Google.cn

Wow.

I have been evasive on this blog in the past about who my former employer was, simply referring to it as the Greatest Company Ever. But it has now been three years since I left, so I will say it, it was Google.

I loved working there. I drank the primary colored Kool-Aid. I worked with smart, ambitious, fun, extraordinary people. Often the hours were long. And sometimes, like any job, it was frustrating, annoying, and there were bad days.

Yes, Google came with free lunch, espresso machines in the office, Happy Hours once a week, a great office near Bryant Park with a terrace. There were foosball tables, scooters, massage therapists, and engineers working in shorts and flip flops. But it was also hard work. High expectations. Little to no patience for complaining. You could never say, I can't do it or can't be done. It was an office comprised only of Type A personalities. The bar was set high. And really, because I loved the product, and I loved the people, I was happy to aim high and work hard.

I worked in recruiting. I staffed some exciting projects. In particular I was fortunate enough to be in international staffing, often conducting phone interviews with candidates around the globe, frequently for offices that hadn't opened yet.

One in particular was Beijing. I initially wasn't sure how I felt about Google going into China. In order to place servers in China, in order to have a Google.cn rather than Google.com, they had to cooperate with the Chinese government. I remember the buzz and criticism at the time, that this went against Google's premise to do no evil. That participating in the censorship contradicted this premise. However, any company doing business in China has to cooperate with the government.

There were many reasons why I thought it was good and important for Google to be in China, even with the censorship. The biggest being the people. From the top down, Google hired Chinese. I know. I logged many late nights, early mornings, and Sundays placing phone calls to China. Conference calls, phones screens, all with the goal of finding and hiring the best, the brightest, the “googliest” that China had to offer.

I interviewed candidates from entry level to managers. There are great challenges in hiring the right manager, and I love a challenge. But really, my heart was more into the entry level hires.

Kids right out of the most elite and competitive universities in China. Kids who had never worked before, who were so eager to speak to me. I remember one interviewer in particular who was so nervous, he kept giggling on the phone with me. They were aggressive in their enthusiasm to work for Google.

I am both saddened and impressed with Google’s current stand on China. There was so much hope and excitement about Google coming to China. I hate to think of the Googlers that I interviewed losing their jobs. But I believe (or really maybe just hope) that being there these past three years did make a difference. And by taking this stand, changes will occur.

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