Google in Malaysia

 

For the past few weeks, I have met personally a few Google employees in Malaysia. It started with an accidental meeting with the only Google employee in Malaysia who actually has his own desk in Googleplex. How cool is that? I mean, people keep saying that Googleplex is the epitome of cool and is where everyone in geekdom, want to work and there I was meeting with someone who actually works there.

However, before you think that he really commute to the States everyday, let me clarify. He has a desk there but he actually work from home in Malaysia and he is not the one you get to meet for your Google question. And he is not one of those guys who does the mapping for Google. I actually never really understand his function but it is more towards sourcing and troubleshooting any country related problem which crops up. He did say that he is the one which feeds Google the content for their Malaysian look for the word GOOGLE in their country specific Google site.

He also dispel the rumour about Google close to signing with a Malaysian partner to represent them here in Malaysia. It seems that every IT company in Malaysia is claiming that. And if that ever happens he said it will only be on the technical side. Google still will be controlling directly its contents and offerings on the web.

3 days after I met him, thanks to my friend, Kid Chan, I was at another Google event, which was the launch of their celebrity endorsed Google places. There, I met a few more Google employees and they are based in Singapore. It seems that they have a fully functional office in Singapore with a full roster of employees in contrast with Malaysia which has one person working for Google. I met the Head of Marketing and Sales of Google Singapore (or was it South East Asia?) there.

One generalisation which I like to make with regards to Google employees are they are all quite a looker. And this is not inherent towards the women only. The Malaysian guy was even known among the geek community as Handsome H (sorry girls, taken) and I even mistaken the marketing head that I met as a movie star or a male model when he was interviewed on the launch of the Google pin in Malaysia (The guy sitting in the picture on top there). Read that post about the Google pin here.

And what I want to know is, how the hell do one get that Google t-shirt they have been giving all over town at events and such for the past two, three weeks.

 

Kid Chan with his Google pin