Google’s First 21 Employees: Where Are They Now?
Heather Cairns was one of the original Googlers If you don’t count Larry Page or Sergey Brin, only seven early Googlers still work for the search giant that made them rich.
Some early Google employees have become entrepreneurs. Others are angel investors. A few are happily retired.
A Quora user compiled a list of all the original Googlers.
21. Marissa Mayer joined Google as a software engineer. Now she is the CEO of Yahoo.
Employed by Google from: June 1999 – July 2012
Most recent position at Google: VP, Local, Maps & Location Services
Current Company/Position: CEO, Yahoo
20. Kendra DiGirolamo joined Google as an Ad Sales Coordinator and left three years before the IPO. Now she’s at Driscoll’s.
Employed by Google from: June 1999 – May 2001
Most recent position at Google: Advertising Sales Coordinator
Current Company/Position: Business Systems Analyst, Driscoll’s
19. Larry Schwimmer was an early software engineer at Google. He introduced Snippets, a productivity system, to Google to help it manage employees during the explosive growth period. He also drove the launch of Google Moon.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – at least 2005 (unknown)
Most recent position at Google: Software engineer
Current Company/Position: Unknown
18. Jim Reese was a former engineer at Google. He was once knocked out by a 200-pound metal beam in Google’s leased data center.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – 2005
Most recent position at Google: Chief Operations Engineer (and “Head Neurosurgeon” — he was a physician before coming to Google and jokes on his LinkedIn that he performed frontal lobotomies on Thursday mornings only).
Current Company/Position: Board member for Spark Program
17. Gerald Aigner was brought in to manage Google’s supply costs. Now, he’s in London being an “internet professional.”
Employed by Google from: 1999 – 2006
Most recent position at Google: Aigner was a member of Google’s senior staff, according to his LinkedIn page. Specifically, he was in charge of the data center and internet/leased line negotiations, hardware design and purchasing, hardware and network monitoring, and performance optimizations.
Current Company/Position: Aigner now lists himself as an “Independent Internet Professional” based in London on his LinkedIn profile.
16. Susan Wojcicki is still at Google. She’s became SVP of YouTube February 2014.
Employed by Google from: April 1999 – present
In 1998, before she even started working for the company, Wojcicki and her husband rented out their garage and several rooms to the fledgling Google team for $1,700 a month.
Current position at Google: SVP of YouTube as of early 2014 (previously, she was SVP of products and commerce)
15. Joan Braddi ran Search Services for Google.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – present
Current position at Google: Braddi was VP of Search Services at Google; now she is VP of Partnerships.
14. Chris Skarakis led Google’s business development until May 2005. Now he is the founder of Blip.fm and he’s on the board of Kanye West’s Foundation.
Employed by Google from: May 1999 – May 2005
Most recent position at Google: Director of Business Development
Current Company/Position: Skarakis is currently the founder of Blip.fm. He’s also on the board of directors for Kanye West Foundation, Friends of Palo Alto Junior Museum, Project Noise, and Zoon and Little Kids Rock
13. Rachael Chambers left her job at Netscape to join Google as an executive assistant in May 1999.
Employed by Google from: May 1999 – October 2000
Most recent position at Google: Hired as an executive assistant; left as an ad sales coordinator.
Current Company/Position: Program manager, Cisco
12. Steve Schimmel also did business development for Google. Now he is “temporarily retired” and angel investing.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – 2004
Most recent position at Google: Business Development
Current Company/Position: Angel Investor, “Temporarily retired” entrepreneur/dad. His startup investments include BackOps, Crowdrise, Roozt and Guide.
11. Omid Kordestani is still at Google. He’s a senior adviser to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but also the interim chief business officer.
Employed by Google from: January 1999 – present
Current position at Google: Senior adviser, Office of the CEO and Founders
Kordestani has also been Google’s interim chief business officer since Nikesh Arora left the company in July 2014.
10. Salar Kamangar is still at Google, too. He’s Senior VP of products.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – present
Current position at Google: SVP of Products. He was senior VP of YouTube and Video until Susan Wojcicki took over in February 2014.
9. Georges Harik joined Google as a software engineer and was one of three members on Google’s initial engineering hiring committee. Now he’s an angel investor, Google Ventures adviser, and the founder of a startup, imo.im.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – 2005
Most recent position at Google: Product management director
Current Company/Position: Founder of imo.im; cofounder of hslabs; angel investor. He’s also an adviser to Google Ventures.
8. Urs Hölzle remains at Google. He’s Senior Vice President of technical infrastructure.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – present
Current position at Google: SVP of technical infrastructure, meaning that he oversees the design, installation, and operation of Google’s servers, networks, and data centers
7. Amit Patel is now a member of the coworking space Sunfire Offices. He and Paul Buchheit came up with Google’s slogan, “Don’t Be Evil.”
Employed by Google from: 1999 – unknown
Most recent position at Google: Although we couldn’t find Patel’s most recent title, Steven Levy’s book “In The Plex” offers some interesting details about him. Patel was instrumental in highlighting the value of Google’s search logs. He also asked Eric Schmidt if he could share his office, shortly after Schmidt had joined the company as CEO (Schmidt said yes because he thought it would be “un-Googley” to say no).
Current Company/Position: Sunfire Offices (last known)
6. Harry Cheung was an original Google engineer. Now he’s an angel investor in startups like Qwiki and Badgeville.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – unknown
Most recent position at Google: Engineer. His nickname used to be Harry “Spider-Man” Cheung because he was a “crawl” engineering, monitoring the progress of Google’s spiders as they indexed the web.
Current Company/Position: Angel investor; portfolio companies include Qwiki, Badgeville and PrePay. He’s also the CTO of Roostify. He also likes to to race Ferraris.
5. Ray Sidney was a software engineer at Google who left 18 months before the IPO.
Employed by Google from: 1999 – 2003 — he left about 18 months before the IPO, which made him quite wealthy
Most recent position at Google: Software engineer
Current Company/Position: Owner of Big George Ventures, a sustainable real estate developer. He’s also a triathlete, an amateur pilot, and has donated $1 million to help launch a public bus service near Lake Tahoe, according to CNET.
4. Heather Cairns was an HR manager at Google. Now she’s happily retired and dabbling in angel investing.
Employed by Google from: 1998 – 2005
Most recent position at Google: HR manager. She hired Google’s first 200 employees.
Current Company/Position: Angel investor who provides funding for women-led companies that are pursuing social ventures. Her LinkedIn profile used to say “bum” at company “Living Well.”
3. Craig Silverstein was Larry and Sergey’s first hire. He left in 2012 to join the education startup Khan Academy.
Employed by Google from: 1998 – 2012
Most recent position at Google: Various projects, including mentoring engineers. As Google’s third employee, he helped actually build the search engine.
Current Company/Position: Developer / “dean of infrastructure” at Khan Academy
2. Sergey Brin is a cofounder of Google and runs Google X.
Employed by Google from: 1998 – present
Current position at Google: Besides any cofounder duties, Sergey Brin oversees Google X, the company’s “moonshot factory.”
1. Larry Page is the CEO and cofounder of Google.
Employed by Google from: 1998 – present
Current position at Google: CEO and cofounder of Google
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