Apr 4, 2006 9:07 am US/Central
Peek Inside Google's Workplace
by Terri Gruca
(WCCO)
Google is growing so fast, the company is on pace to nearly double this year, and people want to work there.
Competition for jobs in Silicon Valley, Calif. is fierce, as Google receives more than 1,500 applications each day.
It's a casual workplace with plenty of ways to unwind and three free meals a day. This is not a typical technology company. To get in you need more than just a good education or experience.
Google Human Resources Director Stacy Sullivan said the company looks for the unusual.
"Like starting up a non-profit, or (being a) chess champion or foosball champion," Sullivan said. "Something that they actually had passion around and excelled at, something interesting and unique that they did outside of work even."
Sullivan said passion is the quality that leads to innovation. She hires 100 people a week for positions around the world. Many of them are engineers coming at a time the company is expanding beyond its role as an Internet search engine. It now offers tools such as online video and wireless networking.
"They are testing spaces which are obviously interesting in the long term success of the company," said Alan Eustace, vice president of engineering.
Google engineers are like rock stars in Silicon Valley. They are fought over among competitors and often compensated with six figure salaries. A lot is done to keep them happy.
"Google encourages employees to spend 20 percent of their time working on projects that contribute to their personal growth," Eustace said.
And for personal health, Google offers all organic food, massages, a gym and even doctors are free for employees.
Even with so much to brag about, the company likes to avoid attention. Recently it had to answer to critics who protested its launch of a search site in China that was censored by the government. And a rare warning for Google's CFO recently sent the stock down seven percent.
The company's top engineers acknowledge Google's success leaves it in a position workers aren't used to.
"It's good we have to sort of think hard about things we are doing and ask ourselves, 'Are we making the right choices? Are we doing the right things?'" said Jen Fitzpatrick, a Google engineering director.
For Fitzpatrick that's not hard to do when employees focus on Google's motto, which, like the company, is quite unusual.
"At the end of the day having 'Don't be evil' as sort of our internal motto has been a good guiding post," said Fitzpatrick.
The salary for Google's top three officers will stay at $1 for this year, but they're not going hungry. Each of the men made millions of dollars selling his company stock.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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