My First Job

My first paid job was at Microsoft, as an intern. I interned at both Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing and Microsoft Research in Redmond, USA (the difference in pay between the two was significant :)). When I graduated, I didn't choose to stay at Microsoft. One reason was that I felt I could see what my life would be like in ten years if I stayed there. The second reason was that I asked my “life mentor,” who said, “Google seems like a pretty awesome company. It’s worth checking out. It would also be good for you if you want to start your own business in the future. If you go, stay for at least three years, because one or two years won’t allow you to truly get into an important role and truly understand the company.”

So, after graduating with my master’s degree in 2004, I went to Silicon Valley. Google became my first official job, as a coder and product manager. Then, coincidentally, Google entered China, and I was fortunate enough to be among the first employees to return to China and participate in Google China’s initial startup phase.

I stayed at Google for the full three years (but left before all my stock vested). These three years were extremely worthwhile for me. Google gave me far more than the contributions I made to Google.

First, realistically speaking, Google essentially gave me financial freedom in a very short period. I joined Google about six months before its IPO, just after graduating and somewhat naively joining the company to work on ad backend systems development. There weren’t many people back then, only a few hundred engineers. But the company quickly went public, and the growth in revenue, profit, and headcount was rapid. I remember when I first joined Google, the company’s hourly revenue was tens of thousands of US dollars; later, it became several million US dollars. The number of employees also quickly grew from thousands to tens of thousands. The money in my bank account also instantly increased significantly. This feeling of sudden wealth wasn’t very strong at the time, to be honest, because it was my first job, and I had no prior experience to compare it with. It was only three or four years after leaving Google that I increasingly realized how rare a company like Google is and how rare the opportunity to join such a company at that time was. From a probability standpoint, it's very lucky for a person to encounter such an opportunity even once in a lifetime. At the very least, it's a once-in-a-decade or two opportunity.

Second, Google allowed me to see the side effects of sudden wealth. It’s like what Buddhism says: gaining wealth requires corresponding merit. Without sufficient merit, gaining unexpected wealth might not be a good thing. This was partially validated in the experiences of early Google employees. Because of instantly having too much money, many people lost their motivation to work and began to look for new hobbies and careers. But often, they weren’t good at or didn’t even like these new things (flying planes might not work out, they couldn’t figure out telescopes, they weren’t suited to be bosses but were in boss positions). This wasted many years, delaying the time when they were most likely to make more outstanding achievements.

Third, Google gave me the opportunity to experience and understand firsthand the difficulties foreign internet companies face in China, as well as the competition with domestic internet companies. On one hand, overcoming the barriers of distance and culture to gain 100% trust and authorization from the company’s headquarters is a difficult task in itself. Without sufficient trust and authorization, facing the rapid iterations of the market and dealing with various commercial and non-commercial, formal and informal competitive practices is even more difficult. One extreme example is that, given Google’s influence at the time, holding a recruitment fair could fill a football stadium, but the actual recruitment situation was a bit of a mixed bag. Finding someone who was down-to-earth, willing to work hard, experienced, had potential, and also had good values was still extremely difficult. Contrary to what people saw on the surface, forming a fighting team was often much more difficult than for local internet companies.

In addition to these, because of Google’s success, the increased external attention and discussion about Google also increased my own thinking about Google and businesses. Of course, there are already too many books and online resources about Google. It’s unlikely I could write anything more detailed or better than them. I still want to record a few personal observations, so I can look back on them later.

• In some aspects, Google is actually quite similar to China in the past, for example, the high status of the “working class” and the emphasis on ideology. So when ideological conflicts occurred, Google’s reaction was also beyond that of ordinary commercial companies.
• Google’s management also has some similarities with China after the reform and opening up, encouraging grassroots innovation, daring to try new things, while at the same time highly centralizing core power, having the institutional advantage of concentrating resources to achieve big things.
• I think Google’s “Do No Evil” is deeply ingrained in Google’s DNA; it’s not just empty talk. Google truly puts mission and values before profit, like the excellent companies described in Built to Last. Google’s profits are a byproduct of doing the right thing. At the same time, “Do No Evil” is actually a reminder to Google of its own ability to do evil for profit. The deeper you go into Google, the more you realize Google has a very strong ability to profit through evil. So declaring to everyone that they won’t do evil and letting everyone supervise them is very wise.
• During my years at Google, most of Google’s acquisitions were successful. Most of these successful cases involved acquiring a small company with a good team that could integrate into Google’s culture and then grow into a big tree in Google’s soil. This is very different from mergers and acquisitions done to eliminate a competitor.
• There were also quite a few things that Google didn’t manage to handle well or wanted to change but couldn’t. For example, Google wanted to use the bidding model that was successful in advertising to do its IPO, thereby to some extent changing the ancient and not very efficient stock issuance industry, but the result was mediocre. Google’s founders have always tried to avoid Google entering a management model with layers of professional managers, but it seems they haven’t escaped it. Also, Google made many attempts and huge investments in social media, but its fate in this area seems to be the same as Microsoft’s in search. Some objective laws and current situations can’t be changed by a simple wish; they often require much more energy than you imagine. This is like the fact that people always have to die; it's a reality that you have to face.