True story, but it's not just being the first to do a google search. From personal experience I've also seen that how you use google and what variants of your search terms you can come up with that make the biggest difference in getting to the right answer/method.
The problem is: when you get to a certain level of skill, or are working on very obscure problems, or are working with hightech (even yet-to-be-released) stuff, not even google will help you anymore. That's where how good of a programmer you really are comes into play.