Only six of Google’s earliest employees still work at the internet giant – and that includes founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Some early Google employees have gone on to become entrepreneurs, while others are now angel investors, and a lucky few have gone on to become top executives at other tech companies. A few are happily retired.
In 2015, a Quora user compiled a list of all the original Googlers and where there careers have taken them. Only six of the original 21 are still at the company, which reorganized to become Alphabet almost three years ago.
Here is what’s become of the first 21 employees since launching their careers at Google.
Jillian D'Onfro and Alyson Shontell contributed to previous versions of this article.
21. Marissa Mayer joined Google as a software engineer, then became CEO of Yahoo.
Employed by Google: June 1999 to July 2012
Most recent position at Google:VP of local, maps, and location services
Current company/position: Mayer served as CEO of Yahoo from July 2012 until June 2017, leaving the company after the completion of Yahoo's sale to Verizon. These days, Mayer is keeping a low profile, although she recently said she's started working on her next tech venture and has rented out Google's old office, the place she started her career in 1999.
20. Kendra DiGirolamo joined Google as an ad sales coordinator and left three years before the company went public. Now she's at Driscoll's.
Employed by Google: June 1999 to May 2001
Most recent position at Google:Advertising sales coordinator
Current company/position: DiGirolamo currently works as a senior business systems analyst at Driscoll's, a family-owned berry farming company.
19. Larry Schwimmer was an early software engineer at Google. He introduced Snippets, a productivity system, to help Google manage employees during the company's explosive growth period. He also drove the launch of Google Moon, a Google Earth-like service that shows satellite photos of the moon.
Employed by Google: 1999 to at least 2005 (unknown)
Most recent position at Google:Software engineer
Current company/position: Unknown.
18. Jim Reese was an engineer at Google. He was once knocked out by a 200-pound metal beam in a data center that Google was leasing.
Employed by Google: 1999 to 2005
Most recent position at Google:Chief operations engineer (and "Head Neurosurgeon" - he was a physician before coming to Google, and jokes on his LinkedIn that he performed frontal lobotomies at the search giant on Thursday mornings only).
Current company/position: Reese currently serves as a board member for Spark Program - a career exploration program for middle schoolers - as well as an advisory board member of Harvard Medical School's Department of Biomedical Informatics.
17. Gerald Aigner was brought in to manage Google's supply costs. Now, he's in London working as an "internet professional."
Employed by Google: 1999 to 2006
Most recent position at Google: Aigner was a member of Google's senior staff, according to his LinkedIn page. Specifically, he was in charge of the data center and internet/leased line negotiations, hardware design and purchasing, hardware and network monitoring, and performance optimizations. Aigner also founded Google's Zurich office in 2004.
Current company/position: Aigner lists himself on his LinkedIn profile as an "independent internet professional" based in London. He is also listed as an adviser for Maxeler Technologies, a London-based computer support company for which he is "exploring renewable energy and wireless technologies."
16. Susan Wojcicki is still at Google. She became the CEO of YouTube in 2014.
Employed by Google: April 1999 to present
Wojcicki was Google's 16th employee, and she followed Google's ninth employee, Salar Kamangar, as YouTube's CEO. In 1998, before Wojcicki even started working for the company, she and her husband rented out their garage and several rooms to the fledgling Google team for $1,700 a month.
Current position at Google: CEO of YouTube since early 2014. Before that, she was SVP of products and commerce, then SVP of YouTube.
15. Joan Braddi runs product partnerships for Google.
Employed by Google: 1999 to present
Braddi is Google's vice president of product partnerships and serves on the board of the biochemistry startup Profusa.
Current position at Google: Braddi previously served as vice president of search services at Google; now she's vice president of product partnerships.
14. Chris Skarakis led Google's business development until May 2005. He has since founded Blip.fm.
Employed by Google: May 1999 to May 2005
Most recent position at Google:Director of business development
Current Company/Position: Skarakis is the founder of Blip.fm, and also cofounded Fuzz Artists and served as its executive vice president. Skarakis serves on the board of directors for Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Little Kids Rock. He was formerly on the board of directors for the Kanye West Foundation, which shut down in 2011.
13. Rachael Chambers left her job at Netscape to join Google as an executive assistant in May 1999.
Employed by Google: May 1999 to October 2000
Most recent position at Google: Chambers was hired as an executive assistant, and left as an ad sales coordinator.
Current company/position: Chambers serves as a strategy and planning manager at Cisco. Prior to that, she was a program manager for Cisco on Cisco Customer Strategy and Success.
12. Steve Schimmel also did business development for Google and was the company's 13th employee.
Employed by Google: 1999 to 2004
Most recent position at Google:Business development
Current Company/Position: Schimmel now does some angel investing. His startup investments include HireAthena, Crowdrise, Roozt, and Guide. He also sits on the board of Airspace Systems, a venture-backed startup that makes specialized drones.
11. Omid Kordestani worked at Google for nearly 16 years before leaving to join Twitter.
Employed by Google: January 1999 to August 2015
Most recent position at Google: Chief Business Officer and senior adviser
Current company/position: Kordestani left Google in October 2015 to join Twitter as executive chairman. He bought nearly $2 million worth of Twitter stock in 2016.
10. Salar Kamangar used to be CEO of YouTube.
Employed by Google: 1999 to present
Kamangar served as CEO of YouTube until February 2014, when he stepped down, supposedly in favor of finding a new challenge at Google. Susan Wojcicki took his place.
Current position at Google: SVP of products for YouTube.
9. Georges Harik joined Google as a software engineer, and was one of three members on Google's initial engineering hiring committee.
Employed by Google: 1999 to 2005
Most recent position at Google: Harik most recently served as product management director. Harik was one of Google's first 10 employees and was responsible for product and strategy around Gmail, Google Talk, Google Video, Picasa, and more. He was also behind AdSense and the AdWords Online system and was the director of Googlettes, a start-up incubator inside Google.
Current company/position: Harik is now a cofounder of messaging app imo.im, cofounder of hslabs, and an angel investor. He also previously served as an adviser to GV, Alphabet's venture capital arm.
8. Urs Hölzle has been at Google for almost 20 years.
Employed by Google: 1999 to present
Current position at Google: Hölzle is SVP of technical infrastructure, which means he oversees the design, installation, and operation of Google's servers, networks, and data centers. Before he joined Google in 1999, Holzle was a computer science professor at the UC Santa Barbara.
7. Amit Patel was a top Google engineer and helped come up with Google's unofficial slogan, "Don't Be Evil."
Employed by Google: 1999 to unknown
Most recent position at Google: Though we couldn't find Patel's most recent title, Steven Levy's book "In The Plex" offers some interesting details about him. Patel was instrumental in highlighting the value of Google's search logs. He also asked Eric Schmidt if he could share his office, shortly after Schmidt had joined the company as CEO (Schmidt said yes because he thought it would be "un-Googley" to say no).
Current Company/Position: Unknown.
6. Harry Cheung was an original Google engineer.
Employed by Google: January 1999 to December 2004
Most recent position at Google: Cheung served as a software engineer at Google. His nickname used to be Harry "Spider-Man" Cheung because he was a "crawl" engineer, monitoring the progress of Google's "spiders" as they indexed the web.
Current company/position: These days, Cheung is an angel investor in startups including Caviar, Qwiki, Badgeville, and PrePay. He's also a founder at Roostify, a home-lending startup.
5. Ray Sidney was a software engineer at Google — he left 18 months before the IPO.
Employed by Google: January 1999 to March 2003 (he left about 18 months before the IPO, which made him quite wealthy).
Most recent position at Google:Software engineer
Current company/position: Sidney is the co-owner of The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain as well as Big George Ventures, a sustainable real-estate developer. He's also a triathlete and an amateur pilot, and he once donated $1 million to help launch a public bus service near Lake Tahoe, according to CNET.
4. Heather Cairns was an HR manager at Google.
Employed by Google: 1998 to 2005
Most recent position at Google: Cairns was an HR manager who hired Google's first 200 employees.
Current company/position: Cairns was previously an angel investor who provided funding for women-led companies that are pursuing social ventures. Her LinkedIn now lists her as the president of Coastal Streets, a small real-estate development company in Massachusetts.
3. Craig Silverstein was Larry Page and Sergey Brin's first hire.
Employed by Google: 1998 to 2012
Most recent position at Google: Silverstein worked on various projects, including mentoring engineers and serving as technology director. As Google's third employee, he helped actually build the search engine.
Current company/position: Silverstein now serves as dean of infrastructure at Khan Academy.
2. Sergey Brin is the cofounder of Google and serves as the president of Google's parent company, Alphabet.
Employed by Google: 1998 to present
Current position at Google: Besides any cofounder duties, Sergey Brin was overseeing Google X, the company's "moonshot factory," until Google's reorganization in August 2015. Now, Brin is president of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
1. Larry Page is the cofounder of Google and the CEO of Alphabet.
Employed by Google: 1998 to present
Current position at Google: Page helped found Google. After Google's reorganization, Page became CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet.