Interview with Vladimir Dolgov - Google Russia

What are the functions of Google Russia Department? What kind of projects does it have?

Google Russian office consists of several departments. If to say in brief – there are two main areas: business and development. Business departments cover sales, partnership, marketing and finance. Other huge departments are R&D centers located in St. Petersburg and Moscow. They localize existing servers for Russian market and develop new products for Russia and other countries. For example, St. Petersburg center made a considerable contribution for Firefox to Google Toolbar development. A team from above mentioned R&D center works on Google Code Search as well. This server provides searching using open program’s codes available in Internet. Google Calendar is one more useful program which makes our life easier. In addition to other projects office in Moscow improves searching in Russian language, makes the morphology of difficult languages such as Russian and Arabian, deals with Google Cards. Moreover Questions and Answers server was created and implemented in Moscow center.

Do you read Habrahabr?

Sometimes…

Do you have plans to deal with Russian language identification as it has been already done with Google Audio Indexing?

Localizing of Google services available in other countries is one of the most important tasks for Russian office. If to compare the products available for Russian users in the year 2006 with what we have nowadays, it becomes clear that three years work in Russia was not a waste of time. For today we have localized almost all main services. We do not like to speak about future plans.
We prefer demonstrating finished products to our users.  I can only say that in future Google will provide Russian users with many interesting and easy-to- use services.

What do you think about Ya.Online by Yandex which competes with Google Talk?

We welcome healthy competition. New interesting products and services promote Internet development as a whole. Thanks to this fact the industry wins and as a result users win as well – this is the most important for us. 

How does Google guarantee the confidence of users’ private information and does the law machinery have an access to it?

We are in earnest about the confidence of our users’ information. The documentation to our services describes in detail which steps we have taken to protect the private information. About inquiries  - I can say that there were made no such by law machinery.  

What kind of nature should be a person who wants to get work easily in Google office? Which skills should he has?
 
At first the potential employer must be a talented specialist. Besides he must have non typical ideas, be creative, purposeful and able to work in a team. When examining the candidates we often say: this guy is really googly. That means he looks good in our team and shares our values. Gogglers are true hard workers, but you will never find bores among them “serving time” at work. The company recruits knowingly purposeful, talented, well educated people able to think and act originally and not mechanically. Google founders often say that the only thing that company considers seriously is searching. We are sure that the work must be difficult but at the same time it must be interesting. That is why the corporate culture of Google differs from others. And this is caused not by lava lamps and big rubber balls with Google logotype, or because excellent chief cookers make a food for our staff in many offices. The ideas are discussed, tested and realized with fantastic enthusiasm and in extremely shot time. Staff meetings that may stretch for hours in other companies look here like subject-matter dinner. And only several walls separate people who make initial code and draw a cheque. Such an atmosphere of open communication develops productivity and friendly relations. Our people often say: “Let give necessary tools to people who like to create and you will see how much they can”. 

What is an average salary of Google specialists in Russia?

This question sounds like “What is an average price for the car”? Of ‘course we do not disclose the information on staff salary. 

Belarusian developers are waiting impatiently Google Belarus. Does the company plan to settle down in Belarus?

We have no announcements about it yet.

What future prospects in Russia does Google Talk have? Is there some progress on client’s desktop development? Promised co-operation with AOL has not be still realized in client’s desktop, widget is not in “good relations” with Cyrillic alphabet and spoils GTalk badly. When do we get some news from this front?

Nobody promised co-operation with AOL. What about technical questions they should be addressed to our engineers. 

What is a forecast for context advertising market in Russia for the period of depression?

I think that context advertising market will grow. When the situation calls for costs optimization and reduction, the context advertising which has a lower price becomes effective and controllable alternative to traditional advertising for big clients. For the small scale business it turns quite often into the only one way of products and services promoting. Comparatively not many companies working in Russia use context advertising today. Although it is early to make the forecast on it’s rising or fall, the number of potential advertisers in country is huge. At the same time the exact forecast for future is impossible and not necessary.

Which plans does Google have for Russia? Diversification or localization assistance only?

Russia is foreground country for Google. Russian engineers, as I have already told, are localizing not only existing products, but developing the new one and assist the teams from Zurich and Mounting View. We do not speak about diversification having in mind new offices opening, but I think in future we will need it because the number of staff and projects is increasing. 

Is there “social responsibility” in sigh–grants, free wi-fi or something interesting?

Google makes some huge international events and competitions, thanks to them programmers and students from all over the world may show their worth, get the acknowledgment, win money or simply become well known in the world. These programs are the following:  Android Developer Challenge и Google Code Jam, и GHOPC (Google Highly Open Participation Contest).
Besides Google is an organizer of Anita Borg competition in which only girls may take part. We try to support talented people, but we think that it is necessary not only to give the grants but also give the chance to show the talent and earn a leaving. There is an old parable: a man may get a fish and he will be full for a day, but he may be also learned how to catch the fish and to be full for whole life.

Describe the situation with new Google favicon. The company held the competition on alternative icons and promised dot make the concerned resume. Do you have some info on it?
 No, I have not…

What prospects does Google have regarding literature in Russian? What about textbooks?

Google Book Search started operation recently. Google is willing to co-operate with as many libraries and publishing houses as possible.  I can not define the exact dead lines now but I do hope that the project will be developed in Russia as well. Literature in Russian made an important contribution to world-wide literature and we want it to be available on-line in book searching. 

Who fast the Russian department is being developed? How many personal does the department have?

We do not announce such information as usual. But I can say that 60 engineers are working in Russian offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Does Google plan to start up service like Narod.Disque by Yandex?

There is no news about it now. But to say the truth there are some programs made by our company which help to transform the part of Gmail account into virtual disc. You cane find an article on it in Wikipedia!

Some people say that Google Adwords has bad technical assistance. When will it work better?

We always try to improve technical assistance. I see the mystery in this situation: people blame us that the letters are not replied to. But when I look through the system I see that the time of waiting exceeds 48 hours only on our holidays. I will appreciate if somebody sends me such a chain (request-reply), it will be a ground for investigation. We have opened special blog devoted to AdWords. I do not know….may be I should open my personal blog to collect questions and reply to it.

Is Google Russia a zone of heightened attraction for the whole corporation? 

Russia is one of the fast-growing internet markets in the world. European and USA markets have been stabilized, but Russian internet economy is growing headily. For Google Russia is a key country.

How strong are head office directives? Is Google Russia going to develop the domestic internet in the spirit of company or in other way?

We try (and it seems to me we do it successfully) to organize and put in order the information in internet. From this point of view out activity in Russia des not differ from activity in other countries. The method is the same.

What are your plans when retiring?

To think over how many things I had no time to do when I was working!

How many people are working in Russian Google?
Mote then one hundred.

How often do you communicate with Sergey Brin? Do you speak to him in Russian language?

I can not say that we communicate often. Bu when we speak we do it in Russian.

If Yandex offers you a salary which exceeds yours in three times – will you agree?
What is a question!?

When do you plan to leave Yandex behind (I mean the number of search engines leading to Russian sites)? What will you think about when it happens?
When it happens I will think about retire…
 

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