Google's Secret Weapon

Maximilian · #1 (**permalink**) 10-26-2004, 08:01 PM

Google's secret weapon...PhD holders.

If you have one (PhD), Google invites you to apply for a job.

Founded by two near-PhDs who have purposely placed PhD holders throughout the company, Google encourages all employees to act as researchers, by spending 20 per cent of their time on new projects of their own choosing.

The company's employees include a former rocket scientist and a former brain surgeon.

Its co-founders, Mr Sergey Brin and Mr Larry Page, have assembled the industry's most unorthodox portfolio of human capital since Microsoft began intensive recruiting of computer science majors at top undergraduate schools in the 1980s.

The company has not released data about its PhDs for two years, but based on its history, the number is probably more than 100.

Microsoft has 56,000 employees, but its research group, with 700, is separate. Google has 1,900 employees, and no separate research group, so all 1,900, effectively, are charged to 'boldly go where no one has gone before', in Google's words. You have to like Google's chances.

-Information based on a New York Times Report

Cheers!
Max

MathsIsFun · #2 (**permalink**) 10-26-2004, 11:35 PM

It's gonna be like a prize fight.

In the left corner we have ...GOOGLE!, with fresh brains, market appeal and a can-do attitude, while in the right corner is ...MICROSOFT!, with an unbeaten record of 10 KOs.

Google is younger and fitter, but Microsoft has proven business cunning.

This is MORE than fun ... I just hope Google and Microsoft don't come to some gentlemen's agreement and spoil it all.