The San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times confirm our scoop that the party plane owned by Google founder Sergey Brin and Larry Page was spotted at NASA-owned Moffet Field last week. According to the Chronicle, officials from one neighboring town aren't happy with the private jet's appearance on the government-owned hangar: "No one has problems with military flights, but it's hard to make a national security case here."
We've got the answer on what Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are doing in Seville, the recent destination of their converted 767 airliner, the Google Jet. They're attending a massive company get-together, Be Connected 2007, in the Spanish city, along with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. According to this Spanish blog, more than 3,000 people are attending, including a big contingent, tipsters say, from Google's Zurich office. "The restaurants are packed with Googler," reports a besieged Sevillero. They're being entertained with free meals — no change from the ordinary, pampered life of a Googler there — as well as performance by French music group Gipsy Kings. The conference runs through tomorrow.
If Wednesday's sighting of the Google Jet — the converted 767 privately owned by company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — was accurate, we may know where they Google duo are headed next. Commenter smpte tips us that the plane, operated by TAG Aviation, took off from Moffet Field earlier today and is, at this moment, flying over Maine en route to Seville, Spain. Anyone know what kind of Andalusian adventure Page, Brin, or both might be up to? Let us know.
We haven't heard much about the Google Jet, lately — the converted 767 airline that serves as Larry Page and Sergey Brin's party palace in the sky. But we were intrigued by this tip: "Could have sworn I saw the Google Jet yesterday sitting on the tarmac at Moffett Field at about 6:30 p.m. How convenient for the boys!" Convenient, indeed, since Moffett Field is practically adjacent to Google's Mountain View headquarters. But last we checked, the airport was owned by the government and run by NASA, and not, as far as we're aware, available for private use. Google, however, has had a deal since 2005 to develop offices and housing at the NASA site. Could landing rights for Page's and Brin's private jet be part of the deal?
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. I'm not sure if Euripides, the Greek playwright, had Google's management team in mind when he wrote that, but it sure fits. Google, despite the occasional lost deal, billion-dollar lawsuit, and PR black eye, continues to succeed spectacularly as a business. "Somehow they continue shitting more money than you or i could realistically comprehend," writes one Valleywag reader. Indeed. And that money is driving the people who run Google insane. CEO Eric Schmidt's cosseting of girlfriend Marcy Simon with a plum PR job is just the latest, most blatant sign of that madness.
BLACK ROCK CITY — The story so far: In between desert heat, bronchus-choking dust storms, too many Tecates, and a lingering desire to throw rebar tent stakes at the ravers across the street, we here have been continuing in our mission to spot Google bigwigs Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are rumored to be raging around the playa in comfort as participants in this year's Burning Man festival.
BLACK ROCK CITY — A rumor has just reached our ears that Google's cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are here at Burning Man, the ever-dusty counterculture and arts festival taking place in the Nevada desert. We even have their purported addresses on the playa.
Does anyone really believe it's a coincidence that Google CFO George Reyes has announced his retirement so soon after the company missed Wall Street analysts' expectations for earnings in its second quarter? I only regret that I hadn't included Reyes in our ongoing "Toogle Many Googlers" series, in which Valleywag attempts to solve the binge of overhiring that led to Google's profit shortfall. After all, if the CFO isn't minding the payroll, who is? When reading these departing-executive press releases, just imagine that the fond farewells are in opposite-speak, and they begin to make sense.
Indiana University isn't the only Midwestern university hoping for some search-engine magic to boost its tech image. The University of Michigan is pleased as punch that it persuaded famous alumnus Larry Page, the Google cofounder to build an Ann Arbor campus in 2003. Most of the hires, naturally, are recent University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State graduates. U of M president Mary Sue Coleman gushes, "Attracting companies like Google is absolutely critical to the transformation of the Michigan economy... To see this be a reality and to look at the energy here in the office ... It really is a dream come true.'' To anyone, that is, except the bulk of the workers in Google's Ann Arbor annex.
Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan. Or so the saying goes. Google's second-quarter earnings — how to put this delicately? — sucked. At least compared to Wall Street's predictably overhyped expectations. Profits rose 28 percent, but that wasn't enough, and the stock fell 5 percent in after-hours trading, which means someone's got to take the fall. I dialed into Google's conference call, and listened closely to who did most of the talking. When it's bad news, the chief financial officer usually gets stuck with the unpleasant job, and sure enough, that's what happened, with CEO Eric Schmidt quickly handing the call over to CFO George Reyes and flipping tough questions to his colleagues. That tells me even Google insiders thought it was a bad quarter, too. Also on the call: Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and top executives Jonathan Rosenberg and Omid Kordestani.
Ordinary hackers have to drive two hours to get to the rural Northern California town of Sebastopol to attend Foo Camp, the Tim O'Reilly-sponsored geekfest. Google cofounder Larry Page? He shows up in a helicopter, landing on a reserved patch of grass. Just another perk of being one of the richest nerds on the planet. (Photo by Marc Davis)
Disclaimer: Google has every reason to hunt down leakers by spreading false rumors.
The culture split between Yahoo and Google is Hollywood versus the nerds, according to most journalists (take, for example, a CNET compare-and-contrast article from 2005). Yahoo is the one that brought in TV and film execs like CEO Terry Semel and "went Hollywood," a move often blamed for the company's financial and cultural woes. But so has Google, as a corporation and as an executive team.
Last night, I cheated my way into a book party for California-based writer and web publisher Arianna Huffington at the San Francisco guest house of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and romance novelist Melanie Craft Ellison. First lesson: Don't go to a society event dressed for a Silicon Valley geek party. Second lesson: F. Scott Fitzgerald was right, the rich are not like you and me.
