1718T2 Silicon Valley/Reflection/Day4

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REFLECTION

Day 4

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Reflections

Student Name	Google	Origin Protocol	Twilio
Adeline Jong	Google is the world’s leader in search. Muhammad Mohsin shared that Google’s strategy is to be able to pull out uncommon search for as many type of demographics as possible, hence being able to take a large portion of the market as compared to their competitors like yahoo or bing. He shared an interesting project where he developed the functionality where users can search a product they want to while chatting with friends, reducing friction and therefore improving the user’s experience. Google is always exciting because they move as fast as start ups even though the company is huge worldwide.
Andrew Tay	Google’s culture encourages Googlers to embrace failures. In fact, when someone commits a mistake, unlike other companies. Google doesn’t fire them. These Googlers are told to write a post-mortem (not to point fingers), to discuss about the problem and how to prevent it from repeating.
Benedict Wee
Claire Teo	Creativity has always been one of the critical success factors of a technology company, and these companies have always been trying to think of ideas to provide resources and a good environment to nurture their employees.For google, the host mentioned that they work like an entrepreneur in google - which probably means they have a lot of autonomy over their projects which could mean that these people have more space to work on their ideas, hence allowing them to be more creative in their work. Host also mentioned that people who has a legit startup idea can start it in google, and google will give you all the resources that they need, don't need to go to work for a year to focus on their startup. It may seem that Google has such a great welfare for their staff, but it also seems like Google has plans to “retain” the ideas of their employees. People they hired are talents from the industry who may have a mind blowing business idea. By developing the ideas of their employees and keep it in under the wings of Google Inc, Google has an access to the top business ideas where there is a possibility that one of them may be another technology breakthrough.
Clara Chong	(In answering his take on why Facebook attracts younger employees and how does Google ensure they can continue to stay attractive to younger employees) “I think Facebook focuses more on the social aspect of things and maybe that’s why the younger generation is more attracted to it but I don’t think Google is losing out. Google solves different problems and serves varying needs and hence, perhaps younger employees is not what we need.” - Muhammad I think this is an important point to note for companies because although most of us are fresh grads and want to work at big tech firms, perhaps we are not always what they need and more senior and experienced talent is required. At one hand, it is true that it is a growing trend for the younger people to engage socially through tech and hence that demographic is needed for tech firms focusing on social connection. On the other hand, as Google prides itself as #1 in Machine Learning, teams of senior and younger employees who are experts in the field might be a better cultural fit for Google. However, as tech changes so rapidly, Google will adapt as well and as it includes more social aspects into its technology, there might be a shift towards hiring a younger demographic.
Clarissa Poedjiono
Derrick Lee Ming Yang	Today, I learnt about Google Ventures and the Area 120 programme. The point of contact briefly mentioned that Google supports their employees in venturing in startups by allowing the pitch winners to work full-time on their own startup with full Google facilities. I honestly think that this is a very smart move by Google because not only do they own equity of the startup, they are building relationships with their employees and retaining them rather than allowing them to become competition.
Eustace Zheng	“One of the most important factors when it comes to job sustainability is the people around you, to be at Google is a great privilege where one works with the best and are constantly challenged, the team is what keeps one yearning forward to work”
Felix Wu
Student Name	Google	Origin Protocol	Twilio
Goh Jia Yi Timothy
Goh Jin Qiang
Jacquelyn See
Jamie Chew
Jared Sim
Jeremy Bachtiar
Jolyn Yio
Jonathan Chew
Moses Fam
Remy Ng
Student Name	Google	Origin Protocol	Twilio
Rizudin Bin Jalar
Shilpa Suresh
Tan Jian Hua
Tan Ming Sheng
Tay Wei Xuan
Terence Yeo
Wong Zhe Yin, Treasa
Xavier See
Zhuo Yunying (Kaelyn)