I was here when Google turned 25 – my reflections from past year!
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The genesis of my dream to join Google was when I had just joined my job—roughly 12 years ago. I was inspired by the great work it did long ago, when I had just joined college for my degree.
I was kind of dreamy-eyed after watching the movie "The Internship"—I've watched it over 25 times now, and finally, I was completely swept off, as I kept following the work of Sundar Pichai, leading Google as CEO. A dream and thought always lingered: "Some fine summer day, my luck would smile (driven by my hard work), and that it would be me in Google too, and that I can actually work on impacting millions and billions of lives!"
Fast forward to April 2022: I couldn't believe the call from my amazing recruiter (and the whole team, actually) - "Soumya, welcome to Google." I have been super grateful for everything coming along the way.
I was fortunate enough to attend Google's 25th anniversary celebration event recently, and it was simply awe inspiring. The energy, the vibe, the pride in being a part of this community and having the chance to impact millions and billions of lives, it was simply phenomenal to experience all of this (something which I had just heard and imagined of before).
I wanted to take this opportunity to share some amazing learnings that I have had in the past year - while there are so many, by far these are my top 3:
Embrace Ambiguity: Working on amazing opportunities with the best people I've ever met has repeatedly proven that perseverance with patience is key to turning messy into simpler.Until then, hold on tight and lean on each other – there's a palpable Googleyness in the air that you can always feel
Step Down: “In a world of leaders, I want to be a good follower,” I strongly believe that leadership is about providing opportunities and getting out of the way, allowing people to step up and transform into leaders. Sometimes, we need to step down and follow more to make room for others to grow. Leadership is not always about leading from the front, but also about leading from behind.
Connect>Correct: This has been a personal favorite, with all the energy that sometimes anyone brings to the table, there’s a state of flux and motivation to change things for the best. However, it’s of prime importance to always have the vision, that radical change takes time, and that before anyone aims for that, the need is to connect with folks at a more deeper and meaningful level, actually care about them and empathize with them. Only then can we make meaningful changes at the people, product, and process levels.
I believe there’s a billion miles more to move ahead, and meanwhile, thank you for everything Google, and yes, Happy 25th birthday again :)!