8.11. THE BATTLE FOR BRAINPOWER
Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese-born computer scientist, got caught in Google/Microsoft crossfire as the two companies battled for his services. Lee was Microsoft's vice president of interactive services when, in 2005, he was lured away to establish Google China. Microsoft sued Google, saying that Lee was in violation of a one-year noncompete-clause agreement he had signed with Microsoft. The courts allowed Lee to go to work for Google but prevented him from participating in projects that overlapped with Microsoft's until the case was settled. Microsoft and Google settled out of court, and Lee stayed with Google in China.
According to the Zdnet website, Lee wrote a letter in Chinese explaining that "Microsoft is an outstanding company, and there are many things we can learn from it. But Google is a company that makes me feel a shock. The reason Google gives me a shock is the passion for creating a new generation of technology. I found treasures in Google everywhere. The technology and products are way beyond just the search."
At the end of the letter, Lee gave his formula for why Google was his choice:
youth + freedom + transparency + new model + the general public's benefit + belief in trust = The Miracle of Google[]
The Internet and all of its trillions of websites, including Google, represent intellectual capital. The tangible assets of companies like Google are negligible compared to their precious inventories of brains and imagination.
Larry and Sergey's esteem for lofty academic achievement was present early on. When they added members to the board of directors in 2004, Larry proudly announced their credentials:
John Hennessy is the President of Stanford and has a Doctoral degree in computer science. Art Levinson is CEO of Genentech and has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. Paul Otellini is President and COO of Intel. We could not be more excited about the caliber and experience of these directors.[]
When Google was in its infancy, the best search engine around was AltaVista. However, its owner at the time, Hewlett-Packard, didn't seem to appreciate the talent they had on board. Google ended up hiring many AltaVista engineers, who made enormous contributions to Google's success.
One of Google's quiet strategies has been to learn from earlier Internet failures, especially Netscape. Both Eric Schmidt and Omid Kordestani came to Google from that company, which experienced a wild ride both up and down. "Google, being a generation later, was able to learn from what Netscape did well and build on it," explained Kordestani. "The best déjà vu is working with the distinguished Netscape alumni at Google."[]
In a 2005 coup, Google hired World Wide Web pioneer Vint Cerf as vice president and its resident "Internet evangelist." Cerf, formerly with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), often is cited as the "father of the Internet." At Google he serves as something of a futurist, thinking about, anticipating, and predicting the effects of the World Wide Web on society.
Chris Lavoie, a Canadian who expected to become a university professor but now works at Googleplex, said it was mental stimulation that drew him to Google. Lavoie explained, "I thought university was where the hardest problems were studied, but everything is bigger here and the problems are harder to solve. The scale of the Web and the systems fascinate me. I realized this was where the biggest things were happening."[] Lavoie gets the same reaction whenever he says he works at Google. "Jealousy. Universal jealousy."[]
Since it's founding, Google has received more than five million job applications from those wishing to work there. Google has dreamed up novel ways to find people it considers clever enough to fill their jobs. Google once erected a signboard on Route 101, the congested corridor between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, without a logo, website, or obvious message. It simply read: "{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com."
Those clever enough to solve the equation came up with 7427466391.com. When they typed that number into their browser they were led to a page that presented another, more difficult problem. Those with the correct answer got a shot at a Google job interview.
The company also ran its "Google Labs Aptitude Test" as advertisements in nerdy tech publications such as the Linux Journal. The test included 21 complex math equations and insider-knowledge questions such as "What is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?"[]
Google often acknowledges:
Employees may be more likely to leave us after their initial options grant fully vests, especially if the shares underlying the options have significantly appreciated in value relative to the option exercise price.
Additionally, competition for brains in the computer world is intense: "... we are aware that certain of our competitors have directly targeted our employees."[]
In an effort to keep brains in-house, Google established a Founders' Award for employees who show extraordinary entrepreneurial achievement. The awards, in the form of stock grants, were worth a great deal of money. The first two Founder's Awards, worth $12 million, were awarded to two teams of a dozen or so employees each.
The inducement backfired because those who didn't get the recognition felt overlooked. "It ended up pissing way more people off," says one veteran. Google seldom grants Founders' Awards now, preferring to dole out smaller prizes, sometimes given during a personal visit from Page or Brin.[]
All the efforts to retain knowledge workers aside, many Googlers have left the company, often because they wanted to head their own entrepreneurial effort.
Avichal Garg, a former product manager at Google and cofounder of a startup aiming at the test-preparation industry, PrepMe.com, says, "Google was just a massive explosion and sucked in all this talent." But now, "All of these people are leaving who are relatively young and ended up with a fair bit of money. They didn't walk away with $20 million, but they walked away with $2 million. And now the cost of running a new company is so low that essentially Google financed their start-up."[]