Oh, yes. They can. And they do.
Why not visit the campus? Admittedly, I think Google holds a certain amount of intrigue for many people. This week, Google welcomed Michael Franti, a brilliant (and humble) songwriter, to the stage in a free concert for all employees. I happened to attend two concerts within two days. A window into the fun:
In the video above, I mentioned that Michael Franti asked everyone to post anything and everything they captured on the internet -- it's free advertising, after all! After the concert, a number of employees hung around to chat and take pictures with him. This reminded me one man who has a unique twenty-percent-time project at Google -- tangent: all Google engineers are encouraged to work on any project that strikes their fancy 20% of their work hours (a day or so each week). Many famous ideas of come from this, including Gmail, Google News, and even the Google shuttles I recently told you about! -- While many projects are engineering related, there have been some funny ones too. One of my favorites is the person who vowed to get a picture with every famous person who has attended Google (the myriad of pictures he has taken are displayed in the main entrance to the Google buildings). He has pictures with movie stars, multiple presidents, and other famous names across the board. While I looked, however, I didn't see him at the Michael Franti concert!
Perhaps more interesting to me though, is not the movie stars that Google attracts, but rather the brilliant minds from the globe that join us weekly for guest lectures. I cannot even begin to describe how often I leave a talk speechless and awestruck at the great work being completed on this planet.
La dolce vita.
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