Musings regarding Google:
My wife and I watched the 60 Minutes story on Google last evening. The story went "inside" Google and spent the most part of its 20 minutes in interviews with Eric Schmidt (remember the Novell days Eric?) and Sergey Brin (looks like a very nice guy....). While watching it, my wife asked me what was so special about working at Google, to which I answered, "It is the place where all the Alpha Geeks are these days, and I would love to work there."
Throughout the history of the computer and Internet there were magical places, where the future was forged and legends were created. These holy places included MIT, Stanford, Berkley, SGI, Sun, Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, NASA/Ames just to name a few. The people that worked at these institutions/companies became the legends of our time, people like the fathers of Unix Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, and John Gosling the author of Java programming language.
These days, I believe that Google is the breeding ground for the next wave of advancement in computing and the Internet. Just getting an interview at Google is a minor feat. They are very picky about the people that work there, and they can afford to be, as it is the place that everyone wants to be. In order to separate the cream from the rest of the milk, Google has created an aptitude test called the GLAT, which stands for the "Google Labs Aptitude Test". The test appears to have been created to assess the analytical and critical thinking potential of the candidate. If you can successfully make it through the four page test, then you are probably someone that would feel right at home at Google. I took one look at the test and knew that I was not currently Google material, as I barely understood some of the questions.
Even though I may not be a good fit for Google right now, it does not stop me from wanting to work there. In fact, it makes me want to work there even more (you know the whole "you want what you can't have" thing). I actually know someone who works for Google, and I must say that he is one of the smartest people I know. He and I used to work for Excite@Home, His name is Mike Perez, and he is was (and I expect still is) a network guru. Mike was one of those guys that just gets networking and most likely dreams about BGP routing tables.
I guess my point is that there will always be places where the best and brightest gather to create the next big thing. Places that are spoken about in reverent tones in geek circles. Now I must get back to my cram session as I have the GLAT in the morning ;).
BTW, Google has the most kick ass hit counter I ever saw.... It is a spinning globe with shafts of multicolored lights emanating from points on the map who's height depends on the number of searches currently being performed. I want one...
8:25:38 AM 
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