Blah-blah, Google is so cool, nothing worth reading, actually.
I offered advice on gmail that solves complaints I have heard about it in the past from heavy email users. I described a scene of perpetual chaos that plenty of people would hate. And I gave the piece of information that Google is hiring.
Those are three pieces of information that I thought were worthwhile sharing which are definitely not simply "Google is cool".
This was personally frustrating, because I got through the interview process in Feb, got approved by the hiring committee, then headcount was not approved. Which put me in a state of indefinite limbo. So I had found a different job by the time they contacted me again in October.
Bit like your comment. Hence the downvote.
It is interesting that someone from the outside has now joined Google and found a lot that they would like to say, but can't.
I've also seen anecdotal evidence that the 20% time is largely ignored and up to the employee to push for, but he comments that it's both used a lot and you are marked on it. I guess that varies with where in Google you work.
It's hard to judge a company just in one month especially when some people might spend their first week (or two) doing company orientation.
I'd be eager to hear an honest assessment from him after a year though. There has to be a reason why brilliant and motivated people leave Google, after all.
The OMG-everyone's-so-smart factor does fade as you get accustomed to all the proprietary infrastructure and realize that hey, I'm smart too. Eventually, intelligence just doesn't matter all that much. It's like my dad's story about starting at MIT: the first 2 weeks, everybody has their phi-beta-kappa rings on all the time. After a month, they've all disappeared, because you realize that everybody else has one too, and then smarts just aren't an issue afterwards.
You also tend to become more overworked as you gain competence. There's far more that we'd like to do than what we can do. Eventually that marveling at "Oh my god we built this" becomes "Oh shit I have to build this", which can be very satisfying, but also is a lot of work.