Watching the Wheels

Friday was my last day at Google -- the third job I'd somehow managed to hold down since college. Stock closed up almost 1% on the news.

I had been with the product management team there since 2002; combined with the startup life that preceded it, I thought it was high time to hang out some with the family.

I hosted a lot of candidate and media interviews at Google and was often asked if the atmosphere at the company had changed much lately. I would always respond that even as of 2002 it was already the biggest company that I'd ever worked for in my life, and that I had a ton of ambivalence about the "big company"-ness of it all. But once I'd opened the lid, the people there and the experience they offered turned out to be nothing short of amazing. And the good things that were there when I had joined -- most importantly the scrappy, passionate, bright people who really enjoy solving interesting, hard problems -- are still alive and kicking, thank you very much. It really is the world's biggest startup company, and I look forward to more surprises from these guys.

We're scheduling some travel and look forward to seeing some long-unseen friends -- frequent fliers will do well to note our plans and avoid sharing the cabin with our circus -- but mostly, we'll probably turn up often at family-friendly venues that give the hipster set the creeps.

Longer-term, who knows? John Lennon took 5 years off after son Sean was born. I'm not sure if I can pull that off, but hmm, it sure would be fun to find out!