This is ...GOOGLE

11:59 AM

5th March 2018

Mountain View, CA

How often do you get the chance of being in the headquarters of the most valuable company in the world?

Today I got that chance and visited the dream company of this generation, Google.

The visit was part of a student trip that I elaborated more about in my post 'This is ...Silicon Valley' which you may refer to if you want to more details about the program. For this post I will focus more on the visit itself.

During the visit I got to listen to great three speakers and Google employees, walked through the campus, visited the souvenir store, and even made new connections.

Whom did I meet?

I met three incredible employees, Rayman Aryani our host and program manager, Marwa Mabrouk who works as a product manager, and Sami Haija who is a machine learning researcher. I value people from all backgrounds and nations, but I felt particularly proud that the three of them have middle eastern origins. Not only that made me feel directly connected to them, but it also gave me faith that anyone can do it even if they come from the other half of the world.

How does Google look like?

Many people wonder what does Google look like from the inside, well, I will get to say it feels like home!. Everything you can think of is provided, from free food to massage service, to a beautiful park. Everyone seemed chill and excited to be there.

What is so different about Google?

There are many great things that make them different than any other company, but what appealed to me the most was the following:

1-They invest in humans and talents.

To me that is one of the most important strategies, to focus on the employees as human beings, not as property that the company owns. Google makes sure to invest in the people's talent, because a great team is what makes everything works well.

2- They value diversity

I met three people that each one of them had a very unique background and a story. Google sees 'Diversity as an asset'. They encourage individuals to leverage their identity because each one of us is different, and can add a new value to the table.

3- They maintain a healthy atmosphere

Competition is present in any sector in any industry, but competition can either be toxic, or be kept maintained at a healthy level. That what Google stresses on, to keep the atmosphere healthy and to make sure that their employees are not on full power all the time to the extent that it starts to reflect negatively on them and on the whole company.

Women Power

Being an Arab girl who went against the norms and is doing Mechanical Engineering makes me always look for success stories of women who made it against society restrictions. Today I got the chance not to just hear a success story in the Tech field, but to also meet her in person. Marwa Mabrouk that I mentioned earlier in the article inspired me on how she moved from the Middle East all the way to Silicon Valley, and got hired at Google as a product manager (that is one of the hardest positions to get hired for). She was determined to succeed and nothing stopped in her way. Thank you so much for being a great example to a young girl engineer like me, and for proving for all of the girls out their that women have power.