Just struck 9 and I am at the entrance of the Google headquarters in Silicon Valley (USA), the highly successful Internet search company whose name has carved a niche in the international lexicon. Most people do not "search" on the Internet, but " googles ".
Under California incredibly blue sky, I see hundreds of "Googlers ", as known to the employees of the company , enter the Googleplex (Google complex) of 10.5 acres: a collection of low buildings of offices, integrated in the landscape. T-shirts abound. Many people carry bag, other laptops under their arms or open. Others carry handbags with the laundry to the laundry. (I will see more of these later).
The Google address Googleplex has invited me to look around and between racks exclusively to highly secret operation . I hope to prove or disprove some of the views-and-widespread rumors about this company that in 13 years, has grown from asmall Internet search engine to a giant multinational employs over 32,000 people in 60 offices throughout worldwide.
For example, Google knows everything about us by the way we search the Internet? Should we be cautious?Does the Googlers spend most of the time riding a skateboard by offices. playing pool or joking? Are most millionaires in their twenties Googlers? Do they hire someone ever over 30 years? And is Google, which last year earned almost 38,000 million dollars in revenue, about to take over the world?
To explore the sprawling Googleplex I get in one of the hundreds of bikes that are all over the campus for use by employees. I walk around with Cliff Redeker , 28, the "Impresario" (the term comes from Italian to name the theater business) of the company that is dedicated to organizing the visits of all the partners of the famous resort Google . While pedaling bicycles and yellow, green, red and blue slip to trademark glass and steel buildings, Redeker says, "We like to combine fun with business. What do we call 'Googley' .
Leaving the bike in front of Building 43, spotted a Googler in jeans and polo running up the stairs with a guitar sticking out from the pack. When I tell Redeker is not something you see in many other companies. I replied: "That is our chief financial officer, Patrick Pichette. We like to dress casual on Google."
Actually, how many companies have to have a business philosophy that says "You can be formal but not bring suit"? As I learn quickly in Google, it's a sin to take yourself too seriously.
After passing through security control of the building 43, we met Wanda Hung, who works in the search department. She is accompanied by his dog.
Redeker and I continued walking. A Googler with inline skates and grabbed a notebook in a hurry to pass us. I find several workers who have shed their office chairs to sit on giant inflated balls for exercise. In one of the bars, offering everything from organic yogurt freshly roasted coffee or energy bars (all free), Redeker told me that Sergey Brin and Larry Page co-founder wanted the employees to sting each time felt the need to do it."They established that any Googler should be more than 45 meters from a mini-kitchen," she says. There are over 150 mini-kitchens in Googleplex.
The food, all free , is an important issue in Google. There are 25 cafes, including 11 gourmet restaurants serving everything from fried calamari with Chinese sausage to lamb chops or vegetarian food all you can think of, at an annual cost to Google of over 70 million. New staff says he has had to struggle against what they called "Google 15" Redeker said, "that is, the 15 pounds (7.5 kilos) fat when they start working here," not to worry; then they can go to lose the extra kilos to one of six free gym that has the company for its employees.What about laundry bags I have seen?
"We have washers and dryers here so that employees can do laundry while working," says Redeker.
Back to bikes, Redeker laughs when I ask if the rumors are true that many Googlers have become millionaires. "Now I want!" He says. "Many of the early employees became millionaires when the company went public, but now things are different." Salaries are a closely guarded secret but new hires can earn well over $ 100,000 a year.
Okay, but Eno have all new hires veintirantos years? "That's another misconception," says Yolanda Mangolini, Director of Human Resources, when we sit with her in a bizarre bank, such as playground within his department. "We hired many people from thirties, forties or even older." Although Google does not provide information on the age of its workers, the average seems to be thirty-something.
Mangolini and his team received a staggering two million resumes a year to just 8,000 jobs per year. Less than 1% of applicants will be hired.
When asked about all the benefits of employees, such as free food, the rooms of the company, table football and pool tables everywhere, I confess that there is a method to the madness Google. What may seem strange for a "recess time" is usually something much more serious. "All these things make the working lives of Googlers easier and fun, but also foster collaboration," he explains. 'Here there is little hierarchy and encourage mutual enrichment. "
It reminds me that the engineers that I can be seen playing table tennis or volleyball are probably also talking about his latest project. "That's one way of doing things here."
Another novel concept is "20% of the time" . Mangolini says, "Sergey and Larry want all Googlers devote 20 of your time working on a project that interests them." He points out that products like gmail, the email system of google it was a bombshell, Google News and others have been developed during that time 20% of Googlers.
One of the stars of the company is Jack Menzel, director of product management in Google Search (Google Search Engine) , is part of the team that continually redefines the complex operations of Google search. We sat in a room on the third floor and tries to explain what happens when someone types a question in the Google search engine. I say "try" because Menzel is so smart and the process is so complicated that I can barely understand what he says.
"Why do not you like you are explaining this to a child of 10 years, Jack?" I ask. Not much use. The end, just type my name in the search engine. In 0.22 seconds Google is "about 3,460" results and they all contain my exact name.
"It's amazing, is not it?" Says Menzel with shining eyes. "Sometimes even" me "I'm impressed!"
The global network of computer servers of the company is "tracking" continuously the billions of pages that make up the Internet to help build their own "representation" of the Internet. Menzel asks me to think of Internet as a library. "Every time you add a book, we recorded, like everything in the book. Then scan it in your name."Once more, her eyes light up. "It's crazy, right?''
"Then, what is equally amazing is that we give the results in accordance with the importance we think it is for you. And do all that in less than a quarter of a second!" The classification of pages is done through more than 200 different signals among which may include the latest user searches, the ratings are generated by complex algorithms, software programs that direct the search-o. These patented algorithms are "the best kept secret" of the company and are entrusted to only a select group. With the improvement of its search engine and the combination of paid advertisements with search results for users, Google has gone from a startup with no revenue in 1998 to be one of the most profitable companies in the world. ¿ Should we worry about the vast information that Google collects from its users ? "The reason we keep track of our search engines is to further improve our search process," he says Menzel. I remember one of the company's informal slogan: "Do not be evil" and says, "We take that very seriously." Not everyone agrees.
The Google detractors accuse him of everything from violating anti-trust laws of unfair competition or attempt to monopolize the search process.
At the end let me pass beyond the usual borders of the company, in the Department of Homeland Security , highly secure and very secret. "Welcome to 'World Security," says Ian Fette, Product Manager of Google Security Team, consisting of 200 members, while I drive through doors double-locked, to the offices of the third plant. "Not many strangers who may come here."
By the department see groups of security engineers carefully studied lines of complex computer codes that fill their big screens. No one looks up, all are deeply concentrated. Are some more engineers trained in the world. They are the elite of Google, the first line of defense against hackers, "nasty surprises" and the Bad Boys.
Fette and anti-malaware teams (malware) and anti-phishing (e-mail hoax or fraudulent) are constantly fighting to protect Google and its users on a daily barrage of attackers who try to disable the giant Internet or steal information from the user accounts . "Protecting our users' data is what I lose sleep at night," said Fette. These cyber attacks range from the teenager in pajamas to sophisticated cyber attacks launched by highly skilled hackers or even governments.
" We try to stay one step ahead of the pirates. They are constantly evolving and we, too , "said Fette, a graduate in computer science from Carnegie Mellan who speaks German and Japanese pilots his own plane and worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency of USA. " It's the new Cold War . "
Last June, the Security Team discovered a sophisticated attack from China which came into personal email accounts of Google's hundreds of people, including senior U.S. officials, military personnel, journalists and political activists in China. To meet a guy as sophisticated cyber attack, the team declares a "Code Red" and sends an elite team of security experts to the war room of the department, the Area Incident Response. I realize some signs that say "Restricted Area", "No entry for visitors" and "Googlers Only authorized",
"Is there any possibility to have a look?" Fette asked. "Of course, but then we'd have to kill you," he jokes. At least I think he was joking.
Did Google take over the world, as some fear? Unlikely, but part of corporate spirit is searching for "exciting ideas that can change the world," as he likes to tell Larry Page. After my visit, news leaked that top secret underground laboratory is working on quirky inventions like an elevator that can carry people into space in the cable car instead of rocket cars without drivers and robots that could go to work while their human owners stay in casa.e even outlandish ideas.
The driverless cars are already here, Google introduced the world's first robot controlled by a car in 2010 and has since covered nearly 321,000 miles. As Jack likes to say Menzel: "It's crazy right?"..
Disclaimer: Don't believe this as a complete copy paste stuff. Anything left out will not be fair enough for Robert Kiener and this doesn't belong to Hexabyte.
Courtesy: Robert Keiner.
0 comments:
Post a Comment