It seems like Google is everywhere.
And it is.
Google, and parent company Alphabet, are major players in everything from consumer electronics and self-driving cars to high-speed internet access and video entertainment — and of course, there's the search engine.
But while everyone knows the marquee names like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki, there's an incredible surfeit of talent one layer below that's driving some of the company's most influential projects. Business Insider spoke to Google insiders, partners and rivals to get a sense of the most buzzed about names within the 80,000-person tech giant.
From programmers to designers, Google veterans to new hires, we rounded up a roster of Google's unsung rockstars. These are the names you might not have heard of yet, but that could just become the next Sundar Pichai.
Rishi Chandra, Vice President of product management and general manager of home products
Google has high hopes for home products.
The living room is an important battleground for Google and rivals Amazon and Apple. To spearhead the efforts there, Google turned to Rishi Chandra, vice president of product management and general manager of home products.
Amazon's Echo got to market first and was an undeniable hit but under Chandra's leadership, Google Home has closed the gap. In review after review, Home and Echo are neck and neck.
Management apparently has enough faith in Chandra to continue adding to his responsibilities. Two weeks ago, the Nest division, maker of smart thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras, was folded into his unit.
Chandra has been in Google's home area for three years and before that worked on Chromecast, the popular streaming-media gadget. Prior to that, he helped launch Google TV, now known as Android TV.
Here's a tip: if you have to pitch Chandra, say something nice about the Philadelphia Eagles.
Elizabeth Hamon Reid, Vice President of Engineering for Geo's local team
Elizabeth Hamon Reid, Vice President of Engineering for Geo's local team, was the first woman engineer at Google's New York headquarters.
Google relies on her to oversee the company's engineering efforts that are focused on helping people discover and find information about the physical world.
She helped develop the earliest version of the Google Maps Search by Location feature. From there, she was selected to lead development across various maps and local search products.
Eric Baczuk, designer for secret projects at Google
In his four years at Google, Baczuk has been tapped to work on several super-secret programs.
A designer with roots at the iconic frog industrial design firm and MIT's SENSable City Lab, Baczuk now identifies himself on LinkedIn as a designer for "Special Projects" at Google. According to a source, he is in fact now part of Daydream, Google's virtual reality project.
Up until a few months ago, Baczuk was a designer-in-residence at Sidewalk Labs, Google's urban-planning unit. His work exploring new concepts in urban housing and other critical issues plaguing cities across the globe attracted attention within the company, and led to his current assignment. We can't wait to see what he dreams up in the virtual world.
See the rest of the story at INSIDER
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