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Craig Silverstein, Google's first employee, sat on the floor facing the stage, and an interpreter for the deaf faced the other way, signing for one of our hearing-impaired engineers.

Larry and Sergey walked in with Eric and Omid. Larry leaned against the railing as Sergey walked onstage. Sergey grinned and stepped up to the microphone with the bright green cover. He wore a black long-sleeved t-shirt and gray jeans.

"Thank you for coming," he said to the hushed assemblage. Pause. "I just wanted you to be the first to know..." Nervous giggles from the crowd. Pause. "that I just saved a fortune on my auto insurance."* The laughter shook the walls. We all knew why we were there. In the half hour after the note went out announcing the meeting, our press release had crossed the wire. Google was going public.

News vans were parked in a row down the street outside, microwave antennas extended, satellite dishes up, and light-diffusing scrims positioned for on-camera interviews. A helicopter buzzed overhead as security guards stood watch from the parking lot entrances.

Omid gave an encore performance of his greatest TGIF hits, with slides showing what we hadn't been allowed to see in months. Our revenue was so far up and to the right that the purple bars were pushing off the top of the screen.

Eric spoke and reminded us not to be distracted by all that was about to happen. Not to let the company's culture change, not to get caught up in the hype.

When the floor was opened for questions, Keith Kleiner, an early employee from operations, walked to the mic. "I just want to say," he began, looking at Larry and Sergey, "thank you. You guys have done an incredible job building this company." The applause burst like a thunderclap from the seats, the aisles, the balcony. Within seconds, every employee was standing and cheering. Larry put his arm around Sergey's shoulder and beamed at the crowd. Sergey reciprocated. For two minutes, waves of unadulterated appreciation rolled over the founders as Eric stood to the side and pointed like a conductor at two virtuoso violinists.

After the meeting we went back to our desks and back to work. I stayed there until after six, before packing up my laptop and heading to the Sports Page bar and grill around the corner. Affectionately known among Googlers as "The Shit Hole," it was a funky wood-and-plaster hut with a large back patio perfect for informal celebrations. Lori Park, one of the first engineers hired, had arranged to rent it out for a get-together of old-time Googlers. Salar was there, and Susan brought her kids. Bart from advertising operations and the biz dev guys who had come over from Netscape. Orkut, Ben Smith, and Ben Gomes showed up. Radhika, Ed Karrels, and Wayne. The Blogger guys. Craig and Georges. And Babette, who now supervised an army of Google massage therapists. I flashed back four years to Google in early 2000 and felt as close to my colleagues as I ever had. We had made this climb together, and for just a brief moment, we could pause and reflect on the journey that had brought us here.

I had printed out a copy of the S-1 (as had most of the company—the printers hadn't stopped all day), and I walked around with a red Sharpie, collecting signatures on it from Larry and Sergey, Craig, and our chief legal officer, David Drummond. I wanted something tangible to prove I had been there, to freeze the moment when my Silicon Valley fantasy solidified into reality.

I finished my beer and headed home.

Money from Nothing

The months that followed were not much different from the ones that had come before. The Gmail privacy issue finally settled down. Liz Figueroa abandoned her legislation. Cindy and I talked out the issues she had raised in her late-night flame mail. The tension eased, but the pressure didn't. I continued to put in long hours working on principles regarding scumware, and I fought for a Users' Bill of Rights that didn't make it past the executive committee.

We launched a corporate blog, though it was risky given that we had