• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

That attitude was both Google's strength and its Achilles' heel. From launching a better search engine in an overcrowded field to running unscreened text in AdWords, the success of controversial ideas gave momentum to the conviction that initial public opinion was often irrelevant.

By the end of the year we proved our intent had always been honorable, rolling out not just the features users had clamored for but an archive that extended back twenty years instead of just the five Deja had offered.* This was almost single-handedly the work of Michael Schmitt, an engineer who took it upon himself to conduct a global search to track down tapes and CD backups of the earliest Usenet posts and the hardware that could read them. He recovered for posterity the first Usenet mention of Microsoft, Tim Berners-Lee's first posted reference to the "World Wide Web," and Marc Andreessen's public disclosure of the Mosaic web browser that would become Netscape.

"If there were justice in the world," wrote a formerly disappointed Usenetter, "you guys would be rich and Bill Gates would be standing in line waiting for watery soup." Not that Larry and Sergey needed affirmation that they had made the right call, but still, it was nice to hear.

Chapter 15

Managers in Hot Tubs and in Hot Water

A MONTH AFTER WE bought Deja, a hundred and forty Googlers packed up overnight bags, boarded a fleet of buses, and headed for the hills. It was time for Google's annual ski trip.

The ritual started when Google was just eight people and Larry very cautiously drove a rented van to Lake Tahoe while Sergey, Craig, Ray, and Harry killed time playing logic games in the back and Heather struggled to stay awake. The group saved $2.50 a day by designating Larry the only driver, which was a given anyway because Larry wasn't about to put his life in anyone else's hands.

I didn't go with the group in 2000, even though frequent reminders from Heather made it clear that the ski trip was not optional. The trip was a teambuilding exercise and thus only for staff members. No family. That didn't sit well with Kristen, who had already seen enough at Google to have reservations. The tipping point may have been the day she came to lunch and noticed an attractive twenty-something woman whose thong underwear was all too visible through her sheer harem pants.

"Who's that?" my wife whispered directly in my ear as the woman slid her tray past the entrées toward the desserts.

"Oh, just one of the engineers," I replied. "She rides a motorcycle," I offered helpfully.

So when I let Kristen know that Google required my presence on the slopes at Lake Tahoe for an employee-only bonding trip, what she heard was, "please stay at home with our three children while I head out with a busload of adrenaline-charged, hormone-drenched post-adolescents for three days of bacchanalian binge-drinking, substance abuse, and room-key swapping."

She got it mostly right. I know, because the next year I convinced her my career would be damaged if I didn't go along. Google paid all our travel expenses, including chartered buses and food and lodging at the elegant Resort at Squaw Creek and gave us each a fifty-dollar stipend to spend on ski lessons. It wouldn't cost me anything, and it was only for a couple of days. Please honey? Please?

We shared accommodations to save money and I roomed with Bay and our newly hired attorney Kulpreet Rana. Bay got the short straw and slept on the floor. While I'm proud to say I was so hopelessly unhip that I missed out on anything more decadent than a late-night soak in an outdoor hot tub with Larry, Salar, Urs, Omid, and a dozen other Googlers, it was clear some of my coworkers were showing less restraint.

I heard tales of excess involving not only recent college graduates but those who theoretically had the years and experience to know better. Many of these tales coincidentally began with a visit to "Charlie's Den"—the room Chef Charlie occupied with Keith from accounting and an SUV load of liquor ferried