[phylosopher]

I'm a former Googler who managed the deployment of their content distribution network. Outside of the codebase challenges that nostrademons articulated very well, Google has to deal with various big company concerns including shipping and logistics, human resources, legal issues in the many countries it operates in, hardware development, datacenter management, etc. To do this they have many talented people across disciplines. I was constantly looking for people to join our team while still maintaining the high level of ability and innate Googliness that Google looks for in an employee. In many measurements Google is still understaffed. Check out Royal Pingdoms profit per employee. http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/05/17/apple-staff-profit-per-h.... The difference between 2008 to 2010 is incredible and factors in growth in employees. Google still needs to hire... not for world domination but to maintain and improve the services that we love.