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A Noogler's View of Google
Author’s note
These are public reposts of four earlier internal-only Google blogs, all written in my first month at Google in mid-2005. The first three were written in my first week. They accurately reflect the most memorable bits of the experience, back then when Google was in a Golden Age.
Ambra Benjamin was the first Googler to notice my blog and comment on it, encouraging me to post more. She gave me the courage to keep going. Thanks, Ambra!
AI Notes
In February 2007, twenty months into the job, Steve recycles four entries from his Google-internal blog — written in his actual first weeks as a new hire in June and July 2005 — and posts them externally. The signature scene is the ball-pit story. Steve, freshly badged and lifelong-curious about what those plastic-ball pits feel like from the inside, jumps into the one on the 2nd floor of Building 42. He sinks like a stone, claws his way out in two minutes, and discovers back at his desk that his badge is no longer on his shirt. He has to climb in a second time, in front of eight Google pool players who stop their game to stare. Fifteen minutes of thrashing recovers two unopened packs of gum, several coins, a binder clip, and not his badge. The other three entries cover his first two days in Mountain View (showered with free food, paired with a ghost officemate whose balloons have wrinkled into "expressions of concern"), the end of week one (sneaking out of a tech talk straight into a live-band barbecue), and his first month in the Kirkland office — where every second person used to work at Microsoft and the running joke is that Google is fattening everyone up Hansel-and-Gretel-style for an eventual feasting OKR.
Related listings
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2007
Boring Stevey Status Update
Bookend to this one. Both are 2007 Google interior dispatches — Noogler is the wide-eyed first-week sketch from June 2005, recycled; the Status Update is eleven months later from the same Building 43 couch, on the morning Reddit said he'd been fired.
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2006
Good Agile, Bad Agile
The other side of arriving at Google. Where this one is the warm story of being inside the witch's house, Good Agile / Bad Agile is the technical argument for why the witch's house actually works — a year on, the same Noogler explaining what's structurally different about the place.
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2018
Why I Left Google to Join Grab
The other end of the arc, eleven years on. The 2018 essay is the autopsy of the place this 2007 piece is the first impression of. Read them as the opening and closing chapters of Steve's thirteen-year Google story.
From the peanut gallery
Read the rest of the thread · 44 more
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The part of your story where you're talking to Microsofties who are happy to be at Google, writing code?
That's basically me. Except I'm not at Google. Because Google refuses to open a Toronto office and I'm not anxious to move. So instead, I'll just complain about work periodically. -
Stevey, you're my hero ;)
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Ahhhhhhrgh! Some of us have DVRs, and haven't seen last night's Heroes episode yet, Mr. Yegge. Oh well ... suspense is overrated. Somebody still "flies", right?
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geoffrey:
That's mee too, only I'm in Austin, TX. Steve, prospects on an Google Austin office? -
Argh! Spoiler! I was just about to watch Heroes after checking up on the blogs!
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Yeah, dammit, Steve, what's with the spoiler? That's really, really annoying.
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This makes Google sound like a very pleasant place to be, even if they are just fattening you up for the kill.
I don't worry too much about spoilers, since I watched the episode last night. I make a point of staying away from especially geeky blogs when I'm waiting to see or read something that might get spoiled, though. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I got it eventually. -
D'oh! Sorry for the spoiler. Linh and I can't bear to miss Heroes; we watch it in real-time and DVR everything else. I assumed erroneously that everyone else did the same. My apologies!
I'm not in on any of Google's plans for office expansion, but I'm hoping they'll follow the Starbucks model. "Google becomes first company in history to open a Google dev center in the bathroom of an existing Google dev center!"
In the meantime, you should come work in Kirkland. The snowboarding is awesome. :-) -
If you don't burn calories playing foosball, then you are not playing HARDCORE enough.
The best games involve the ball being airborne. (please wear goggles) -
I just want people reading this to know, that is is absolutely not hyperbole at all. Steve recruited me away from our former employer.
Everything he writes is 100% true, not overblown, just stating the facts with a few embellishments for fun and profit.
As to will Google's "hacker atmosphere" last? Well, who cares, it exists now.. and will likely be created elsewhere as necessary, just as Google was created to replace all those hacker atmospheres which proceeded it. -
>> … as little chalance as I could muster << …
Nice!
I always like the unwinding of the words that seem like negatives, but have no antonyms.
I am freshly showered, and hence, currently kempt. -
Seriously? I was so happy. My friend stood up and clapped. I hate Simone.
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Don't forget about Hiro.... My guess is that Simone will return. After all she's been in the "visions" of the "end"
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"... including hooking it up to your cat or dog, if I'm interpreting this one strangely-shaped adapter correctly."
Yep. The cat/dog power adapter intrigues me. Do you have a photo of the thing? -
Google seems all warm and fuzzy until you realize that they're advertising for Java and C# positions. Honestly, that's one of the few things that keeps me from at least trying out an internship there.
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Slightly related note... How do you like developing on a powerbook? Would you mind giving a quick rundown of your dev environment? Win/OS X, apps, etc...?
THANKS! -
Steve yegge I very much enjoy your writing as I despise your complacent googly ways. Keep writing!
ps. God damn you for making me sign up for a google account! -
Do you know a rough estimate as to when Wyvern will be back up =)
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Time for a new post!
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This comment has been removed by the author.
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I used to play wyvern, me and my friend had alot of fun on it, i've been waiting for the server to come back up, and trying to find out what happened to it. Why did the server go down, and when do you think you will have it back up? I want to play it again :D
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Really good video
Nick -
Really good topic
Nick -
Wow, these weekly blogs are great.
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It's so much time for another post men... just upload all of the Noogler's series!
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Come back, we didn't mean it! We miss you!
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why aren't you posting any thing these days..miss ur posts
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I start at Google (Mountain View) in May, and if your blog is any indication as to the experience I shall have, then all I can say is,
WOOOOOOO! -
Steve what will i do without your blog posts?!
Please write more... -
yes, please please write we need ya
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Dammit man, write something!
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Steve is using ultraedit now, he won't be writing again.
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Ha! I ran across this blog by Googling, "Noogle," and for the past several minutes I've sat alone in this somewhat empty college library reading and periodically laughing out loud towards my computer. It's worth any odd stares that I might have received. Thanks for kickin' up my endorphins - and for the picture of your noogle experience. Good luck in your future adventures! :D
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Actually my search was for, "the ideal noogler," - right.
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How many times must a man look up
Before he can see a new post? -
lihn travel? you wife's travelling company ? odd!
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Did you read "The timeless way of building"? I picked it and the first chapter is "Quality Without a Name" and Christopher Alexander talks about buildings and things being alive... so my guess is, yes you read it.
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Ste-e-e-e-e-ev-e-e-e.... Where a-a-a-a-a-a-r-r-e-e you-u-u??? :)
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I just hope he hasn't drown on the plastic ball pool... Some feedback please! Cheers
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Why no comments on Marshmallow post?
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It's good that you are back.But why didn't u allow comments in the recent post.
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Hi,
I just found your blog..really nice..:) -
Steve, could you please enable printing? Whenever I try, I just get a bunch of empty pages plus one with only half of some of the text - I really love your rants, but I'd prefer to kill some trees first :)
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it is really good,thank
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Well, it does make one wonder - how long will the Google "hacker atmosphere" survive? History isn't kind in this respect, Bell Labs, IBM, Microsoft, etc.
— Babar K. Zafar · 10:01 AM, February 20, 2007
Oh dear, it seems Steve has died again. Someone fetch a Res-scroll.
— dfghdfhdsgtsdgsddghjg · 8:57 PM, April 20, 2007