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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - DECEMBER 2011
When we first arrived, we employed about
30 engineers and product people. We wanted
to find and develop the right idea at the right
time, with the right group of people.
IM: What happened once things started
to accelerate? You’ve recently expanded
your space in this building quite a lot.
SW: We’ve earned the right to expand. The
people here have done great things.
The story of Google in Canada hangs on a
starting point around mobile. We have a long
history of developing products and
infrastructure to support mobile. Recently
the
most
successful
consumer-facing
products are those that work for mobile
across platforms, they work with many sites.
People developed these products from
start to launch more or less entirely here,
from conception to launch. Google is pretty
proud of that.
IM: What else are you currently working
on here?
SW: We are doing a lot of work in how
commerce intersects with mobile. We’re also
doing a lot with display advertising and
looking at real time bidding infrastructure.
We’re also developing more in mobile
docs. Anything you want to do in documents
on your mobile phone, we’re trying to push
that forward.
We’re also trying to find ways to reach
small businesses—we’re helping to draw
people into these smaller companies with
our tools. As devices become more mobile,
we’re trying to develop more touch-based
experiences, and experimenting with new
devices. Google is focused on secure, very
mobile, enterprise-friendly devices. On
mobile devices, you don’t have the luxury of
being complex.
IM: What ’s your strategy for developing
solutions for customers?
SW: We are consumer-led versus
enterprise-led. And whether we’re develop-
ing products on the enterprise or consumer
side, we’re always talking to customers.
Learning from them what’s going to make
work, life, jobs easier—what is the big
problem we can solve in computer science?
Image provided by Google
We rarely talk about tablets or phone. We
talk about mobile. The potential is
unbelievable in mobile. In terms of a strategy
for Google—we innovate quickly, we fail
quickly, and we move on.
You need to be able to do measurement,
and we do experiments every day. We talk to
people, do user-studies, we ask if they got
their response faster, did they come to a
solution quickly?
Google is always asking: ‘what do people
want’. Everybody cares about the consumer.
We solve the user problem first, and the
business models come second. Our mandate
is to organize the world’s information and
make it accessible and useful.
IM: What about your culture? How has
is translated into Canada?
SW: Well, we’re all Googley for sure. We
do things a bit differently around here. The
way things are set up are different, and we
rely heavily on collaboration. People with
different experiences work together. We have
an environment where there are places to
meet, to share ideas, and to eat! Food is a big
part of our culture—it brings out a lot of
interesting conversations.
GOOGLE - CANADA’S INNOVATION FUTURE
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