What became of the original team of Google employees?

Working for a startup has its risks, but certainly also its rewards. This is the case of the co-founders and first employees of Google, who after joining the company between 1998 and 1999 helped transform Google into the giant it is today.

Very few of those who were part of that initial team continue to work for the company today. Those who do have positions of high responsibility, and those who have not converted continue to work in many cases as managers of other large companies. Being at the right time and place (in addition to his individual talents, of course) it paid off.

Disparate races

Following the trail of those first 21 employees is not at all difficult, because that beginning later marked their trajectories both in Google itself and in the rest of the projects that they ended up undertaking.

Actually, in this group of original employees there is a bit of everything, from those who have managed to stay in the company all these years – something that is already significant, especially for non-founders – but also those who have tried to undertake On their own or those who have retired with the profits of that stage and now dedicate themselves at most to investing in various types of companies.

Those who have followed in Google all these years

Not many have remained with the company since its inception, and from the list of 21 employees only 6 have remained in the squad from a company that has grown exceptionally. They are now senior managers from various parts of Google / Alphabet.

• Sergey brinLike his fellow co-founder, Sergey Brin continues to remain a member of Alphabet’s board of directors and a co-founder of Google. There is no profile available, and their presence on social networks is practically nil.
• Larry Page: The co-founder of Google has also actively left his CEO profile, and as Brin continues to hold his position as a member of the board of directors but has been in the background for a long time.
• Urs Hölzle– The current head of Google’s technical infrastructure (overseeing the design and installation of servers, networks, and data centers) has been with the company since 1999, as shown on his LinkedIn profile or on his Research at Google profile.

• Salar Kamangar– He has been working at Google since 1999 and was CEO of YouTube until Susan Wojcicki succeeded him. He is now vice president of YouTube and Video.
• Joan Braddi– She joined the company in 1999 and continues at Google, where she is currently Vice President of the Product Partnerships division.
• Susan Wojcicki– Has been with Google since April 1999 and has been working for the company as CEO of YouTube since early 2014.

Others made the leap to large companies and initiatives

The experience at Google helped some of the first employees make the leap to positions of greater responsibility than the one they occupied in that company in other large companies in the technological field.

• Craig silverstein– Google’s first employee joined the company in 1998 and continued until 2012. He left to join the Khan Academy educational project as “Dean of Infrastructure”. It does not maintain profiles on social networks, but it is active on GitHub.
• Omid Kordestani– He worked for Google for 16 years, from January 1999 to August 2015, eventually joining Twitter as CEO. He didn’t post much there, but he seems more active lately.

• Rachael chambers– He left his position at Netscape to join Google in May 1999, but left the company early, as he was leaving the company in October 2000. She is currently the director of planning and strategy at Cisco.
• Marissa mayer: He was at Google from June 1999 to July 2012, at which point he became CEO of Yahoo!, a company he left in June 2017 – his profile is not entirely up to date – after a highly criticized management. His new project is Sunshine (formerly Lumi Labs), a company aimed at developing a system to better organize the contacts on our agenda through artificial intelligence.

From engineers to venture capitalists

Three of those original employees decided to take advantage of their Google track record – and probably his millionaire income during those years – to join venture capital firms.

• Heather cairns– She worked at Google from 1998 to 2005 and was the company’s first human resources director, hiring the company’s first 200 employees. She is currently a venture capitalist, and has a presence on LinkedIn.

• Georges harik– This software engineer was part of Google’s original engineer hiring committee, and worked at the company until 2005. He worked on various company products and services (Gmail, Google Talk, Picasa, Adsense) and today is the founder of imo.im and venture capitalist.
• Steve Schimmel– He joined Google in 1999 to take charge of business development, and worked there until 2004. He is currently “temporarily retired” and his LinkedIn page is out of date, but he is a venture capitalist in various startups. He has a practically inactive account on Twitter.

Lesser-known entrepreneurs

Other employees have had uneven trajectories, joining diverse projects, founding new companies more or less known and even “literally disappearing from the map“Some do not maintain any activity related to the technological field, and ironically not even the Google search engine gives too many clues of their current activities.

• Ray Sidney– He worked at Google from January 1999 to March 2003, and he left the company 18 months before the takeover, which allowed him to become a millionaire. On his LinkedIn profile, he indicates that he is the owner of Big George Ventures, a company dedicated to the development of sustainable housing.
• Harry cheung: This engineer started at Google in January 1999 and left the company in December 2004. He was one of those responsible for the crawl engine that fed the Google search engine, and as his LinkedIn profile indicates, he is a founder and member of the board of directors of the company Roostify. He has a profile on Twitter.

• Amit Patel: He was one of those responsible for the slogan “Don’t be evil”, and he worked at Google since 1999, although it is not known exactly when he left the company. He currently works at Surfire Offices, a company that offers co-working spaces.
• Chris Skarakis– He worked at Google from May 1999 to 2005, and is currently the founder of Blip.fm and is involved in other projects related to music and children.
• Gerald aignerHe joined Google in 1999 and left it in 2006, and his LinkedIn profile notes that he is a “freelance internet professional” who appears to be consulting for companies like Maxeler Technologies.
• Jim Reese: He was with the company from 1999 to 2005, and as indicated on LinkedIn is a member of the board of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical University.
• Larry Schwimmer– One of Google’s first software engineers (responsible for Google Snippets), he was with the company from 1999 to (at least) 2005. Schwimmer does not have a public profile, and it is not known what project or job he is currently engaged in.
• Kendra DiGirolamoHe joined Google in June 1999 but left early: in May 2001 he left, and according to his LinkedIn profile he works as a business systems analyst at Driscoll’s.

Updated in 2020 with new positions for all employees.