Google’s Jolly Good Fellow Wants World Peace

Yeah, I know it’s been five days since, but here’s my obligatory post on what happened on last Wednesday (Jul 30, 2008) – otherwise known as the let’s-see-how-many-interesting-events-we-can-squeeze-in day.

Last Wednesday was the day that, due to the infinite wisdom of the organizers, both the i.JAM Networking Session held at the Merchant Court Hotel (organized by E27) and TDM’s Meet-the-Meng session at DXO were scheduled together and even overlapped for a couple of hours.

Having recognized from the crowd quite a few people who attended both events, I believe it would of been better if the events were scheduled on separate days. However, I understand from the TDM organizers that Wednesday was the only time that Meng was available, and the i.JAM event has a minister in attendance (and we all know how busy our million-dollar ministers can be ), so I guess it couldn’t be helped. C’est la vie.

Anyway, let’s keep this short:

Both events were fabulous.

Both events were well-run.

For the TDM event, Jean live-blogged it here. Zit Seng also wrote about it here. The Geek Goddess was excellent as the MC (she said she was nervous? It didn’t show at all).

Had the pleasure to chat with a bunch of cool people that day, including Claudia, Keith (co-founder of iHipo), Shannon (co-founder of Shoplette), Jeff (from Friendster), KK (old salsa friend), Ken (from IDA’s National Grid Office), John, Bernice (founder of youth NPO Syinc), and TDM’s very own Nic.

I had a great time at both events.

There. That’s that. Now let’s talk about something more important.

Let’s talk about world peace.

Chade-Meng Tan, known for being Google’s “Jolly Good Fellow” and first Singaporean employee (as well as having quite a sense of humor), wants to save the world and bring about world peace.

As Meng explained to us in the audience during the climax of his talk at DXO, he plans to go about doing it by researching meditation techniques and creating courses which can systematically increase one’s EQ. So the theory goes – increasing one’s EQ brings about increased self-awareness and self-mastery, which may bring about compassion and love for a greater good, and thus resulting in world peace.

And how does this tie back to Google? Well, Meng is able to pursue his goal because Google is the kind of company that encourages, or even demands, its employees to have world-changing and world-saving ambitions. And Google provides them all the resources within its power to fulfill these goals and ambitions. Or something like that.

And finally, Meng also took the opportunity to encourage all of us to think big, and to believe that each of us can change the world as well.

I certainly applaud Meng’s noble cause, and I wish him all the best in fulfilling his grandiose dreams. It certainly will benefit all of us.

And I also admire Google for creating and nurturing a “dream factory” culture, where all you need to do is get in the door, and you have a chance to change the world and create your own legacy. This, of course, is an incredibly sexy selling point when Google is recruiting the best engineers in the world.

And while it’s nice to think that everyone has world-changing potential, I’m not certain if everyone thinks about (or even cares about) changing the world.

Certainly not the struggling accountant making $4000 a month who have to support his wife and two kids, as well as his mother-in-law.

Perhaps not even the entry-level Google engineer recruited in 2008, making $95K before taxes with no stock options vested and still thinking about striking it rich first.

My point is, Meng has most of his hierarchy of needs well taken care of already (largely thanks to Google’s IPO in 2004, I would believe), and thus he can afford to think about bigger things in life.

Google already has its advertising cash cow, and thus can afford to invest in other projects such as Google University (where Meng currently works and where he develops his courses).

It’s always easier to dream big once you have the biggest worry of your life (finances) all neatly taken care of.

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t that lucky.

Related Posts:

1. Veoh’s Short-Sighted Strategy: Alienate 83% of World
2. Come See Adobe, Google and Microsoft Duke It Out at RIAction!
3. Is the Internet Intelligentsia Disconnected from the Enterprise World?
4. Can’t Beat Google with Only Cash