Post by Minal Mehta

My relationship with Google is complicated. It's been 5 years to the day since I handed in my notice. Some days it feels like just yesterday that I was there. Other days it feels like I've been gone a really, really long time, and I've forgotten the idiosyncrasies that maybe drove me nuts when I was there. Just in the last three days, in completely random settings, I've run into Googlers and Xooglers. Some I'd worked with before, some I'd never met. And almost immediately, I felt a kindred spirit. A connection that doesn't need warming up. So I started paying attention to why: -A particular intellectual rigor. Beautiful words used in sentences. A way of engaging that I keep recognizing across rooms and decades. -A lack of transactional energy. The relationships aren't built around an ask. If you put people on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is a taker and 10 is a giver, I believe the ideal is around an 8. Most Googlers I know land there. They give. They share knowledge, time, introductions. -A lack of scarcity. When a company has strong margins, you don't grow up inside it with the survival anxiety that pervades most other places. These things translate into something else. A slower, deeper orientation. A patience with ideas. A willingness to think things through more deeply. A lack of urgency. A culture that respects the long arc. If you're shaped for that container, Google is one of the best places on earth to grow. The people will sharpen you. The work will stretch you. In the long run, you will likely build things that matter. If you bring a different kind of energy - 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳, 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 - being at Google feels really challenging. Drive doesn't get punished, exactly. It just doesn't get fed. Urgency reads as out of step. Boldness reads as too much. I keep meeting incredible Googlers and Xooglers - in random rooms and through DMs here. Some are thriving inside Google and want to keep growing. Some are trying to figure out why their light keeps dimming there. Either way, when I meet another one of you, the recognition is instant. Five years on. Still home, briefly. Every time.