide Show
Mar 7th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, GeneralBaseline Magazine
I did not know that both Brin and Page were sons of professors.
Which do you find most interesting?
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While they are all pretty interesting, I think the two that stood out for me are the Swedish Chef translator and estimated 1kJ per search.
I think it is really neat that google encourges employees to spend 20% of their time on projects they like. I’m sure they do it because of one of my favorite phrases- a happy worker, is a hard worker. Often times, especially in the software industry, people can loose focus but having a projec that they are invested in personally to work on in between other intiatives is a great way to re-energize that employee.
I think renting goats to mow grass is really interesting…The best thing that Google offers is 20% of the free time for employees to innovate. I think that really helped Google launch some great products and capture the market. I do not know why other companies cannot try something similar and give some time for employee innovation ?
I found this slide show to be very interesting. I had not been aware of much of this information. I found the fact that they rent goats to “mow” their lawn humorous. It would seem that they are much more “green” of a company than I had realized as well. Two free meals a day isn’t a bad deal. I have been told that Google is a great place to work, and I now see some of the why.
Some of the most interesting facts I gained from viewing this slideshow are: 1) Founder Larry Page invested in Tesla Motors. It will be interesting to see how involved Google will be as Tesla Motors tries to advance themselves further into the market. 2)Estimates that Google’s data center in the Dalles, Ore. Sucks up enough energy to power the city of Tacoma, Washington. Even though this company strives to be “green”, there is still a substantial amount of energy used to provide Google’s service. 3) Google’s company chef used to cook for the Grateful Dead and George Clinton. Not surprising that the Grateful Dead had such an acclaimed chef. Had to satisfy their cravings.
I think they are spot-on with the 20% innovation time. Sometimes there is a tendency to just put your head down and get your job done. The pressures of the day stifle creativity in many cases. Setting aside time to move beyond one’s daily duties to think outside the box (pardon the cliche) is valuable for keeping employees motivated. Of course,the breakthroughs that Google has credited to the policy aren’t so bad, either.
The goats, solar panels, and environmental support from google.org are nice ways to counteract the massive amounts of energy their servers use.
“Google encourages employees to spend 20% of their time on projects that strike their fancy.”
Wouldn’t that be nice for all companies to follow? It is so important for company morale and individuals to feel accomplished and noticed in their work place. Small things such as encouragement to work on something you want is enough for employees to feel appreciated. I feel that these types of “Facts” about Google is part of their growing success not only as a search engine but as a business.
Interesting slide show. Some of those I’ve seen before, most I have not. The most interesting:
#23 – The rooftop solar panels at Googleplex generate enough electricity to power 1,000 homes.
#24 – The data center in Dallas, Ore. sucks enough energy to power Tacoma, Wash. (a city of over 200,000 people!!)
#23 sounds great, but it doesn’t quite make up for #24. I do appreciate the leadership of Google taking an interest in the environment and how the company can positively impact it.
I am a big fan of Google disregarding the privacy issues that people rose against Google.
Too bad more companies can’t take a lesson from google. Does any employee have anything bad to say about working for google. I think they took a page out of Woodrow Wilson’s book when he had sheep mowing the White House lawn.
I appreciated the slideshow and I think it did a decent job of trying to summarize Google, who they are and some directions that they are headed.
Google has done a tremendous service to aggregating information and making it available to the common person with an Internet connection. I had quite a few comments on some of the items, but I see that most everyone picked up on the same ones! I especially appreciate that they allow 20% of the worker’s time to be ‘creative’. Given the years I have spent in IT, us geeks have a different type of personality. I think that is one of Google’s strengths; their ability to tap into that creativity.
Their “do no evil” mantra is always open for debate. The education I received in Library Sciences can understand why this motto is so needed and yet, there really is no way for Google to “do no evil” from the security side of my education. While it is important that they aggregate and store as much information as possible (such as their acquisition of deja… ah, the memories…), there is a tremendous responsibility that comes with this endeavor.
My bottom line is that I’m glad that Google has paved the way for this to happen. Arguably, this was to happen eventually and I’m glad that the Google geeks have shown to be leaders in this realm. What is often overlooked, is that there are numerous information aggregators out there. Google’s philosophy has been adopted as the forerunner in this arena and leaving much less benevolent innovators in the dust!
I was not surprised, but I found it interesting employees are encourage to spend 20% on projects they like. This level of autonomy has resulted in a great deal of innovation as company executives say half of new product launches were developed during this free time. I found it interesting that Google is into hybrid, electric cars and I will be watching to see how involved Google is in this market going forward.
Like others probably feel, I wish my organization employed the 20% creativity time approach. It’s interesting that many of Google’s breakthrough services and products stemmed from this creative time. These products and services have made Google stand out from their competition and add additional revenue streams for the organization.
One other way they stand out is that while they are acquiring companies for their technology, like what most of their competitors are doing, they also are heavily influeced by internally developed technologies.
One reason why I think that Google will remain the major player in search is the every day use their name gets in relation to their product. Most online users don’t say the need to “Bing” or “Yahoo” something. The addition of “Google” as a verb and it’s prevalent use in search terminology will help keep them ahead of competitors as that’s what people know and are familiar with.
My former debate partner, and John Hopkins alum, now works for Google in San Fransisco. I can say truthfully that the 20% is just the beginning. It seems that Google actively pushes its employees to be creative and express themselves much more than in other companies. Google also seems to be good at making fun and inviting work spaces that can aid in the creative and outside the box thinking. I think that such a philosophy would also benefit Google. If you create arguably one of the best working environments (along with good pay) you can also attract some of the best qualified people.
I’ve always enjoyed the “don’t be evil” motto. I followed the aforementioned link and read a bit more. I found it interesting that the referenced article suggested that don’t be evil means more don’t be (like) Microsoft. It goes on to say that it means that they should be customer-centric, act with more than profits in mind, etc.
I think Google still manages to hang onto this concept, but rightly so, they are primarily about profit. As nice and touchy-feely as it is to wish companies would act in the ‘greater good’ with disregard for themselves, as an employee of a company, you should hope the company you work for grows and propspers. Being a publicly traded company, they have a legal responsibility to do what profits the shareholders. Even as a customer, presumably you would hope the company you chose to give your money to will prosper.
Wow! Those are some interesting facts. I didn’t realize how many companies Google had acquired, 59. They are always coming out with something new. It’s sometimes hard to keep up with all their features.
Google really treats they’re employees very well. $72 million is spent to feed it’s employees two meals/day. This goes to show how huge of a company it is!
It might be an old slideshow because Google has close to 20,000 employees now. Another fact that I always found interesting is that Google makes a lot of effort to cultivate and enrich the Google culture. All the Google offices have some stuff that is the same in all the offices, such as lava lamps, Bean bags and chairs with Google colors, mugs, pens etc.
Very interesting facts about Google that I did not know. I think that Google sounds like a good company to work for and seems to actually want their employees to enjoy their work. I had also always wondered what the Feeling lucky button did differently and now I know. I think my favorite was that they let thir employees choose what they want to do 20% of the time.
There are some very interesting facts about Google on this presentation! It continues to amaze me how well they treat their employees and that so many innovative ideas come from this good treatment of their talent! It would also scare me to work at Google… everyone there must be so creative to come up with so many ground breaking ideas!
Sometimes I wonder though… how long can Google be cutting edge? When will a dark horse come up from behind and overtake them? Right now they don’t have much in the way of serious competition.