Tech

Google's First 21 Employees: Where Are They Now?

By Jillian D'Onfro and Alyson Shontell
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heather cairns google investor employee
Heather Cairns was one of the original Googlers.  Heathercairns.com

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.

Marissa Mayer Cannes Lions
AP

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.

Kendra DiGirolamo
Kendra DiGirolamo/LinkedIn

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.

Larry Schwimmer
Larry Schwimmer/Google+

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.

Jim Reese
Flickr

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."

early google employees
Ledblook.edublogs

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 became SVP of YouTube in February 2014.

susan wojcicki
Norman Jean Roy

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.

Joan Braddi
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.

Chris Skarakis
Google+ / Chris Skarakis

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.

rachael chambers

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.

Steve Schimmel google employee
Steve Schimmel

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.

Omid Kordestani
wikipedia

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.

salar kamangar
http://ashleyannphotography.com

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.

georges harik 1x
Google Ventures / Georges Harik

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.

Google IO Urs Holzle
Business Insider

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."

sunfire
Sunfire's office assembly. Twitter/@niniane

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.

Harry Cheung
Screenshot / Facebook Video

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 race Ferraris. 

5. Ray Sidney was a software engineer at Google who left 18 months before the IPO.

ray sidney
Google/Picasa

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.

heather cairns
Google +

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.

craig silverstein khan academy google
Google

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.

sergey brin
Screenshot

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.

larry page
Screenshot

Employed by Google from: 1998 - present

Current position at Google: CEO and cofounder of Google

Are you a hard-core Googler?

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Google

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Jillian DOnfro headshot
Jillian D'Onfro
Jillian was most recently an enterprise technology editor based in San Francisco.  She started at Insider as an intern on the technology desk in 2013 and rose to a senior reporter position, covering Alphabet, Facebook, and ecommerce. After three years at the site, she left to spend time freelance writing abroad, before taking reporting positions at CNBC and then at Forbes, where she covered Alphabet, Silicon Valley culture, and artificial intelligence. She returned to Insider in March 2020 and worked on the enterprise technology desk until August 2021.  Jillian graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a degree in magazine journalism and information management and technology.
Alyson Shontell Business Insider
Alyson Shontell
Alyson is the Editor-in-Chief and CCO at Fortune.  She was previously a co Editor-in-Chief overseeing Business Insider's tech and business coverage.She joined Business Insider in July 2008 as the company's sixth employee. She started as a sales planner before joining the editorial team in 2010, where she became a startup reporter and was first to cover some of today's largest tech companies, including Pinterest, Tinder, Instagram, Uber and Snap. Alyson rose to become a senior correspondent, then Executive Editor.She was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider in 2016, at which point she became the youngest and only woman to run a global business publication. Under her leadership, the business division has grown to hundreds of  millions of monthly readers.Alyson was a host of  Insider's conferences and launched a podcast, "Success! How I Did It," where she interviewed influencers ranging from Sheryl Sandberg to Steve Ballmer about their career paths (subscribe on iTunes here).She has appeared on ABC, Good Morning America, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, and CBC, and she has interviewed media personalities such as Megyn Kelly, technology leaders like Fred Wilson, political leaders like John Brennan, and sports star LeBron James. She is a judge for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Awards in business journalism, and has been named one of Min's Rising Stars in Media, as well as Folio's 2017 Top Women in Media.She graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she majored in psychology and advertising.You can read some of her investigative articles here:— Leaked videos reveal the true founding story of Snapchat— The founder who dumped Jared Kushner: Inside the phone call that left the White House star in a fit of rage— The downfall of billion-dollar startup, Fab— How a startup that raised the largest seed round in Silicon Valley history blew itself up before it even launched— The dark side of Facebook, where people lie, cheat, and make millions— A profile of Uber's controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick— The mystery of Jody Sherman, a founder who was driven to suicide and left behind a shocking business disasterDisclosure: Alyson owns bitcoin and Snap. She is also an investor in The Spun, a sports-media startup founded by her husband.
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