Google's Internal Company Goals

Rockgod writes to mention a Google Blogoscoped article about an internal company paper. The paper details Google's big goals and directions for 2006. From the article: "The list included several items, for example: Google wants to have an improved infrastructure to make their engineers more productive. This includes allowing employees to have a universal search tool "containing all public Google information searched on all Google searches." Google also wants to build 10MW of green power to be on track to be carbon neutral. (They also want to reduce "Borg disk waste" by 50%... hmmm, Borg?)

borg

i.e. cluster

The Googlesphere

Welcome to the Googlepshere... resistance is futile... but at least we dont have chairs.

No chairs

Welcome to the Googlepshere... resistance is futile... but at least we dont have chairs.
And neither do we have Steve Ballmer to throw them...

Don't you read Slashdot?

(They also want to reduce "Borg disk waste" by 50%... hmmm, Borg?)

Clearly "Borg disk waste" means "Microsoft disk waste". Google is moving to a less Microsoft-centric system. They clearly rely far too much on ASP.NET and SQL Server, and would like to become a LAMP shop. They may even be planning their own operating system to compete with Windows Vista.

Re:Don't you read Slashdot?

This isn't digg please don't make stuff up.

Re:Don't you read Slashdot?

Hmm, I really don't have a clue as to what platform Orkut is running on. Of course, the URL's on the site uses the ".aspx"-suffix but the returned server header says GFE:

# curl -I "https://www.orkut.com/"
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: https://www.orkut.com/GLogin.aspx?done=https%3A%2F %2Fwww.orkut.com%2F [orkut.com]
Content-Length: 0
Cache-control: private
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:58:40 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Server: GFE/1.3

...perhaps this means they're load balancing or similar, but still.

Borg

I'm sure that it's a reference to the Billgatus of Borg [ahajokes.com] or maybe the old joke [ozemail.com.au]

green power

I think it's really an important step for Google to aim for carbon neutrality, starting with green power. Nowadays green power, green building, and other sustainability practices have substantial financial benefits in addition to their environmental ones. Companies are starting to recognize this too, thankfully--Bank of America has a LEED certified [wikipedia.org] building going up in Manhattan that will save massive amounts of emissions of carbon and other pollutants and save massive amounts of money.

What makes me happiest about seeing Google do this is that they are such a role-model for next-generation businesses. If Google achieves carbon neutrality, even partially, the message it will send to corporations, start-ups, and individuals will be, "You can be environmentally conscious and financially successful; the two are not mutually exclusive." That's an important message that is only beginning to spread.

Re:green power

As technology makes it cheaper you will probably start seeing just about everything generating power. I mean floors have to have a certain amount of give, and carpet flexes when you walk on it - if they were both piezoelectric then just walking around would generate some power. It's not economically feasible to do this right now but it's coming. Structures are flexible, too; if you could generate power from the slight movement due to the wind, thermal differentials, and the slamming of doors (not to mention generating power when a door is opened!) then it would all add up. It doesn't add up to very much, which is why we're not doing it now.

Re:green power

If Google achieves carbon neutrality, even partially, the message it will send to corporations, start-ups, and individuals will be, "You can be environmentally conscious and financially successful; the two are not mutually exclusive."

I saw a promotional advertisement video on 'green' manufacturing, and while I do not buy into a lot of the whole 'save the world before it is too late' fear, I do believe that the concepts of green manufacturing just plain make sense to some degree.

Maybe being a programmer and being stuck in too many 'dungeons' makes me feel this way, but adding large windows, more greenery(plants) inside offices and plants (where they do not risk safety obviously) just makes employees feel such much better, that they're happier and more productive, aside from reduced heating bills due to solar heat (though, some factories don't have to worry about producing heat, hehe).

On the other hand, I doubt there is a lot of start-ups who could afford to invest their startup money on an expensive building, when that capital needs to be spent on... well, getting their company started. The problem always comes down to money, sure long term, it can save you money, after like 20+ years, but the premium on these places are high and most start-ups will move into pre-existing space. And when you want to start a business, you look at a $1 million building or a $10 million building, you're probably going to go for the $1 million building. Of course, if you become Google and light cigars with $100 bills, then you could probably afford a green building.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:green power

and plants (where they do not risk safety obviously)

Yes safety first! I do so hate it when the office hydrangea goes on a rampage and kills the interns.

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Carbon Nuetral?...Google really is a good company

You really don't see this very often. What short-term or even mid-term payoff could there possibly be to being carbon nuetral? I don't think anyone can stand back and say that Google fits into the mold of what most Companies in this world have become. I applaude Google. I think they are a role-model that other companies (Including the existing big boys) should strive to be more like.

This isn't that much of a suprise though. When you have such a great product & a motivated team, you tend to attract the best & brightest. The best & brightest usually have the best ideas....

Brad

Re:Carbon Nuetral?...Google really is a good compa

PR is an immediate short term payoff.
Environmentally friendly practices are cheaper mid/long term. They're also more reliable if you consider the rate of electricity generating capacity being added in North America.

Re:Carbon Nuetral?...Google really is a good compa

If you'd bothered to read their IPO or other documents, you'd know that common shareholders have nearly no control over the company due to the voting structure the owners set up.

They note that their policies may not maximize profit. Their policies are set based on doing what's right, as deemed by the founders.

Maybe you should sell your shares.

Re:Carbon Nuetral?...Google really is a good compa

Here's the document I think he was referring to Original IPO Letter [google.com]. Also, investor.google.com [google.com] has various other stock- and IPO-related documents, I think.

Disclaimer: I work at Google.

Heard this one before

Google tries to make sure their tools are running everywhere. In around mid-2006, according to their internal numbers 60 Million Google Packs had been installed, but they still want to increase the deployment... especially for "novice users."

Doesn't that sound awfully like

A PC on every desk, and that PC running Microsoft software

So now they're a proper company?

Its all very well spending all your money on table football and falafel sandwiches, but I guess when your shareholders demand you improve your results year on year then its obvious whats first to go.....

"Borg disk waste"

Borg waste is disks! Keep that in mind the next time one asks to use your bathroom. Those bastards'll clog up your plumbing with 9000 free hours of AOL.

Products being reduced by 20%

The one bit that concerns me as a user was

the document contains the simple directive "Count total number of Google products and reduce by 20%"

There have been many Google betas with low user populations, but here in the land of every-Google-launch-is-an-article, there might be a lot of /.ers who put time and effort and personal data into a Google beta only to see it disappear in the next year. Which Google apps are on the chopping block? Will they give users a nice way to export data?

Re:Products being reduced by 20%

That may mean to consolidate existing services as well, to avoid confusing and diluting the market. For example, Writely and Google Spreadsheets combined to become Google Docs & Spreadsheets. That makes 50% less Google office products. Similarly, things like Froogle and Google Base could combine to become one shopping service.

They meant something else

No no no, they meant "bork waste". The Swedish chef translation [google.com] of their search engine is just taking up too much space. Bork bork bork!

10MW

I'm not sure I believe they're only using 10MW across their entire worldwide campus. I would bet that's a fair number for their datacenter(s).

If they were to do this via solar:

    315 peak watts per pannel at 1560mm x 800mm per pannel
    31,746 pannels required assuming peak of 10MW and not constant
    1.248 square meters per pannel times 31,746
    425,000 square feet of space (approximately)

    For those still with me, that's 9.8 acres of solar pannels, producing [in that region of CA] approximately 18GWh per year. That's about $3,600,000 worth of energy per year in CA.

Some recommendations: Don't just cover the tops of your buildings. Created additional semi-covered parking with solar pannels atop, consider wind. GE makes one of the most efficient wind turbines out there. For each one of those you can fit on your property, you're likely to save about an acre of land required for solar. And though their peak power coverage isn't as great, they're in operation when the sun's down :)

Unfortunately for google, the wind in cali is not that good for wind power [except offshort]. Though, some parts near the SF area do have slightly better ratings.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/maps/wind/WIND_POWER_50M. jpg [ca.gov]

I think the one thing that companies overlook is. There's no absolute requirement that being carbon neutral requires you to power your own stuff with the energy. How about investment in a wind farm in southwest kansas [excellent location for wind power]. Or 10 acres of Solar pannels in Mexico? I think helping Mexico reduce carbon usage is probably better (polution wise) than helping the US...

Related and interesting fact

This morning 50% of Denmark's power supply was covered by wind power, due to a storm. During the peak (at 4 in the morning) it reached 80%. Generally about 20-25% of power is supplied by wind here.

Google's goals ...

... now come with Slightly Less Evil (TM) ...







*ducks (chair)*

borg.google.com

Reading the comments of the article, "Jake" suggests that borg refers to borg.google.com, a very important internal subdomain. (James Bradbury)

A quick search revealed:

Google Finance Leaks Version Two Information (Search Engine Watch Blog, 2006-07-21)
Garett Rogers stumbled upon a link in Google Finance at the top right corner that said "v2 (test)" in red font. The link points to http://0.frontend-live.sfe.scrooge.hs.borg.google. com/finance [google.com], which seems to not be accessible from my location, or outside of Google's network. Notice the sign of the borg again? borg.google.com from before. So, now we have rumors that Google is going to be launching a version two of Google Finance soon. Maybe it includes stock indices from other worlds? :)... (http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/seo-news/topic -16812.htm [webrankinfo.com])

I found this [mssem.com] to be a little funny as well.

Goals for 2007

And their goals for 2007 include becoming uranium-neutral. Perhaps in 2008, they'll be helium-neutral.

By 2020, they hope to be matter-neutral.

I work at google

Borg disk waste refers to the unfortunate results of an experiment creating autonomous software-based administrators. They had code to spread to different machines around the world (much like a trojan, but with good intentions). Unfortunately, they ended up doing this a little too well, and ended up archiving much more content than was originally intended... on servers across the world.

They use pagerank to determine what needs to be archived more/less, but the algo is too agressive... and the only way to communicate with them is on a one-by-one basis. Once you get one archiver killed on the machine, another is likely to be placed there by a different archiver.

Last march everything went wild and almost brought us down. They're nicknamed borg since they take over just about everything they touch. Since then we've created new bots to fight the archivers... the fight is predicted to continue well into next year.

(posting anon for obvious reasons)

You are full of shit

That's all 100% BS, man. It's complete nonsense. Sorry. Nice try, though.

-B

Ooops!

They also want to reduce "Borg disk waste" by 50%... hmmm, Borg?

Seems like someone blew their cover this time. And here we all thought it was Microsoft...

here's a Google Wishlist

This is a great piece were Sharon not only comments on Google's future plans but has some very legitimate suggestions: http://www.site-reference.com/articles/General/My- Google-Wish-List.html [site-reference.com]

another way to reduce waste

Plus, they are removing all the flush toilets.

With only urinals and piss pots, employees won't be dropping loads at work anymore.

Lasers!

"Google also wants to build 10MW of green power..."
Green lasers? They're going to want sharks, too. Does anyone know how I can buy shark futures?

nanosolar

Google's founders heavily invested in a company called Nanosolar, which uses a known process called CIGS for making solar cells. Such cells do not rely as much on expensive, supply constrained polysilicon and can be mass produced for a fraction of the cost of current methods. If current solar power costs 5$/watt, it is not unreasonable to see .5$/watt when ecomomies of scale ramp up. This will displace traditional power generation in many places. go to the website and watch the video, its pretty amazing.

EFIGSCJKR

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Re:A good first step

You are assuming - incorrectly, I think - that Google actually has (currently) 2.77GB of storage space for every G-mail account in existance. Google is probably operating with the knowledge that almost nobody actually uses that much, and is overselling their disk capacity by some calculated amount.

=Smidge=

Re:This is nice but...

The key difference is that Google, like Paris, hasn't really earned most of the money they're sitting on

So... many... possible.. comebacks... *BOOM*

> Brain exploded, WISEASS.SYS corrupted.
> (A)bort/(R)etry/(F)ail?

Re:This is nice but...

Google has earned every dollar they've made, when earned means that the market gave it to them, which is how money is earned in a capitalist economy.

I think you mean that their value is not backed up by capital equipment. While that is true the majority of the investor market does not seem to mind much, and I suspect it puts Google's ROI up there pretty well.

But I do enjoy the irony of the 'information wants to be free' crowd loving a company with a value based almost entirely on intellectual assets.

You've all missed the point

This is a good thing. No arguments.

I'm just saying to all the "everyone should do this" people that they shouldn't expect a "normal" company to be able to do this. Google has grossed $15B in the last four years. It's worth, on paper, $120B. $105B of that money is "future potential".

Guess that's the rule here, though - never open the curtain on the chosen few. So, in penance I offer the following:

Microsoft Sucks! Apple Rules! Down with SCO!
Mmmmm, I feel better already.

Re:Ping-pong tables

Ping-pong tables
(Score:-1, Troll)
by tritonman (998572) on Friday October 27, @09:55AM (#16608330)
If they want to make the engineers more productive, they need to remove the ping-pong tables!

-1 troll on a comment that removing pingpong tables might increase productivity?

I guess google engineers get karma, too.