Sergey Brin’s Resume In 1996. Before Founding Google
immaturebusiness.com
immaturebusiness.com
The reality is that every founder starts in the same place and at the same point, which is completely clueless. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Facebook and many others were started by first time founders in their 20’s. Facebook was just a project that Zuckerbug was hacking on, and he didn’t’ set out to redefine the face of communication. He had done 7-8 other projects before that, and the difference with Facebook was that 90%+ of Harvard students sign up in two days.
Something all new founders should remember is that no one is born a founder.
Back in 1998 Brin and Page had no idea of what they would accomplish with Google. Or Mark, which coded a website that million of coders could code. The difference is that he met the right people and persevered.
But that is why it is so fun to be a founder, you never know what to expect or how far you can go. Its scary and fun.
DropBox was Drew's second company, and I remember him saying that his experience with the first and the intervening jobs was what made him so determined to do it "right" this time and have the persistence to stick it out. Facebook was Zuckerburg's third company; he'd already had acquisition offers from Microsoft for his second (Synapse Media Player). Apple was Steve & Steve's second company together; the first was selling blue-boxes. Google was started by first-time founders, but they were first-time founders who had the background and upbringing to have confidence in themselves and believe they could change the world.
Not that I would refuse him a job... but it would require the same interview process as anyone, because I need to find out what he knows about my industry, what his current skills truly are, learn his philosophies, and find out how he would fit culturally.
Even brilliant people are sometimes crappy fits for the specific roles a large company may have to offer.
He's much closer to being a pro golfer than a major league baseball player.
Some people you fit to the company, others, you fit the company to them. Brin is in the latter category. Rare, but they do exist.
"I used to fall in love with everyone I interviewed and I'd say, 'We can make anybody successful' or 'We can find a job for any talented person.' And that's just completely wrong and a really bad idea. HR people should figure out job descriptions. God forbid I should ever do that."
- Howard Tullman, founder of Experiencia, Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, The Cobalt Group and Tunes.com (Tullman sold his first company in 1987 for $100 million)
"That's lovely for you and him - it's just _not relevant_. Can they do the job?"
Other than founding Google, their supposedly big ideas are just on gambling shareholder's money and make more money via Google in suspicious way. Search still makes 97% of their money, Android was * from others and market share is being lost to Microsoft.
Adsense relatively makes little since they pay most to site-owners, whatever they call the ads on Google make the money. After 11 years has, Google has what, other than search?
YouTube. Android (their market share isn't declining). Likely the most popular cloud office suite. GMail. Picasa. Google+. Analytics.
Just to name a few.
I'm pretty sure AdSense accounts for around 30-35% of Google's revenue.
Android would last a couple of hours without Google's tens of billions in protection. Isn't it free anyway?
Revenue vs earnings matter on Adsense. Their pay and inventory is linked to the power of Google.
So in the end Google has, search.
Can G out-Microsoft Microsoft in Office? I doubt it. Analytics and everything else is subsidized by search.
You can see their Q4 2010 earnings statement at http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.... . Here is the relevant portion for AdSense:
"Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion."
If publishers are paid 68%, this means Google's share is roughly $650mill for that quarter.
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A large office, good pay, and very little work.
Frequent expense-account trips to exotic lands would be a plus.-->So here we have a guy who, on paper, is basically like any of the rest of us, and he decides to start his own business.
The links on his page aren't there so that he can prove that he is involved in the community so that he could get a phone screen for another job so that he could impress an interviewer with his great whiteboard-tree-manipulation skills. (I mean yes, obviously it is a resume, which serves that purpose, but sans all of the fancy stuff you read about on HN to enhance your professional identity.)
Which, for me, is an affirmation (inspiration?) that maybe rather than spending my time memorizing CLRS or forking another github project in order to build a credential, I should write my own algorithm, create my own github repo, and build not another paper credential but something great.
Thanks for posting!
> so let's make some more money. Let's not send visitors to sites anymore!
You seem to be accusing Google of something, but I can't tell what. (Google sends me to sites all the time. I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.)
The trend is your friend, but understand that ads look similar to normal results to many people.
I'm also not aware of accusations that advertisers affect results.)
Use your imagination or ask Larry and Sergey what they mean by it,