Building Google, Hiring Talent and Innovation Culture with Employee No. 8 Urs Hölzle

Sometimes small decisions are life changing. Urs Hölzle, a Swiss computer scientist, made such a decision without knowing when he became the 8th employee of Google back in the late 1990s. For the past two decades, he was responsible for building what might be the most impressive infrastructure ever created. You all know the services that run on the infrastructure Urs developed: Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Cloud and many others. What makes Google's infrastructure impressive is the scale, complexity, and efficiency with which it operates. Google's data centers span multiple continents and are largely powered by renewable energy sources. The company uses advanced techniques, such as machine learning and AI, to optimize its data centers, reduce energy consumption and improve reliability. In this conversation, I talked to Urs about the early days of Google when it was not more than just a few people and computers in a garage in Silicon Valley. Also we discussed the hiring strategy as well as the learning and innovation culture that were crucial for Google’s success. We also touched on Cloud computing, the reason why Europe is behind the US regarding digital innovation and what drives him as a human being. Please enjoy this special episode of the Sparkr Podcast with none other than Urs Hölzle from Google. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a positive rating if you enjoy this conversation. *** Sparkr is an angency for change makers and supports them with strategy, innovation and project management competencies. Sparkr offers customized studies, workshops or sparring sessions - always with the goal that you can use the future shaped by digitalization, technological and social change to your advantage. Learn more on www.sparkr.ch/en. If you want to get in touch with Sparkr to contribute to your next business event as facilitator, speaker or moderator, please visit www.sparkr.ch/moderation-en If you want to get in touch with Christian Lundsgaard for a personal virtual meeting, book one on https://calendly.com/christian-sparkr/30min ***