Life after Google, with millions in your pocket. Part one

What would you do if you had 10 or 100 million dollars on your hands? Would you retire, go to work at a company that has enriched you, or pursue your old dreams?

This is a question that hundreds of long-time Google employees ask themselves. According to some estimates, more than 900 employees in one instant turned into millionaires, when Google became a public company in 2004, and their accounts were inflated simultaneously with the increase in the value of shares. Last Friday, the stock price at the close of the trading session was $ 600.25 - more than a 600 percent increase in the placement price of $ 85.

According to the company's latest reports, in September 2007, the employees had 11,662,917 stock options. Their total value at the moment - 4.48 billion. dollars that their owners could potentially receive when selling. According to Equilar's analytical reports, the cost of a stake in Google co-founder Larry Page is 18.87 billion, of Sergey Brin - 18.51 billion.
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However, as soon as these options became bank account numbers, many old Google employees left the company. According to some estimates, about a third of the first 500 employees left, and many of the 2,200 people who joined the company before it went public, plan to leave as soon as they get the right to exercise their stock options (Google representatives did not respond to request for comment).

Some of the former employees spend their summer in different parts of the world, raise children, or simply get out of bed late. Others teach art, receive legal education, write books or campaign for politicians. And there are those who, having grown rich, do not stop working. For example, Olana Hirsh Khan, who led the international sales team, now holds the position of chief operating officer of the Kiva.org micro-finance site (who advertised Bill Clinton in his recent book, Giving). She also does charity work, and most recently gave birth to a child.

Other cream “Xooglers” (as one site for former employees calls them) are entering the scene of Silicon Valley as new entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists. They follow the long tradition of technology companies like Netscape and PayPal, which produced millionaires, who later founded their own companies. In the end, this is how Silicon Valley has always worked, beginning with the time of Fairchild Semiconductor, the company in which Gordon Moore and Robert Noyes worked until they founded the microprocessor giant Intel in 1968.

For example, micro-blogging service Twitter was, for example, founded by a former employee of Google. He also received investments from other people who once worked in the company. Former sales manager and current venture capitalist Ayudin Senkut, like a number of other employees, have invested their money in Meraki, the developer of urban Wi-Fi networks.

What is unique in the history of Google is the huge amounts that have arisen in such a short time and the impact that this money can have on the next years of life. Have these “Xooglers” already broken their jackpot? Not. Google expatriates play a greater role in the business and culture of the Valley than any other group, bringing their “flair” and intellectual abilities to new technology companies and philanthropy or even simply opening a couple of wine bars.

News.com interviewed some of Google’s former employees, ranging from masseuses to entrepreneurs who are trying to prove that their wealth is mostly a result of their talent, and not just good luck.

“For the old employees of the company now that they have gained financial independence, the question is not whether they can show their mind, but whether they can show their solidity in the affairs,” said one insider.

Georges Harik, one of the first 10 engineers at Google, a former director of new products, is now the founder and investor of a non-profit laboratory of artificial intelligence.

In the spring of 1999, Harik wanted to take a break from the technological world, after his work at Silicon Graphics, planning to travel the world for a whole year. But a mutual friend introduced him to Larry Page, a graduate of the University of Michigan, and they spent several hours talking about the search. After that, Harik put his plans to the far shelf and went to Google to work as a programmer.

Today, Harik considers his decision a great success, and it is easy to understand. He left the company in November 2005, and today his condition gives him the freedom that he did not expect - like flying business class or buying a house in Palo Alto with an area of ​​almost 300 square meters. meters

But it was his work in the company almost from the very beginning of its existence that made him believe that we can change the world around us. “Go to any coffee shop and see that people use the things you have worked on - this idea is pleasant. This justifies the effort, ”says Harik, who in his seven years at the company helped launch Gmail and the Google advertising platform.

Like the others, Harik invests in small companies, such as Meraki, which deals with Wi-Fi networks, or with his brother helps in the development of a company called Imo.im, which deals with video conferencing from a browser window. Recalling how in college he studied mathematical models of genetic algorithms, he also plans to open a research laboratory in Palo Alto, whose name is not yet known, working on the development of artificial intelligence programs in the field of biotechnology and medicine. This year he plans to invest about 100,000 dollars in the laboratory.

“The biggest AI system in Google is AdSense and the spam filter Gmail, but I always wanted to see the application of our work in medicine and biology, which would be difficult to do while working for the company,” said Harik, adding that the source code its programs will be open, allowing the entire medical community to use it. According to Harik, this non-profit organization is partly funded by Google.

Scott Hassan, a previously architect at Google, is now a supporter of robotics.

In 1996, as a computer technology student at Stanford University, Hassan ran into Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who worked with him on the Stanford Single Digital Library project under a grant from the National Science Foundation. At this time, Page and Brin also worked on a third-party project - they developed the predecessor of modern Google. Hassan helped Paige with programming, and in gratitude, the founders of Google later provided Hassan with a decent stake, after he founded eGroups (in 2000, bought by Yahoo for $ 412 million).

There is information that Hassan owns almost one percent of the shares acquired at an early stage, as well as a share of decent investments in the company Neotonic, which Google acquired in 2003. With such a stake, the state of Hassan can be many hundreds of millions of dollars or even exceed 1 billion

Hassan avoids the attention of the press. With his wife and children, he lives in a house in Palo Alto, worth several million dollars. He has his own website (password protected), where there is a list of people he could refer to, including Page and Brin; films that he watched; and poems. Responding to our email, he said he would only talk about his current endeavor — a one-year-old robotic research center called Willow Garage.

Willow Garage, located in Menlo Park in California, stands out from other Silicon Valley companies, as it does not aim to make money right away. His mission, rather, is to make himself a center for robotic developments in the field of personal assistants, autonomous vessels and cars without a driver, hoping to attract talented people and partners from across the country. The company collaborates with Stanford in the field of robotics, donating $ 850,000 to its computer lab. With Hassan money, Willow Garage has plenty of time to create new markets for robots.

Evan Williams, co-founder of Pyra Labs, another Google acquisition, is now an entrepreneur and investor.

Evan Williams, co-founder of the creator of Blogger - Pyra Labs, is convinced that if he tried in February 2003 to go through the notoriously thorny way to get a job at Google, he certainly would not have taken it. He is an entrepreneur, but did not receive an engineer education, and he does not have a diploma. Williams worked for the company only one year and eight months after the search giant bought Blogger for an undeclared amount.

“Part of the reason for my decision to go to Google is that from there I could manage work at a higher level. It was clear that they were playing with bigger stakes and better than I had ever played, ”said Williams,“ the boy of the backwoods, ”as he calls himself.

Today, having enough money to not work at all (like most former employees, he does not disclose amounts), Williams still participates in an entrepreneurial marathon. In May, he sold the podcasting company Odeo, which he founded immediately after Google’s work, competing with Sonic Mountain; and now he advises Twitter messaging, a company where he also co-founded. And through his company Obvious, Williams invests in new startups and develops a prototype of a new web product for consumers, not yet presented to the public.

Bonnie Brown, a former massage therapist, is now a writer and philanthropist.

Some time after her divorce and collapsed business (she ran a private Christian school for 10 years), Brown started a new massage therapist career in 1999 when Google, then 40 people, took her to work instead of a man who could not to step on a workplace. Then, at the age of 40 with a small age, she had the quick wit to ask for stock options to supplement her rate of $ 45 per hour, which was less than the usual $ 65 for this job. She received a good stock of shares, automatically sold in 2003. And that, she said, worked "incredibly well."

Now, after she left the company with several million in a bank account in December 2004, she no longer works, but founded a charitable foundation and wrote a book called Giigle, sales of which began last week on Amazon.com. She spends her time between a house in Nevada and a beach house in Southern California, where she comes to visit her grandchildren. She calls her book the comedy series “I love Lucy”, consisting of cases in her life while working for a search giant. Loving to laugh at herself, she says she wrote this book to make others laugh, because "this is the best medicine."

She also provides other “medicines” through her foundation, which makes her always keep her bag ready for travel. Brown has just returned from Uganda, where she visited an orphanage, to assess whether he needs financial help to install a new water supply. Contrary to this lifestyle, she says she feels "obscenely rich", although she avoids such things as first-class travel. And, knowing how easily money can flow, she also took up textbooks again, studying alternative medicine. “Money comes and goes - that's what life has taught me. You never know what will happen tomorrow. ”

This text is a translation of the first part in a two-part series - Life after Google, with millions , by Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com journalist, published on January 22, 2008. When reprinting the translation, please refer to the original and real text. Comments and comments are welcome.

Next time: From Google Headquarters to the wine bar.

PS Google’s stock price chart for the last 5 years:


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