InsideGoogle

Google Holds 2007 Company Ski Trip

Google held its company-wide ski trip last week, and the company has gotten so big that employees had to choose which of three days to visit Squaw Valley. Even dividing the company into three wasn’t enough, as they had to split each wave among three seperate hotels. According to Stanley Chen, Monday and Tuesday the slopes weren’t that great, while Wednesday saw some blizzard skiing.

Here are two Flickr slideshows, the first of the tag “snowglobe2007“, the second a Flickr set by Christina:

Every night, there were huge parties:

Each night, they hosted a party featuring three themed rooms, including an undersea room, an ice room, where they had two chainsaw-wielding ice sculptors performing live, and a safari room, where an excellent 80’s cover band played all night, flanked on both sides of the stage by girls in tiger-print bikinis dancing in vine-draped cages. Throughout were various arcade games, the customary free food, bars (two drink tickets provided, you had to pay after that…) and some other more isolated rooms where the geekiest of Googlers could play board and card games. You get one guess where I spent most of the night.

From the many blog posts on the trip, it seems like almost the whole company got hangovers on the trip, but no one was complaining:

All in all the trip was amazing. I will work at this company until they tell me to go. They spoil you rotten. They really do. Everything that you read or hear about working here is a lie cuz it’s even better. Larry and Sergey are geniuses- I can’t imagine how they came up with such a brilliant idea. “Well, we have this internet company now. Lets just feed them, throw great parties, and take them skiing… yeah, that will keep them happy and forever enslaved to us… buahahahaha!” I just hope we remain successful for a long, long time… ski trips, free food/booze, and cool young peeps as coworkers are aspects I realize are out of the ordinary and are things I am extremely lucky to experience on a regular basis. Nonetheless, it’s a lifestyle I have grown accustomed to and that I hope perpetuates for the years to come.

There was some culture shock, as Googlers from other, smaller regional offices visited the Mountain View offices (and discovered skiing is tough):

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Googleplex. The perks are amazing and the atmosphere is fun and exciting, but I really love the intimacy and the opportunity of the Ann Arbor office. The benefits are amazing wherever you’re located, however being a part of a start-up office for the #1 company to work for in America is an environment, at least for me, that can’t be beat. And when it comes to the perks, we may not have the size of the Mountain View office, but we’re taken care of in every way possible.

Oh, and the trip was mandatory for all employees:

Every year, the west coast offices go on a mandatory (yes, that means that to get out of going you need written approval from your director!) all expenses paid 1-day ski trip to Tahoe. The plane left at 6:35 on Tuesday morning, which meant that after leaving the afterparty at midnight, I still needed to pack, get 3 hours of sleep, and get up at 4:00 AM. Yuck! However, it’s pretty cool being on a plane that is almost entirely filled with people you know.

Google Europe got a ski trip, too (and gave way too much information about peeing in squat toilets while wearing ski boots):

This week saw the European Google Ski trip. The Google Ski trips go back quite a bit and over the years have grown from a few dorky engineers on a hill to a massive invasion of some lucky ski resort. The evolution in Europe has been much the same and if anything has gone faster.

(via Unofficial Squaw > Digg)

February 15th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General | one comment