Google turns 20

Google turned 20 this week, and they had a number of pop-up birthday celebrations around the campus with tasty cupcakes. It was interesting to contrast it with IBM’s celebration of its 100th birthday, which happened while I was still at IBM Research. On the one hand, IBM made a much bigger deal of its birthday than Google did (of course, it’s a lot more impressive for a company to make it to 100 than it is for.a company to make it to 20). On the other hand, I was right at the Googleplex for the celebration. IBM’s primary celebration was on the East Coast, since that’s where IBM is primarily based. So while Google’s celebrations were smaller, they were also more directly visible. And hey, who doesn’t like party hats?