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Serious question: have there been any success stories of ex-Googlers starting their own companies? I've been under the impression that the few that have had su

Serious question: have there been any success stories of ex-Googlers starting their own companies? I've been under the impression that the few that have had successful exits were bought by Google itself, mostly as talent acquisitions.

kls 15y ago
I don't know about profitability but some of them have exited to companies other than Google, in this list: http://mashable.com/2010/08/26/ex-googler-startups/ http://mashable.com/2010/08/26/ex-googler-startups/
pg 15y ago
Twitter and Foursquare are fairly prominent examples, though in both cases the founders were people who became Google employees when their previous startups were acquired. Among startups we've funded, I know at least Greplin, Optimizely, Appjet, and ReMail have/had founders who previously worked at Google. I'm sure there are at least that many more, but I don't remember where most of the people we funded worked before.
- Aloisius 15y ago
  Hrm. AppJet and ReMail were both acquired by Google though. Greplin and Optimizely Googlers both had years at other companies between Google and the founding their companies. I guess Biz Stone came directly from Google to found Twitter. Given Google's size and the quality of the people who go in there, I'd have expected dozens if not hundreds of companies to be spawned by ex-Googlers. I often wonder if certain companies simply produce more founders because of culture, money or simply bias in who they hire. PayPal is the classic example of a company that pumped out a good number of successful founders, but I can't identify any particular characteristic of that particular company that might have caused it. I'd love to see some analytics about where the most successful or prolific founders come from.
  - smanek 15y ago
    FWIW, Greplin's cofounder (Robby Walker) went straight from Google to Greplin. Although, to be fair, his last startup was acqui-hired by Google too.
  - minwcnt 15y ago
    From what I understand, turnover at Google is very low, especially among high ranking engineers. That might be why you see fewer ex-Googler startups than one might expect.
  - ekianjo 15y ago
    I don't know so much about Google employees, but what defines usually the capability of good entrepreneurs is that they are pied off with something in their environment, and have the will, leadership and capability to change things for the better. Google may have very good technical people, i.e. they are capable, but I am not sure how they would fare as "leaders", "influencers", etc... it's also a company culture thing. If your company does not promote that kind of behavior, it is very unlikely you will see people stepping out to try things on their own. And if Google is successful at making their employees happy in some way or another, that also puts the barrier of leaving Google to a much higher point.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    A minor observation corroborating your hypothesis is looking at how many people Google's accumulated from the old Bell Labs (Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, etc.). In some ways the Bell Labs culture was the diametric opposite of startup culture, with a typical career path of "stay in this job for life", and little interest in business or striking out on your own. I believe a few have said as much, that they moved to Google because it was a place where they had the resources and freedom to just focus on technology.
    - lrobb 15y ago
      I was going to make the same comment. I've known plenty of really sharp, talented developers that have zero interest in ever even looking at a P&L sheet. When you've immersed yourself in a certain sub-culture (say startups), it's sometimes easy to forget that not everyone out there shares that model of thinking.
- kmfrk 15y ago
  Foursquare is not the most inspiring story, no. Google acquired them, killed Dodgeball, and Foursquare was created in protest. At least the way I recall it. http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dodgeball http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dodgeball
paul 15y ago
Big success takes longer to be visible since early acquisitions are typically small. I think weatherbill is doing very well, and there are quite a few promising yc companies started by former Googlers (such as optimizely). And of course 2/3 of the Twitter founders were previously at Google. I might also mention FriendFeed :)
- d2vid 15y ago
  Weatherbill is now named climate.com
HerraBRE 15y ago
Wait, what? It sounds like you are defining success or failure solely in terms of whether there is a big-money exit or not. That seems so... sad. What ever happened to "provides employment" and "provides value to its customers"? Anyway, I'm an ex-Googler who started a company after leaving. It's still too early to say whether we'll be "successful" by any metric, but I'm really enjoying it so far, which is enough for now.
- Aloisius 15y ago
  No, it is just that exits are an easy to see measure of success. Any company that is no longer a startup or had significant traction would be a good measure of success as well.
  - HerraBRE 15y ago
    Fair 'nuff. I think the Google Alumni organization tries to keep track of some things like that, but I have no idea how successful they are. I've never bothered telling them what I am up to. :-P
- untog 15y ago
  What ever happened to "provides employment" and "provides value to its customers"? Largely depends, I suspect, on the level of VC involvement. Most (all?) would be looking for a big-money exit in the future- just ticking along nicely means their bet doesn't pay off so well.
  - HerraBRE 15y ago
    Exactly! This is actually why I am in no real hurry to look for VC-type investment. Taking VC money at least appears to eliminate the "middle ground" for the business, one becomes obligated to shoot for big money or go bust trying. It took me quite a while to come to this conclusion though and I still wonder if I'm missing something obvious. :-)
robotresearcher 15y ago
Robot think-tank Willow Garage has a large mindshare with their ROS Open Source robot stack, and is having an appreciable impact in the robot research community. Founder Scott Hassan was a very early Googler and is thus very rich. WG doesn't need to make money in the short term: it's success should be measured in other ways.
ken 15y ago
I just noticed that 6 of the 10 people on the Parse team have Google backgrounds: https://www.parse.com/about/team https://www.parse.com/about/team They're still in beta so perhaps it's premature to call it a success story, but it looks promising.

kls 15y ago

I don't know about profitability but some of them have exited to companies other than Google, in this list: http://mashable.com/2010/08/26/ex-googler-startups/ http://mashable.com/2010/08/26/ex-googler-startups/

pg 15y ago

Twitter and Foursquare are fairly prominent examples, though in both cases the founders were people who became Google employees when their previous startups were acquired. Among startups we've funded, I know at least Greplin, Optimizely, Appjet, and ReMail have/had founders who previously worked at Google. I'm sure there are at least that many more, but I don't remember where most of the people we funded worked before.

Aloisius 15y ago
Hrm. AppJet and ReMail were both acquired by Google though. Greplin and Optimizely Googlers both had years at other companies between Google and the founding their companies. I guess Biz Stone came directly from Google to found Twitter. Given Google's size and the quality of the people who go in there, I'd have expected dozens if not hundreds of companies to be spawned by ex-Googlers. I often wonder if certain companies simply produce more founders because of culture, money or simply bias in who they hire. PayPal is the classic example of a company that pumped out a good number of successful founders, but I can't identify any particular characteristic of that particular company that might have caused it. I'd love to see some analytics about where the most successful or prolific founders come from.
- smanek 15y ago
  FWIW, Greplin's cofounder (Robby Walker) went straight from Google to Greplin. Although, to be fair, his last startup was acqui-hired by Google too.
- minwcnt 15y ago
  From what I understand, turnover at Google is very low, especially among high ranking engineers. That might be why you see fewer ex-Googler startups than one might expect.
- ekianjo 15y ago
  I don't know so much about Google employees, but what defines usually the capability of good entrepreneurs is that they are pied off with something in their environment, and have the will, leadership and capability to change things for the better. Google may have very good technical people, i.e. they are capable, but I am not sure how they would fare as "leaders", "influencers", etc... it's also a company culture thing. If your company does not promote that kind of behavior, it is very unlikely you will see people stepping out to try things on their own. And if Google is successful at making their employees happy in some way or another, that also puts the barrier of leaving Google to a much higher point.
- _delirium 15y ago
  A minor observation corroborating your hypothesis is looking at how many people Google's accumulated from the old Bell Labs (Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, etc.). In some ways the Bell Labs culture was the diametric opposite of startup culture, with a typical career path of "stay in this job for life", and little interest in business or striking out on your own. I believe a few have said as much, that they moved to Google because it was a place where they had the resources and freedom to just focus on technology.
  - lrobb 15y ago
    I was going to make the same comment. I've known plenty of really sharp, talented developers that have zero interest in ever even looking at a P&L sheet. When you've immersed yourself in a certain sub-culture (say startups), it's sometimes easy to forget that not everyone out there shares that model of thinking.
kmfrk 15y ago
Foursquare is not the most inspiring story, no. Google acquired them, killed Dodgeball, and Foursquare was created in protest. At least the way I recall it. http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dodgeball http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dodgeball

paul 15y ago

Big success takes longer to be visible since early acquisitions are typically small. I think weatherbill is doing very well, and there are quite a few promising yc companies started by former Googlers (such as optimizely). And of course 2/3 of the Twitter founders were previously at Google. I might also mention FriendFeed :)

d2vid 15y ago
Weatherbill is now named climate.com

HerraBRE 15y ago

Wait, what? It sounds like you are defining success or failure solely in terms of whether there is a big-money exit or not. That seems so... sad. What ever happened to "provides employment" and "provides value to its customers"? Anyway, I'm an ex-Googler who started a company after leaving. It's still too early to say whether we'll be "successful" by any metric, but I'm really enjoying it so far, which is enough for now.

Aloisius 15y ago
No, it is just that exits are an easy to see measure of success. Any company that is no longer a startup or had significant traction would be a good measure of success as well.
- HerraBRE 15y ago
  Fair 'nuff. I think the Google Alumni organization tries to keep track of some things like that, but I have no idea how successful they are. I've never bothered telling them what I am up to. :-P
untog 15y ago
What ever happened to "provides employment" and "provides value to its customers"? Largely depends, I suspect, on the level of VC involvement. Most (all?) would be looking for a big-money exit in the future- just ticking along nicely means their bet doesn't pay off so well.
- HerraBRE 15y ago
  Exactly! This is actually why I am in no real hurry to look for VC-type investment. Taking VC money at least appears to eliminate the "middle ground" for the business, one becomes obligated to shoot for big money or go bust trying. It took me quite a while to come to this conclusion though and I still wonder if I'm missing something obvious. :-)

robotresearcher 15y ago

Robot think-tank Willow Garage has a large mindshare with their ROS Open Source robot stack, and is having an appreciable impact in the robot research community. Founder Scott Hassan was a very early Googler and is thus very rich. WG doesn't need to make money in the short term: it's success should be measured in other ways.

ken 15y ago

I just noticed that 6 of the 10 people on the Parse team have Google backgrounds: https://www.parse.com/about/team https://www.parse.com/about/team They're still in beta so perhaps it's premature to call it a success story, but it looks promising.