"Paul Buchheit, the former Google engineer who is on to his second startup now, recalls what he loved about Google's early days. "I was always so excited at Google, because I didn't know what would happen next," he says. "Then I knew what would happen next." Predictability is a virtue in the world of big business. It's just not particularly Googley." - Paul Buchheit

"When Schmidt is asked how he as CEO balances the need for process with the less quantifiable demands of experimentation and innovation, he responds by relating the thoughts of Page and Brin. "Let me give you the argument that Larry and Sergey have made, which is, I think, surprising," Schmidt says. "They are concerned that the company is becoming too conservative. They say to me, 'We took huge risks when we had no cash. Now we have all of this cash and we take few risks.'"" - Paul Buchheit

"We've been hiring on the order of 100 people a week," he (Eric) says. "So in one week we hire more people than the people you just named." - Sanjeev Singh

are the needs of big business and the spirit of us against them mutually exclusive? - Morgan from twhirl

Let's see how many of these start-ups will be bought back by Google later on :) - Philipp Lenssen

Eric's quote is frustrating both because it presumes that more people equates to more execution, and that people are fungible, so losing 100 people is immaterial because you just hired 100. Of course Eric realizes the importance of experience and institutional knowledge. It's just sad to see him try to spin it. - Kevin Fox

I agree Kevin, though I think too often people seem to focus on the absolute number of people leaving Google, which is silly when you consider that any organization of 17,000 people will have a significant number of people leaving all the time, and there's nothing wrong that that (on it's own). - Paul Buchheit

How come nobody comments on the people who leave other companies to join Google? - John Mueller

John: I think a year or two ago everybody did just that -- when massive numbers of people left other companies to join Google. - Ole Begemann

As I suggested on Phillip Lenssen's recent blogpost (and certainly not blaming him here), I really really really wish that everything in blogosphere and MSM wasn't so win/lose, black/white. ZOMG... Google is God! Google is conquering the world! ZOMG... Google is falling apart. ALL their great engineers are leaving! Bah - Adam Lasnik

I agree Adam. Unfortunately I think it may be the case that such articles simply don't get as much attention, and therefore in order to be successful you have to tell a more win/lose story. - Paul Buchheit

Google themselves posed in very black and white terms in their beginnings, and in a way, they are still judged by their own words (e.g. I'm counting 9 occurrences of "unusual/ not conventional/ unconvential" in the IPO founder's letter). The CNN article was actually quite balanced I think, though yes, it does suggest some kind of trend it seems, and it's hard to tell from the outside if this is really a trend or just noise... - Philipp Lenssen

Paul, very true. Philipp, agree with you on the first point to some extent (plus we've certainly played up our food :D), but I don't sense an internal "way less cool" trend... certainly nothing to match the outside rhetoric. - Adam Lasnik

Just discovered Ooyala through this FF item, and seriously considering using them for our video publishing & distribution needs. Thanks, FF! - Andrei M. Marinescu from Alert Thingy

I am drawn to Google profiles like a bee to honey, it is kinda crazy how I get excited about reading them. Anyone else feel the urge to read any profile about the company> - Caleb Elston

Caleb: Yup, mentioning Google is like sprinkling fairy dust on it. To me it makes it magical and wondrous. - Vince DeGeorge

Keep in mind though that when Google hires/hired 100 people a week, it wasn't all Eng and Product. Google is actually severely understaffed in certain departments (you just don't really hear much about them...) that may actually hinder the company from scaling and moving faster. - Jennie Lin

I hardly think Schmidt is spinning. Sure, holding on to a good person you have is even better than hiring a new good person. Hell, say it's twice as good. The problem with the story told in this article is that it is: "Google hired 1000s of people last year. But wait, 6 people left. Whoa! Trouble." To their credit, we can assume a bunch more people left, but it's hard to see this as surprising or anything. - j1m

I highlighted the comment not because of spin, but because it doesn't make existing employees feel valued. It's like saying, "go ahead and leave, I'll have a replacement tomorrow". - Sanjeev Singh

you can tell they still value employees, sometimes they even threaten to TP peoples houses... :P - bob

... - Mario Nogueira Ramos

everything repeats and repeats and repeats - read http://www.jwz.org/gruntle... - A.T.