Are there any places today that are like Google in the early days? I would love to work at a place like this.
Part of Google's perceived aura (IMHO) when they started was that they seemed to be like the nebulous group of pre-Web Internet-savvy techies. Which were a smart group, tending towards altruistic and egalitarian, and wanting to bring Internet goodness to people, and onboard people into Internet culture. What seemed like one sign of this was times that you'd see old-school techies outside of Google treating Google like stewards rather than exploiters. And when they said "Don't Be Evil", I thought I knew exactly what they meant.
Well, the dotcom gold rush happened, huge masses of people rushed in looking for what it was about, huge money rushed in and soon tried to landgrab and then exploit those masses rather than onboard them, Doubleclick acquired Google :), techie job interviews started looking like rituals to induct affluent young new grads into their rightful upper-middle career paths, unethical behaviors became so commonplace that people can't even see them, and academia was infected a bit. Which I think means...
...If another Google happened, would we even recognize it? From where could it draw its culture that's not pretty completely overtaken by big money and all that attracts and builds?
Maybe the next Google can't be in the space of computing/communications/information at all, because big money and and coattail-riders would be all over that too quickly.
Maybe it would instead arise from people that really love to study insects. And they have a cooperative community around that, and have been trying to explain the importance of insects to the world for years, but not many care. Then it turns out that insects are the key to averting an imminent Earth extinction-level event. So the bug nuts get huge infusions of cash, and can work on all the problems they've wanted to.
And it'll be at least a few years before people with no interest in insects, other than chasing money, can really take over and start perverting the field, set up gatekeeping to pass people like them, while excluding the actual people who created and loved the field and saved the world, etc.
Personally, I have always disliked bugs, and will never be a candidate for Bügle.
Join the ant revolution!
- Small, relatively young company.
- Absolutely gargantuan amounts of revenue
You can't run a company this way unless you have a very large money firehose.
The last time this happened was early-Facebook. I don't think there has been a single company since then that fit the description - which IMO is fine, the celestial alignment of factors is pretty rare.
Companies nowadays have kind of the opposite problem: lots of hiring, but not enough revenue to show for it. Some tried to build a similar culture on VC funding but imploded once the cash ran out. You really need an intensely profitable product to make this formula work.
It's still possible for a one-off startup here and there to maybe get into this boat, but at this point the big tech players are there to slurp up the real money makers early and often and assimilate them into the borg.
If this sort of environment were what I wanted to work in, I'd probably look at specialized teams/niches inside of big corps. Surely very difficult to find, but they do exist.
So Google has really only been doing obvious ideas. Like Pixel phones, Pixel buds, getting into cloud too late.
clearly you're incorrect, since Google was (famously!) exactly like this before the ads firehose of cash started.