This is Google technology director Craig Silverstein, who just gave a short talk about the changes Google has weathered during its short history. We're here at Google's "Searchology" event at the corporate headquarters in Mountain View.
Craig is the first person hired by Larry and Sergey. He's been there since the earliest days at Stanford University, when, as he puts it, the three moved from doing research in a lab to running a company in their dorm rooms.
Sergey's dorm room was the business operations center where all the communications happened. Larry's room was the machine room where they kept three computers. Eventually, Larry's roommate complained that the noisy computers were keeping him awake at night, so the trio was forced to go find an office. Famously, they ended up in a garage.
His talk centered on the four key points Google has concentrated on since its inception: Comprehensiveness, relevance, speed and user experience. Craig noted that if he'd given this talk five or six years ago, even given everything that's has happened to the web and to search, those would be the same four points he'd hit.
I think it really speaks to why Google's a success. They don't spend a lot of time on chrome and fancy stuff. They just zero in on functionality, usability and pure speed. The fancy stuff comes later.
