Happy Diwali

Raj Thackeray Arrested Again

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:06:19 +0000

News of the day is "Raj Thackeray Arrested" News channel are spreading the news like "What Next?", "Kya Raj custody main honge". Dekhiye kis tarah MNS workers bhadke hain..... What B**LSHIT is going on. What do you think?

Cricket should not be welcomed into Olympics says Christie

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:47:10 +0000

>> Click here to view original post I read this today morning. How far do you people agree with this? Cricket, religion for india, watched by many of the countries and after launch of new format of cricket i.e. 20-20 targetting to compete with short duration game like football, should be welcomed or not into Olympics? Well well Linford Christie, the only British athlete to win 100 metre race gold medals in Olympics, World Championships, Commonwealth Games and European championships quoted saying that Cricket should not be welcomed into Olympics and the reason he gave is it would "hamper" prospects of individual disciplines. "Cricket is team sports and as Olympics is a personal game and in olympics a person show his individual skills rather than skill of a team." 48-year-old 100 metre champion said. I am not agree with this. Here I would like to ask only one question to the maestro that if olympics is an individual game then why is football, volleyball, hockey etc. like team sports are welcomed with arms wide open. Give me a break man, don't give lame excuse like this. We can't digest this, at least we indians can't digest your saying that Cricket should not be allowed to be a part of Olympics. Guys whats your take on this? Brickbats and bouquets are welcome on this.

Independence Day

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:31:39 +0000

So here we are celebrating 61st year of Freedom!!!!!???? But few questions arise in my mind. i.e. Are we really free to do what we like!!!!???? (Guys take it positively, no nonsense please....) 1) Are we really able to choose the right leader to rule. 2) Are we able to stop overpopulation, corruption, poverty, terrorism etc. which is harming our Here are something to do that For choosing a right leader everyone (who is eligible to vote) should vote coz as per my knowledge most of the educated people do not vote. They think that all politicians are here for corruption and so no use of voting. Change the mindset guys. For corruption - Do vote for right leader, choose right person to lead for you. For stopping overpopulation - believe in policy of "Hum do Hamare do". (Translates to : We two and our two) For eradication of poverty - its like all this things are inter-related. If we choose right leader corruption automatically will be lessened or removed so Do vote, choose right leader. To avoid terrorism Be an Alert citizen, keep a close-eye on people around you. Whenever you found some strangers looks suspicious inform police. Imagine if all of us think alike then "kiske baap ki himmat hai ke hamare desh ke saamne aankh uthaa kar dekh sake." This is not filmy dialogue but its really true. We should not blame our system for terrorism but we are equally responsible for terrorism as if we keep an eye on those peoples, inform police then things would have been different in the blast happen earlier on Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur etc.... I have decided myself to save few 100 bucks every month for children who want to study but can't go to school due to poverty. I know those few bucks per month makes only few thousand bucks a year which might/might not suffice them but if all of us decide to do it same way then we can change the world. Now when I am writing I remember the line from our great Bapu (i.e. Father of the Nation). "Be the change you want to see the world." We need to change ourselves to improve current state of india. If we keep on saying that india never reach to the level of US. Look at the technology in US, roads, facilities, infrastructure then we will not for sure. So before changing india we need to change our mindset. We have to start thinking that it is WE rather than Somebody who is going to change india. If people start thinking this way then this will make a huge difference to all of us. To keep city clean we all have to take care that we should not throw garbage on the road but on bin placed specifically for garbage, we should not spit in public etc..... I know its difficult but every good thing comes with a price and here we are not paying any price but just a mere effort to keep city clean which finally makes us a good human being. Its time to strike back. I want to ask you few things. If not now, WHEN? If not you, WHO? Think over it and caste your view on what you think should be done and HOW? coz that's what matter the most. Let's make this country a better place to live rather than criticising on its system.

Ahmedabad Blasts

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:55:46 +0000

WTF is this? Blasts has once again created a panic. Nowadays everywhere We used to listen about Blasts. Few months back there were blasts in Jaipur. A day back We heard that there were serial blasts in Bangalore, and Now today i.e. 26th July, 2008 there are around 17 blasts (1st one happen at around 6.30 in Mani nagar) and many more.... Around 18 people died. Sources says that Cycles were used to plant the bombs. I don’t know what is going on in the mind of those who are doing this. People used to say Modi is root cause of all this….. What the hell and rather Who the hell saying like Modi is root cause of this blasts….. How would the person (read Narendra Modi) want to do such thing for the state whom he loved so much and for whose development he did all the hard work. For all those who are blaming Narendra Modi I would like to say, “Guys give me a break, try to understand the situation and then after doing proper analysis start blaming any person”. Don’t follow rumours, you might be spreading rumours by following rumours which leads to change the image of some good person into bad one. Well Now regarding the blasts then it mostly happened in the old ahmedabad and the area where the blasts occur are Mani Nagar, Bapu Nagar, Diamond Market, Sarnagpur, Raipur, Jawahar Nagar, Hatkeshwar, Narol circle to list a few…. Two blasts occurred in Maninagar and the first blast occurred in this area at 6.45 pm. The second blast occurred near LG hospital. Sources said that minutes before the blasts, the Intelligence Bureau received a mail from the Indian Mujahideen, which stated, “Stop us if you can.”

Marathi Bol...!!!

Mon, 26 May 2008 17:21:11 +0000

A cricket match was in progress between the Aussies & Indians at Wankhede Stadium. Bal Thackrey was sitting in the balcony watching it. He's very happy that the Pakies are not there. Suddenly Sachin hits a sixer to McGrath and the ball lands up just Next to Bal Thackrey's seat. McGrath shouts, 'Hey! Gimme the ball.' Thackrey shouts back, 'Yey , Marathit bol.' McGrath doesn't understand a thing & repeats his statement. This gets The same reply from Thackrey. Now, a security official standing at the Boundary goes to McGrath & tells him, 'Sir, He is Bal Thackrey.' Now McGrath is excited, (he has heard about him) and shouts, 'OH! BALL TAK REY.' Bal Thackrey is happy and throws the ball back to him. Jai Maharashtra....!!!!

No Smoking Please

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:13:04 +0000

Mother's Day Special

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:07:30 +0000

As today is mother's day so I am writing something about my mother. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of my mom… Love. She's most lovely person in my life. Apart from which she's great cook and I am very much foodie. She used to tolerate all my nuisance ever since my childhood till date. My mom affectionately calls me… Teju. There are many more names this space won't be sufficient enough for that. The worst beating / scolding I ever got from my mom... Neither my mom nor my dad ever beaten me. Mom once scold me for not eating on time but whenever I am at home I get scolded for being on laptop most of the time. ( I am trying to improve on this.) One thing I have hidden from my mom... Nothing to hide from her. My mom’s catchphrases or takia kalaam… Chal ab woh taktak bandh kar (noise of keyboard i.e. taktak), pure din taktak leke bethta hai, office main to iske saath hi hota hai ab jab ghar aata hai tab to hamare saath shanti se betha kar. Here she is referring to My laptop. Some funny incident(s) with my mom... Once I didn't told her that I am coming to home only my father was aware of this. From pune when i reach home and when I knock the door my mom was the one to open the door and was surprised to see me. This way I teased with support of my father. The last time mom got angry with me… Whenever I don't talk with her but talk with my dad on phone she gets angry (say jokingly kyun mujhe bhul gaya kya?). And if I don't talk with my mom for 2-3 days then meri to vaat lagti hai maamu.... My mom's the best because... She's so much caring, so much loving, I can do anything to make her happy. Its being almost a decade since I am away from my home and so I am missing my family especially my mom. The most cherished gift(s) I have from mom… Forgiving nature, Calmness, reading habit, Being religious. What else? I would love to buy Saree for her and some gold Ornaments for her. What would I be doing for Mother's Day? Being away from home I won't be able to celebrate it with my Mom and yeah I also believe that Mother's Day is not the only day that you can celebrate with your Mom. Every day is Mother's Day and you should wish her every day. I will surely talk with her for long time as she love to receive my call at anytime in a day coz of being younger son amongst three of us.

You know you are from Mumbai (Bombay) when...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:43:56 +0000

Description: You know you are from Mumbai (Bombay) when 1. You say "town " and expect everyone to know that*this means south of Churchgate. 2 You speak in a dialect of Hindi called 'Bambaiya Hindi', which only Bombayites can understand. 3. Your door has more than three locks. 4. Rs 500 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag. 5. Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life. 6. You spend more time each month traveling than you spend at home. 7. You call an 8' x 10' clustered room a Hall. 8. You're paying Rs 10,000 for a 1 room flat, the size of walk-in closet and you think it's a "steal." 9. You have the following sets of friend: school friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, train friends, a species unique only in Bombay. 10. Cabbies and bus conductors think you are from Mars if you call the roads by their Indian name, they are more familiar with Warden Road, Peddar %uFFFD Road, Altamount Road. 11. Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately. 12. The first thing that you read in the Times of India is the "Bombay Times" supplement. 13. You take fashion seriously. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you. 14. Hookers, beggars and the homeless are invisible. 15. You compare Bombay to New York's Manhattan instead of any other cities of India. 16. The most frequently used part of your car is the horn. 17. You insist on calling CST as VT, and Sahar and Santacruz airports instead of Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport. 18. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression. 19. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes. 20. Being truly alone makes you nervous. 21. You love wading through knee deep mucky water in the monsoons, and actually call it ''romantic'. 22. Only in Bombay , you would get Chinese Dosa and Jain Chicken. 23. You always argue with Delhites than Mumbai is way better than Delhi 24. You still refer to the city as Bombay not Mumbai. 25. When you love bragging about the filmstars and cricketers you've seen 26. When most of your freinds have underworld connections 27. Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?" 28. "Change" is "Chillar", "Ditching" is a "Kalti" and "Trouble" is "Jhol". 29. "Gheun Tak" is your life ideology. 30. You have been shoo'd away from Marine Drive at 3am by the cops because of an "Unlawful gathering of persons" 31. You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter. 32. You actually think 30Rs for a Sada Dosa is pretty reasonable. 33. when you spent 6 hours of your day in school and another 3 hours in tuitions. ( Dipen sheth 33-36) 34. if you ever went to fashion street, got a pair of cheap jeans and had them tagged as a name brand. 35. if you played cricket matches against another building for 5 rupee bets. 36. if you lost tons of MRF rubber balls. 37. when u call cops ;kaka' and they let u go if u show of ur marathi speaking skills. 38. amitabh bachans house is a landmark 39. You have been to matheran or mahabaleshwar during the summer vacations 40. You see men (not gay apparently) holding hands and walking in the street. 41. The note to coin changing machine at Churchgate station is idolized. 42. During cricket season all the roads are blocked because people in the streets are looking at television screens in display windows. 43. Automatic vending machines have a sales person sitting next to it just to help you. 44. There are more movie tickets being sold in black than at the ticket office. 45. It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train. 46. Every cab and rickshaw driver makes small talk with you 47. You see Herd of people walking at four in the morning to Siddhi Vinayak temple. 48. ‘Bun Maska’ and ‘vada pav’ is the staple diet of most collegians. 49. HORN OK PLEASE is written on every truck, tempo and heavy motor vehicle. 50. You cant drive for more than 10 mins without abusing someone. 51. "townies" think they need a visa to go past worli to the suburbs 52. When u use the word "yaar" in almost every sentence u speak. 53. You call onion as "kandha" and potato as "batata". 54. You think of a spicy tangy snack whenever you hear the work chat. 55.You are back to work next day after the city is bombed - Truly the spirit of Bombay 56. you call the cabbies n waiters BOSS. 57. abuses like chu**** . madar****. Bhen***... are the words whic u have to use in each sentence yyou speak 58. you prefer wada pav by jumbo king anyday on comparision wid Mc donalds burger 59. Each monday you go for either bowling or pool. 60. u enter mocha/ barista/ ccd lookin all posh but sit with one drink for 5 hrs till they politely ask u if u "need anythin else"(Sonali Kokra 60-62) 61. yr pricipal form of entertainment are all the aunties who scream obsceities at each other at the drop of a hat and threaten to pull the others hair/ push out of the train at 11 in the nyt! 62. yr idea of a full body massage is wat u get while trying to get off/ board a train at dadar!!! 63. At 3am in morning you can still get wadapav or butter pav bhaji 64. When there's no place to breathe in the trains but there's place to play cards and sing bhajans! 65. when the traffic almost makes good frnds wid the person in the car next to you. 66. You know what the term "video coach" stands for in the local trains... (aditya bengali) 67. You snigger every time somebody says "Im going to Grant road!" 68. u call the policemen "MAMU" OR "PANDU" 69. random strangers butt in wen u r discussing cricket o politics or even chicks 2 give their personal (unwanted) opinion 70. You say that Pani Puri is waayy better than Gol Gappa's even when they're the same thing 71. There is always one 'pan-wala' on the corner of street 72. You keep spare candles in the kitchen just in case there's a power surge. 73. To you, your watchman doesn't have a name - you just call him 'watchman'. 74. You aren't surprised when somebody throws a water balloon at you while you're walking on the streets during March. 75. You know of certain theaters where you can go for A-rated movies with your friends, even when you're under 18. 76. whn u r standing at a bus stop near juhu beach and sum random guy comes up to u and says " boss" short term, long term chahiye kya (saatvik) 77. When every rickshaw looks like a personal disco, with neon lights, loud music and pictures of film stars.(amrryn) 78. seeing "Mein Kampf" being sold openly on the streets in abundance seems like a perfectly normal thing to you.(Patrick Weyers) 79. you have to pay international roaming fees when you use your cell phone outside of Mumbai. 80. you can only smile forgivingly about the size of any other city in the world. 81. you consider the local train "empty" when you find a spot for your two feet to stand on. 82. when someone asks u "east" or "west" side of a particular station? 83. when there is a saffron rally every 3 months , n u just wonder , whats it all about , u jus went to vote , 3 months ago , n they r holding elections all again? 84. when "chalta hai" is the most commonly used word 85. when u see hijraas/eunuchs at street asking for u to lend them some money , with a very very catchy one liner : eeeee deeeeeeeee naaaaaa usually on fridays.sometimes men even get grooped when they dont pay 'em 86. when u can find hukkas for use at a coffee shop the equivalent of starbucks 87. when u never cross the road at a zebra crossing 88. when u can always find a car that has a dent or scratch on it 89. When u find cars on the Road even at 4 in the morning(Trish bose) 90. You never learnt how to stand in a queue 91. You have mastered the art of bargaining in shopping. 92. Every time you speak Hndi in front of a Delhitite they have the WTF expression on their face. 93. You have hung on to dear life at the local door. 94. You still refer to a car / vehicle full of girls as "Maal Gaadi" - left over from the "Ladies Special" days... 95. You take the "Weight and Your Future for Rs.1 only" machines at the stations seriously. ... At least the Future bit, it always exaggerates about the weight. 96. When while giving directions you say "Right/ Left MARO aur wahan pe ek bridge GIREGA" 97. when you actually see random people coming to help you when u have a problem 98. .when u can take a piss at the local shouchalaya for 50paise and a dump for 1 re 99. When you think everyone who lives to the south of you is a snob and to the north of you sucks 100. you behave like a foreigner in any other part of the country (hurray !!! 100) 101. u see couples cosying up in rickshaws in almost every small lane 102. u want to get into the train already that is already in motion & u have 5 hands taking u in.. 103. When you instinctively say "pudhey challa" instead of saying agey badho or move ahead. 104. You meet Delhiites in a foreign country and feel no sense of kinship with them! 105. Chal, paka mat!" is an overused part of your vocabulary 106. here "maall" is a gurl n na goods 107. Crorepati, Lakhpati, Hazarpati, Chillarpati all travel in local Trains daily. 108. You log on to social networking sites and search for Bombay-related groups!!! 109. u treat mumbai as a country itself 110. You drink 2 sips of tea called 'cutting' more than thrice a day. 111. You call a corner 'khopcha' and a cigarette 'sutta' 112. u think tht delhi copied INDIA GATE frm mumbai's GATEWAY OF INDIA... 113. masseuses on juhu beach come out only after midnight n cops get free massages frm them 114. when you see the dabbawallas on the station and fishwali kolis in train. 115. when u c movie names like "shootout at Lokhandwala" & 'Ek chalis ki last local" & don't have to ask wot the name means. 116. when you call the BEST bus, BST, even though BEST is painted on every single public transport bus operational in Bombay 117. when we compare our mumbai-pune expressway to the autobahn and our cab drivers to the indian schumacher. 118. you know 'bhai' means a guy who has no brotherly feelings. 119. you know that 'khamba' does not only mean pillar 120. when you call a watermelon "Kalingar" instead of "Terbus" 121. Making a loud kissing noise is how you tease girls in Delhi, but making that same noise is how you hail an autorickshaw in Bombay 122. The rest of India calls it namkeen----you know it as farsan 123. You don't differentiate between U.P. and Bihar. All you know is that's where the 'bhaiyas' come from 124. if someone calls u "aap"-- u start laughing on their faces... 125. You get felt up every time you get into the general compartment instead of the ladies'. 126. You get photographed at three parties and you're suddenly a page 3 regular! 127. When your lunch is delivered hot in a tiffin at exactly 1pm from home every working day. 128. when u have an account with tha paan wala for cigarettes on credit your outside home & work 129. when u r stuck in traffic even at 1:30 a.m 130. You see two office-goers play a game of cards in your evening local train. 131. When you look out for pandu's lurking behind the odd tree or signal post before you take your illegal left/right/U turn. 132. you go to a Goa beach and your kids dig pot holes in the sand instead of buiding castles! :-) 133. When The only landmark the president of US wants see is Dharavi (Ahad) 134. When you have no objection in ghoosofying in a line (admissions or train tickets) but shout loudly "Maaaaro!" when you see someone else do it (Sanket) 135.When ... you have argued with the TC that traveling first class after pass expires is legitimate since you havent processed the railway concession yet! 136. jab facebook par bhi bambaiya hindi chalti hain yaar 137. When even at 8 in the morning you can see couples sitting and cozying up at Marine Drive and Worli Seaface 138. when gals roam abt at 12am in the night and not get raped ...unlike delhi! (keyuri nagardas) 139. When you use the phrases, 'Chillum-Chili' and 'Chili-Mili' and are not talking about a spicy dish (Shivani) Courtesy: http://www.indiamike.com/india/mumbai-bombay-f22/you-know-you-are-from-mumbai-bombay-when-t47677/

Being Too Serious Can Drive You Crazy

Sun, 6 Apr 2008 15:00:08 +0000

Are you having fun? Do you get a thrill from your work? Do you enjoy waking up each morning? Certain myths about work can pull you down. "Work is not supposed to be fun." "You must buckle down and get serious." Perhaps the biggest myth of all: "People will think I’m important if I act seriously." Yet getting serious creates problems: stress, worry, anxiety, emotional pain, drudgery and failure. Resolving problems by getting more serious is like fixing a computer with a hammer. The harder you try, the worse the problem becomes. "When life becomes serious, a man becomes less cause and greater effect. If life gets really serious, his value drops to practically zero. Driving a car can become such serious business that one can wreck the car. Running a business can become so serious as to make it fail. There is a direct connection between insanity and seriousness. " "It is only when an individual progresses in life to a point where much seriousness is attached to things that he begins to have a hard time. The ancient Italian really knew what he was about when he considered that the only psychotherapy was laughter." -- L. Ron Hubbard 12 Ways to Lighten up Approaching your life with a non-serious attitude gives you a clearheaded view of problems and the energy to deal with them. Problems are easier to solve, people are more cooperative and you feel more relaxed. You probably live longer as well. Think of your life as a game. Give yourself permission to play the game, to have fun with the game, and to win. Try these techniques until you find one that lightens you up. 1. Deliberately turn a molehill into a mountain. Make a big deal out of a little problem. "I would feel much better if these papers were stacked exactly like this! Not like that! Like this! Not this! This!" 2. Ask yourself, "Is getting serious about this situation really going to improve it?" 3. Focusing on the positives. Repeat these questions until you feel lighter, "What is right about this picture?" "What else is right?" "What else?" 4. Consider a complete, major change. Why not become an airline pilot? Why not move to Idaho? Why not retire for a few years and then begin a new career? 5. Ask yourself, "When I’m on my deathbed, will I be glad I was so serious about _______?" 6. A challenging game is much better than no game at all. So consider losing all aspects of the problem. Examples: You feel serious about family problems. You ask yourself, "Well, what if I had no family at all?" You feel serious about your investments. You ask yourself, "What if I had no money to invest?" 7. The size of your problem may match the size of your game. So get a bigger game. For example, if you get uptight about paper clips being in the wrong drawer, your game size is tiny. Double your amount of responsibility. Set some huge goals. Think much, much bigger. 8. Stop trying to solve the problem that is making you so serious. Certain types of problems solve themselves if you leave them alone. Your problem may be one of those. 9. Compare what you are doing to other careers. Imagine being a septic tank drainer or an IRS agent. 10. Make everyone around you lighten up. You will soon feel more cheerful. 11. Look at bizarre solutions. What is the craziest way you could solve your problem? What solution, if it worked, would make you laugh out loud? 12. Act stupid for a minute. Let down your hair. Stop being so darn important for a while. Be a goof Courtesy : Anonymous (somewhere from e-mails)

Google's Mantra for Innovation

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:38:07 +0000

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, is a tall, blond 32-year-old with two Stanford degrees in computer science. She's also Google's high priestess of simplicity. Here she shares the rules that give the search giant its innovative edge. 1. Innovation, not instant perfection "There are two different types of programmers. Some like to code for months or even years, and hope they will have built the perfect product. That's castle building. Companies work this way, too. Apple is great at it. If you get it right and you've built just the perfect thing, you get this worldwide 'Wow!' The problem is, if you get it wrong, you get a thud, a thud in which you've spent, like, five years and 100 people on something the market doesn't want." "Others prefer to have something working at the end of the day, something to refine and improve the next day. That's what we do: our 'launch early and often' strategy. The hardest part about indoctrinating people into our culture is when engineers show me a prototype and I'm like, 'Great, let's go!' They'll say, 'Oh, no, it's not ready. It's not up to Google standards. This doesn't look like a Google product yet.' They want to castle-build and do all these other features and make it all perfect." "I tell them, 'The Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs and then iterate, learning what the market wants--and making it great.' The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back." 2. Ideas come from everywhere "We have this great internal list where people post new ideas and everyone can go on and see them. It's like a voting pool where you can say how good or bad you think an idea is. Those comments lead to new ideas." 3. A license to pursue your dreams "Since around 2000, we let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things. After September 11, one of our researchers, Krishna Bharat, would go to 10 or 15 news sites each day looking for information about the case. And he thought, Why don't I write a program to do this? So Krishna, who's an expert in artificial intelligence, used a Web crawler to cluster articles." "He later emailed it around the company. My office mate and I got it, and we were like, 'This isn't just a cool little tool for Krishna. We could add more sources and build this into a great product.' That's how Google News came about. Krishna did not intend to build a product, but he accidentally gave us the idea for one." "We let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things." 4. Morph projects don't kill them "Eric [Schmidt, CEO] made this observation to me once, which I think is accurate: Any project that is good enough to make it to Labs probably has a kernel of something interesting in there somewhere, even if the market doesn't respond to it. It's our job to take the product and morph it into something that the market needs." 5. Share as much information as you can "People are blown away by the information you can get on MOMA, our intranet. Because there is so much information shared across the company, employees have insight into what's happening with the business and what's important." "We also have people do things like Snippets. Every Monday, all the employees write an email that has five to seven bullet points on what you did the previous week. Being a search company, we take all the emails and make a giant Web page and index them." "If you're wondering, 'Who's working on maps?' you can find out. It allows us to share what we know across the whole company, and it reduces duplication." 6. Users, users, users "I used to call this 'Users, Not Money.' We believe that if we focus on the users, the money will come. In a truly virtual business, if you're successful, you'll be working at something that's so necessary people will pay for it in subscription form. Or you'll have so many users that advertisers will pay to sponsor the site." 7. Data is apolitical "When I meet people who run design at other organizations, they're always like, 'Design is one of the most political areas of the company. This designer likes green and that one likes purple, and whose design gets picked? The one who buddies up to the boss.' Some companies think of design as an art. We think of design as a science. It doesn't matter who is the favorite or how much you like this aesthetic versus that aesthetic. It all comes down to data. Run a 1% test [on 1% of the audience] and whichever design does best against the user-happiness metrics over a two-week period is the one we launch. We have a very academic environment where we're looking at data all the time. We probably have somewhere between 50 and 100 experiments running on live traffic, everything from the default number of results to underlined links to how big an arrow should be. We're trying all those different things." 8. Creativity loves constraints "This is one of my favorites. People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: 'We know you said it was impossible, but we're going to do this, this, and that to get us there.'" 9. You're brilliant? We're hiring "When I was a grad student at Stanford, I saw that phrase on a flyer for another company in the basement of the computer-science building. It made me stop dead in my tracks and laugh out loud." "A couple of months later, I'm working at Google, and the engineers were asked to write job ads for engineers. We had a contest. I put, 'You're brilliant? We're hiring. Come work at Google,' and got eight times the click rate that anyone else got. "Google now has a thousand times as many people as when I started, which is just staggering to me. What's remarkable, though, is what hasn't changed--the types of people who work here and the types of things that they like to work on. It's almost identical to the first 20 or so of us at Google." "There is this amazing element to the culture of wanting to work on big problems that matter, wanting to do great things for the world, believing that we can build a successful business without compromising our standards and values." "If I'm an entrepreneur and I want to start a Web site, I need a billing system. Oh, there's Google Checkout. I need a mapping function. Oh, there's Google Maps. Okay, I need to monetize. There's Google AdSense, right? I need a user name and password-authentication system. There's Google Accounts." "This is just way easier than going out and trying to create all of that from scratch. That's how we're going to stay innovative. We're going to continue to attract entrepreneurs who say, 'I found an idea, and I can go to Google and have a demo in a month and be launched in six.'"