I am tremendously honored to have worked on this important and meaningful project in Street View. I learned about this effort when I first joined Google in August and was deeply moved that Google has supported it. This has made me proud to be a Googler. It has helped confirm that my difficult decision to move from Hawaii to California was worth it because I’m able to contribute to products that change the world and help people like this one.

Since I lived right near the beach in Hawaii, my wife and I had to evacuate our home in March during the tsunami warning. I recall watching in horror as the devastation unfolded in Japan, and fearing that I would not have a home to return to the next day. I promised myself if Hawaii made it through safely (which we did), then I would do what I could to help the Japanese people recover. I made donations, wrote blogs, and helped raise awareness in Hawaii to get people to donate. I had no idea I’d be joining Google, working on Street View, or working on the Japan Street View efforts… but my promise is now appearing to come full circle.

Please read the blog and explore the new website “Memories for the Future” that we’ve launched today. You will be brough to tears as you see homes and villages literally disappear before your eyes as you switch from “Before” to “After” imagery. On a personal note, I hope that witnessing the impact of a disaster like this will move people to sympathize and send support when events like this occur.

We can each honor Steve’s memory by following our passions, pursuing our dreams, challenging the status quo, and embracing our own creativity. We all have visions for how something ought to be better in the world. Steve relentlessly worked towards building his. Don’t let us miss out on yours.

Thank you, Steve. Your impact on humanity is only just beginning.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”  (watch Steve introduce the “Think Different” campaign)

Me and Android at the Googleplex

During the past month, my wife and I have picked up our lives in Hawaii and moved across the Pacific Ocean for my new job as a Product Manager at Google, which starts tomorrow.

We made the most of our final weeks in Hawaii and even swam with dozens of wild dolphins. When we got to California, we dove head first into wine tasting, Big Sur, and some of the incredible things to do here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But our transition month has ended, and tomorrow a new adventure begins for me at Google…

I have been trying to think of a good way to express how I’m feeling right now, to convey just how excited I am about this opportunity and my dreams of all I hope to accomplish in my new role. After much thought, I think the final strip of Calvin & Hobbes sums it up just perfectly (and not because my wife’s last name is “Hobbs”). Enjoy…

Image courtesy of Bill Watterson. If you like it, please buy Calvin & Hobbes books.

The order below reflects the books I think will be most interesting to a wide audience…

“In the Plex” by Steven Levy

“In the Plex” is an all-encompassing look at Google’s culture, its history, and the motivations of its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. I really loved the book and it made me even more excited about the company while I was preparing for my interviews. Importantly, the book is an authorized account and most of the information comes directly from Levy’s experiences at the Googleplex and his interviews with hundreds of Googlers. This might be a bit too long for the casual Google fan, but it is very well-written, has lots of interesting stories, and is definitely worth the time if you’re at all curious about the company and its unique culture.

“The Facebook Effect” by David Kirkpatrick

Many people I speak with are not aware that Facebook and Google are in fact serious competitors. They both compete for your attention on the web and make nearly all their revenue off the advertising that shows up on the pages you see. Since I’m just reviewing books here, I’ll avoid a more lengthy discussion of this topic. Kirkpatrick does for Facebook what “In the Plex” does for Google. I enjoyed reading about the meteoric rise of the world’s most popular social network and learning more about the motivations of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. I was really struck by the contrast between the cultures of Google and Facebook.

“Start With Why” by Simon Sinek

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” This is the most important sentence in the book and Sinek’s TED talk (which I’ve watched five times already). Sinek proposes that companies and people who are successful are driven by WHY they are doing the work they do. As such, their marketing and advertising reflects this passion and so many people who buy their products or join their causes do so because they connect deeply with the company. Early adopters will deal with problems in beta or first version products if they love the company; however, if they are only buying the product because of its technical specifications, they will not have the same tolerance. Sinek provides a number of great examples (Apple, Tivo, the Wright brothers, Martin Luther King). I really connected with this book and Sinek’s talk because I’ve always been driven by what I’m working on and work harder as a result.

“Personality Not Included” by Rohit Bhargava

Please see my post for a full review of “Personality Not Included“.

“Inspired: How to Create Great Products Customers Love” by Marty Cagan

This one will be of interest to Product Managers, entrepreneurs, or people in similar positions. I really enjoyed the book, which contained a lot of the content from the Silicon Valley Product Group blog. So, check out the blog and if you like what you read, buy the book.

Other Helpful Books

I read several other books during the interview process and over the course of the prior year that have helped me. Some of these include:

• “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” by Alan Deutschman
• “Word of Mouth Marketing” by Andy Sernovitz
• “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakman McDowell
• “The Google Resume” by Gayle Laakman McDowell
• “Selling the Dream” by Guy Kawasaki

Some Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoy these books, and thank you again to all the authors. If you read this hoping for insights into Google’s interview process, I’m sure you’re disappointed.

In general, my advice to anyone interviewing at any company, is to do whatever you can to learn everything about the company. I’ve interviewed many people in my past positions, both on-site and at career fairs, and I can honestly say that the people who’ve done their homework before speaking with me have a much better shot at moving forward in the interview process. Best of luck!

I recently finished the new website for Project Niu (screenshot above). I also created the tracker for Project Niu (the map part of it is shown below) that allows students to see where the buoys have traveled each day.

Grizzly Bear near Yellowstone Lake

In June 2011, my wife and I went to Wyoming to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday with my parents and their friends. The itinerary included a few days in Jackson, which was a jumping off point into Grand Tetons National Park. Then we went to spend several days in Yellowstone National Park.

The highlight of the trip (besides time with family) was definitely the abundance of wildlife. For the first time, I saw a grizzly bear, several moose (including a 3-day old baby), a wolf, and baby coyotes. Countless bison and elk were ever-present, transporting us to a time hundreds of years ago when these raw, wild, landscapes stretched from coast to coast. We hiked, rafted down the Snake River, and explored the parks for over a week, experiencing a vastness of Earth that often made me say, “All of our island of Oahu could easily fit in this valley”.

I hope you enjoy my photos even a fraction as much as I enjoyed taking them…

Grand Prismatic in Yellowstone

Phelps Lake in Grand Tetons National Park

It will be very difficult for my wife and I to leave our home in Hawaii, but this is an amazing opportunity that I just couldn’t turn down. To me, Google is one of the most creative, forward-thinking, socially responsible companies in the world. I’ve always been a huge fan of their products and can’t even begin to express how excited I am to be joining the company. I don’t know what products I’ll be working on yet, but I should find out a few weeks before I start in August. And yes, I’ll be working in the Googleplex (click for video).

My wife and I have truly loved and cherished our time in Hawaii. Both of us moved here soon after college and have spent our entire adult lives immersed in the beauty of paradise and its vibrant culture. We have been island-hoppers, beach lovers, and sushi gluttons… we can truly say that we have embraced our surroundings. We moved from Honolulu to Kailua together four years ago and are still in awe of the morning serenity of Kailua Beach, the incredible orange glow of the sun rising over the ocean, the overpowering views of the lush, glowing-green Ko’olau mountains, and the laid-back island lifestyle. So, we will be saying “aloha” to Hawaii, but it will always have a huge place in our hearts.

So, what is a Product Manager at Google? Since I haven’t started yet to give my own personal experience, I’ll provide a quote directly from the job solicitation:

As a Product Manager at Google, you bridge the needs of our customers (users, advertisers and partners) and the creativity of our engineering teams. You combine outstanding product vision with the hands-on skills to work with engineers and deliver new products and features quickly to markets [around the world].

You will be responsible for the product from inception to launch and will drive a cross- functional team to ensure Google’s products are innovative and bring new possibilities to users, advertisers, and partners. You will own one or a number of our products on web, mobile, or other platforms.

Sounds like fun, huh?

No more generalisms and simplifications for the sake of media sound bytes, this was a golden opportunity for the President to exchange brilliant ideas directly with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (who was moderating) and the audience. A billionaire Internet entrepreneur and the charismatic leader of the free world. Wow. The fusion of cross-discipline brilliance here gave me hopes that the conversation would parallel the creativity and openness seen in conversations between the Dalai Lama and Nobel Prize winning physicists.

So, how many times did Obama or Zuckerberg say the word “Internet”? Twice! “Social media” or “social network”? ZERO!!! Website? ZERO!!! Entrepreneur? Twice. Startup? Once. Innovation? Once.

How is this possible? This was a conversation between the President of the United States (who represents 300 million people and is the political world’s champion of Web 2.0) and the founder of Facebook (who represents 500 million people worldwide and popularized the very platform that helped Obama win the election). During an hour-long conversation they never once said “social network”??? This is insane!!! What a waste!

I analyzed the transcript from the session and could hardly believe the data I found. What follows are word counts for popular topics and ones I added that SHOULD have been popular (see notes at the end for my methods). Bold items are related to technology, entrepreneurship, and education. Red ones shock me the most. Here it goes…

• health (40)
• education (22)
• medicare (19)
• debt (16)
• economy (16)
• hospital (15)
• energy (14)
• deficit (13)
• insurance (12)
• tax (12)
• school (12)
• science (11)
• immigration (10)
• mortgage (10)
• technology (9)
• math (9)
• kid (9)
• doctor (8)
• republican (8)
• research (6)
• teacher (6)
• entrepreneur (2)
• internet (2)
• computer (2)
• startup (1)
• innovation (1)
• web (1)
• engineer (1)
• programmer (1)
• garage (1)
• social network (0)
• social media (0)
• mobile (0)
• software (0)

I realize that Facebook chose the questions and so they’re as much to blame as the President here. But, we all know that politicians can find a way to use any question to talk about things they want to discuss. If Mr. Obama wishes to engage the technology industry to be more actively involved in government and growing the next generation of innovators, he definitely nailed the venue… but he really missed taking advantage of it.

Note: To compile this list, I used Word Counter to get the top 200 words and then, since I was not confident in the accuracy of that list, used Chrome’s find tool to verify word counts. Perhaps there are more accurate approaches but this was all I needed to verify what I felt as I watched the video.

If you do your own analysis, please share it with me here in the comments!