Where are the first 20 employees of Google now?
It's been 20 years since Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Early Google employees showed confidence in a product that set to do something never done before: index the entire world's information. Today, some are still with the company while some have joined other tech giants or become entrepreneurs/investors. Here's what six of the first-20 Googlers are doing now.
Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still with Google as President and CEO of parent company Alphabet, respectively. Page was earlier Google's CEO when he stepped aside and Eric Schmidt took over in 2001. Until Google's reorganization and the advent of Alphabet in 2015, Brin oversaw Google X, a research-and-development facility for "moonshot" technologies. Currently, Google's CEO is Sundar Pichai.
Craig Silverstein is Dean of Infrastructure at Khan Academy
Craig Silverstein was the third Google employee after Sergey Brin and Larry Page, so he was technically the first person to be hired. Thus, he was instrumental in creating the search engine. He also mentored engineers and served as the company's technology director. Silverstein left Google in 2012 to join Khan Academy, a non-profit education start-up that makes free, high-quality education available to everyone.
Last we know, Amit Patel was member of Sunfire Offices
Amit Patel was instrumental in building Google's search logs. He is also credited with coming up with Google's unofficial slogan: Don't Be Evil. Another crazy story about Patel is that in 2001, he directly asked CEO Eric Schmidt if he could share his office (who agreed!). It isn't known when he left Google to join co-working spaces company Sunfire Offices, which started in 2010.
Susan Wojcicki is CEO of YouTube
Susan Wojcicki was hired in 1999. She started as Google's first marketing manager and later went on to head the entire marketing and commerce division. In 2006, she strongly advocated for Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube and became the CEO of YouTube in 2014. Interestingly, Sergey Brin and Larry Page had rented Wojcicki's garage to start developing the Google search engine in 1998.
Marissa Mayer is setting up start-up incubator called Lumi Labs
Marissa Mayer worked on different Google products like Search, Images, News, Maps, iGoogle, and Gmail for 13 years. In 2012, she switched to Yahoo! as President and CEO, and left the company in June 2017 after Verizon Communications bought its core business for $4.8 billion. She is now setting up a new start-up incubator called Lumi Labs.
Six of the first 20 employees are still at Google
These include Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Susan Wojcicki, Urs Hölzle (8), Salar Kamangar (10), and Joan Braddi (15). Urs Hölzle is senior VP of technical infrastructure, Salar Kamangar is senior VP of YouTube and Video, and Joan Braddi runs product partnerships for Google.
