Manhattan in the Rain Yields a Story About Google

I went down to lower Manhattan in the rain. I joined fellow members of the internet travel advertising world at a meeting….one of the speakers was a shy Indian named Gokul Rajaram, the CEO of Chai Labs. They are developing a new platform from which readers can shop for hotels in thousands of places around the world.

He said that when he worked at Google helping them develop their ad sense program, in the companies younger days, an offer was made to the two founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Someone offered them $15 million if they’d put their logo beside the Google logo on their home page for one day. That was a sizeable sum back in those days, but it wasn’t even considered. His message from this was to remember your users. Their satisfaction is what really matters.

He also pointed to how Googlers are encouraged to set their own goals each week, rather than having the boss set it. If you predict the score, you’re much more likely to carry it through to the goal.