Over on CNet, Elinor Mills runs through some of Google's most high profile hires over the past few years:
Vint Cerf, creator TCP/IP and former ICANN chairman Larry Brilliant, founder of The Well Andy Hertzfeld, Apple engineer and employee #435 Adam Bosworth, former BAE Systems chief architect Kai-Fu Lee, former Microsoft executive in China Udi Manber, former CE of Amazon's A9 search unit Louis Monier, former eBayer and founder of AltaVista Andrew W Moore, former comp-sci professor at Carnegie Mellon University Nikesh Arora, former chief marketing officer, T-Mobile Jimmy Chou, former UTStarcom president in China Sean Egan, open source developer (GAIM) Ben Goodger, Firefox engineer Brian Ryner, Mozilla developer Guido van Rossum, author of Python
All very interesting, but there's not a whole lot of analysis. Of course, it's interesting to catalogue the thing... but I wonder what it actually means to go around hiring these minds and sucking them into the Googleplex?
Clearly the firm's replete with money right now, and it can afford to bring in top eggheads and sharp talents in order to try and keep itself ahead of the game.
But for all the experience and skill of this roster, I wonder if it is betraying its future intentions with this polymath approach. After all, the half-finished products coming out of Mountain View - presumably those part-time projects which the company is famous for - are increasingly pointed away from the core business of search and advertising.
Gossip blog Valleywag contends that Google's concentrating on bringing in well educated brainiacs at the expense of talented and creative individuals who don't happen to hold multiple degrees. It also helps if you've already made your name with a product or rival. Clever as these people are, there is a slight suggestions that this kind of hiring demotes disruptive creativity in favour of Good Product from Safe Hands.
Is this list living proof that Google's already stepped into its own future?
