Story: Inside Early Google - Race Conditions, Java Pain, and the Birth of AdWords
Jan 02, 2026•38 min•Ep. 118
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episode description
Ron Garret left JPL for a 100-person startup he'd just discovered on Usenet. Four a.m. alarms. Burbank to San Jose on Southwest. A rented room in Susan Wojcicki's house.
He expected the search engine engineering and instead he got asked to build ad serving. In Java and with JSPs and no syntax highlighting and no delimiter balancing.
Launch week was a stampede and then a window on his screen fills with declines. Numbers he can't explain. Some of them look… real. How do you even name what's happening? This episode is about creating Google AdWords. Building the machine that prints money, while trying not to get crushed in the gears.
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android