Here's where Google's first 21 employees are now
AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
Some early Google employees have gone on to become entrepreneurs, others angel investors, and a lucky few have gone on to become top executives at other tech companies. A few are happily retired.
In 2015, a Quora user compiled a list of all the original Googlers and where there careers have taken them. Of the first 21 employees, only six are still at the company. AdvertisementHere is what's become of the first 21 employees since launching their careers at Google.
Jillian D'Onfro contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.
21. Marissa Mayer joined Google as a software engineer. Now she is the CEO of Yahoo.
Employed by Google from: June 1999 - July 2012
Most recent position at Google: VP, Local, Maps & Location Services
Current Company/Position: CEO, Yahoo
20. Kendra DiGirolamo joined Google as an ad sales coordinator and left three years before the IPO. Now she's at Driscoll's.
Employed by Google from: June 1999 - May 2001
Most recent position at Google: Advertising Sales Coordinator
Current Company/Position: Business Systems Analyst, Driscoll's
19. Larry Schwimmer was an early software engineer at Google. He introduced Snippets, a productivity system, to help Google manage employees during the company's explosive growth period. He also drove the launch of Google Moon, a Google Earth-like service that shows satellite photos of the moon.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - at least 2005 (unknown)
Most recent position at Google: Software engineer
Current Company/Position: Unknown
18. Jim Reese was a former engineer at Google. He was once knocked out by a 200-pound metal beam in Google's leased data center.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - 2005
Most recent position at Google: Chief Operations Engineer (and "Head Neurosurgeon" — he was a physician before coming to Google and jokes on his LinkedIn that he performed frontal lobotomies on Thursday mornings only).
Current Company/Position: Board member for Spark Program and an advisory board member of Harvard Medical School's Department of Biomedical Informatics.
17. Gerald Aigner was brought in to manage Google's supply costs. Now, he's in London being an "internet professional."
Employed by Google from: 1999 - 2006
Most recent position at Google: Aigner was a member of Google's senior staff, according to his LinkedIn page. Specifically, he was in charge of the data center and internet/leased line negotiations, hardware design and purchasing, hardware and network monitoring, and performance optimizations. Aigner also founded Google's Zurich office in 2004.
Current Company/Position: Aigner now lists himself as an "Independent Internet Professional" based in London on his LinkedIn profile. He is also listed as an advisor for Maxeler Technologies, a London-based computer support company where he is "exploring renewable energy and wireless technologies," and is the cofounder and chairman of MeshPower, a company that makes solar-powered nanogrids.
16. Susan Wojcicki is still at Google. She became CEO of YouTube in 2014.
Employed by Google from: April 1999 - present
Wojcicki was Google's 16th employee and she followed Google's ninth employee, Salar Kamangar, as YouTube CEO. In 1998, before she even started working for the company, Wojcicki and her husband rented out their garage and several rooms to the fledgling Google team for $1,700 a month.
Current position at Google: CEO of YouTube as of early 2014 (previously, she was SVP of products and commerce, then SVP of YouTube).
15. Joan Braddi runs product partnerships for Google.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - present
Braddi is currently Google's VP of product partnerships and serves on the board of biochemistry startup Profusa.
Current position at Google: Braddi was VP of search services at Google; now she is VP of product partnerships.
14. Chris Skarakis led Google's business development until May 2005. Now he is the founder of Blip.fm and he's on the board of Kanye West's Foundation.
Employed by Google from: May 1999 - May 2005
Most recent position at Google: Director of Business Development
Current Company/Position: Skarakis is currently the founder of Blip.fm. He's also on the board of directors for Kanye West Foundation, Friends of Palo Alto Junior Museum, Project Noise, and Zoon and Little Kids Rock
13. Rachael Chambers left her job at Netscape to join Google as an executive assistant in May 1999.
Employed by Google from: May 1999 - October 2000
Most recent position at Google: Hired as an executive assistant; left as an ad sales coordinator.
Current Company/Position: Chambers currently serves as a strategy and planning manager at Cisco. Prior to that, she was a program manager for Cisco on Cisco Customer Strategy and Success.
12. Steve Schimmel also did business development for Google and was the company's 13th employee. Now he is "temporarily retired" and angel investing.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - 2004
Most recent position at Google: Business development
Current Company/Position: Angel investor, "temporarily retired" entrepreneur/dad. His startup investments include BackOps, Crowdrise, Roozt and Guide.
11. Omid Kordestani worked at Google for nearly 16 years before leaving to join Twitter.
Employed by Google from: January 1999 - August 2015
Most recent position at Google: Chief business officer, senior advisor
Current Company/Position: Kordestani left Google in October 2015 to join Twitter as executive chairman. He bought nearly $2 million worth of Twitter stock earlier this year.
10. Salar Kamangar is still at Google. He's senior VP of YouTube and Video.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - present
Current position at Google: SVP of products for YouTube. He was CEO of YouTube and Video until Susan Wojcicki took over in February 2014.
9. Georges Harik joined Google as a software engineer and was one of three members on Google's initial engineering hiring committee. Now he's an angel investor, Google Ventures adviser, and the founder of a startup, imo.im.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - 2005
Most recent position at Google: Product management director. Harik was one of Google's first 10 employees and was responsible for product and strategy around Gmail, Google Talk, Google Video, Picasa, and more. He was also behind AdSense and the AdWords Online system.
Current Company/Position: Founder of imo.im; cofounder of hslabs; angel investor. He's also an adviser to Google Ventures.
8. Urs Hölzle remains at Google. He's senior VP of technical infrastructure.
Employed by Google from: 1999 - present
Current position at Google: SVP of technical infrastructure, meaning that he oversees the design, installation, and operation of Google's servers, networks, and data centers. Before he joined Google in 1999, Holzle was a computer science professor at the UC Santa Barbara.
7. Amit Patel is now a member of the coworking space Sunfire Offices. He and Paul Buchheit came up with Google's unofficial slogan, "Don't Be Evil."
Employed by Google from: 1999 - unknown
Most recent position at Google: Although we couldn't find Patel's most recent title, Steven Levy's book "In The Plex" offers some interesting details about him. Patel was instrumental in highlighting the value of Google's search logs. He also asked Eric Schmidt if he could share his office, shortly after Schmidt had joined the company as CEO (Schmidt said yes because he thought it would be "un-Googley" to say no).
Current Company/Position: Sunfire Offices (last known)
6. Harry Cheung was an original Google engineer. Now he's an angel investor in startups like Caviar, Qwiki and Badgeville.
Employed by Google from: January 1999 - December 2004
Most recent position at Google: Engineer. His nickname used to be Harry "Spider-Man" Cheung because he was a "crawl" engineering, monitoring the progress of Google's spiders as they indexed the web.
Current Company/Position: Angel investor in startups including Caviar, Qwiki, Badgeville and PrePay and founder of Roostify, a home-lending startup. He also likes to race Ferraris.
5. Ray Sidney was a software engineer at Google who left 18 months before the IPO.
Employed by Google from: January 1999 - March 2003 — He left about 18 months before the IPO, which made him quite wealthy.
Most recent position at Google: Software engineer
Current Company/Position: Owner of Big George Ventures, a sustainable real estate developer. He's also a triathlete, an amateur pilot, and has donated $1 million to help launch a public bus service near Lake Tahoe, according to CNET.
4. Heather Cairns was an HR manager at Google. Now she's happily retired, dabbling in angel investing, and running a real estate development firm.
Employed by Google from: 1998 - 2005
Most recent position at Google: HR manager. She hired Google's first 200 employees.
Current Company/Position: Angel investor who provides funding for women-led companies that are pursuing social ventures. Her LinkedIn also lists her as the president of Coastal Streets, a small real estate development company in Massachusetts.
3. Craig Silverstein was Larry and Sergey's first hire. He left in 2012 to join the education startup Khan Academy.
Employed by Google from: 1998 - 2012
Most recent position at Google: Various projects, including mentoring engineers and serving as technology director. As Google's third employee, he helped actually build the search engine.
Current Company/Position: Dean of Infrastructure at Khan Academy
2. Sergey Brin is a cofounder of Google and serves as the president of Google parent company, Alphabet.
Employed by Google from: 1998 - present
Current position at Google: Besides any cofounder duties, Sergey Brin was overseeing Google X, the company's "moonshot factory," until Google's reorganization in August 2015. Now, Brin is Alphabet's president.
1. Larry Page is the cofounder of Google and CEO of Alphabet.
Employed by Google from: 1998 - present
Current position at Google: Cofounder of Google and CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet.
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