Vint Cerf – And Why I Would Work at Google

I’ve just returned from todays talk by Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, was today in Zurich and gave a talk about “Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century” at the new offices of Google, their third ones. His talk was about the importance of IPv6, the history of the Internet and ARPANET, the ICANN and its past, the mobile web and how important it will become and so much more. I really hope the Zooglers can upload the video as fast as possible. He is such a funny man, he always had to tell a little story about this and that, how he found safran for a paella while he was on a houseboat and so many more. Or the story why he is trying to convince people to switch to IPv6: Basically it was his fault we are running out of IP-Addresses 😉

After the we were offered a tour around the new offices of Google at the Hürlimann Areal. As an old and regular visitor to the Google offices I’ve seen their first space next to the Limmat in downtown of Zurich, their offices at Freigutstrasse. And finally I had the chance to see their future office space. They will have a total of 4 floors in that building but they currently can only use two due to construction work. If you ever have seen photos from Google offices around the world, you can imagine how the workplaces look in Zurich. Free snacks and drinks everywhere, big monitors, lava-lamps, print-outs and so on. No surprise here.

Okay, now let’s dream a little: You are working at Google. Got trough the 3 or more interviews and have your desk. I think you will get used to the free food, the lava-lamps, snacks and pool tables. What really is interesting in working for Google is the thing, that so many intelligent and bright people are working for Google. And I don’t only mean people like Vint Cerf, Urs Hölzle or the others of the management team. Of course, some of them have changed the world. I mean the whole team. And of course the geek culture they live :-).

Update, 24/11/07: Daniel Lorch has a post on the visit of Vint Cerf in Lausanne at the EPFL. Looks like Vint Cerf changes his little stories from talk to talk. Cool 🙂