[djtriptych]

hah. I was an intern at Google in 2005 when he was hired and remember the wave of reverence that went through Mountain View. Salute to a legend!

It’s like two lifetimes in tech years. I remember that summer Google Earth was launched, we were a year removed from the Gmail launch, and I worked on shipping the first Summer of Code.

[jrockway]

I worked on GFiber in the mid 2010s. We were having a debate about IPv6 support, which many people wanted to not do. I wrote a far-too-long essay on why it was important (at the time) and Vint picked it up to yell at the leadership team to get it prioritized. It was truly an "only at Google" experience to have someone who essentially invented the Internet reading your posts and acting on them.

(I guess a decade later, was IPv6 important? Still not sure about that one. But it seemed important at the time.)

[djtriptych]

Wow Google Fiber what a blast from the past.

I eventually went full time at Google NYC in the early 2010s - I remember the internal uproar when Reader was sunsetted =)

[esseph]

The Google Fiber name didn't change to GFiber until March 26th, 2026.

[manuisin]

wow, that was the golden age of Google.

[djtriptych]

I don't want to name him as he's decently well known, but I'm pretty sure my mentor monitored Vint's interview to make sure no one accidentally rejected him for a coding error or something.

[justin66]

I suspect the only thing at risk of being smeared by a more complete retelling of that story is Google’s interview process.

[driverdan]

They made him write code as part of an interview?

[djtriptych]

I don't know if he actually did.

Just know that my mentor was hand-holding the hiring process which basically prided itself on false negatives and still probably does.

[throw5]

Never underestimate the power of hubris.

[sriram_malhar]

Vint had an interview?!! Who had the gall to suggest he needs to come in and be evaluated?

[djtriptych]

I don't remember the exact details after 20 yrs but I think EVERYONE got a coding loop no exceptions at the time by default.

And they were still in the era where's they'd just keep interviewing you until they "got enough signal" so people would be back 3 and 4 times.

[pastor_williams]

I don't know if he had to do technical interviews (I'd imagine not) but what he described was Eric Schmidt approaching him and asking him to leave MCI to work at Google. They asked him what his title should be and he (I think he) jokingly suggested Internet Pope. They eventually settled on Chief Internet Evangelist.

[etc-hosts]

When Google hired Guido van Rossumm, they put him through the same trials they require of every employee who is thinking of contributing Python code. Then they yelled at him for making Python inefficient.

[fragmede]

There's gotta be a story about him and python readability at Google.

[djtriptych]

They were really going after all the legends.

Google hired Guido van Rossum around the same time. I worked down the hall from Rob Pike, they had already hired Peter Weinberger (the w from `awk`), and I shared a 4-person office with Gren Stein, who was then director of the Apache Software Foundation.