Google's Eric Schmidt posted on Google+, in an effort to promote their book, How Google Works, about Google's Vice President of Product, Jonathan Rosenberg obsession with popping the balloons of Nooglers (new Googlers).
Eric wrote:
In the early days of Google, every new employee got a smiley helium balloon to put in their office. This was fun, and made it easy to spot the Nooglers. Then a certain head of products (+Jonathan Rosenberg ), decided that he could accelerate the Nooglers' entry into the company by popping the balloons.As you can see from this video, made by a concerned Googler (Wesley Chan) back in 2003, we tried many tactics to stop the carnage and even considered starting a new company (balloogle?) to develop Jonathan-proof smiley balloons. In the end, it was the video itself that did the trick. Humor can be a very effective way to get Hippos to correct a wayward course.
This video has never been published outside the company. Enjoy!
Here is the video:
Forum discussion at Google+.
