About Anna Patterson
Anna Patterson, a vice president of engineering at Google, described her path into computer science as stemming from a desire to create, similar to her early interest in painting. She stated that one of the things that led her into the field was the ability to "make things that really change people's lives." Patterson recounted that she joined Android when it had fewer than 100 employees, noting that it "really felt like a startup" and that it "wasn't clear that it was the rocket ship that it became." She said she felt "very fortunate" to have started with the platform when it was small.
Patterson also discussed her work in search, stating that "every time you type in a query, you're using my code" and that this means she is "reaching billions of people a day." She reflected on her earlier career, including founding a startup called Zift during the dot-com crash, and her decision to re-enter the workforce by assessing her strengths and weaknesses. Patterson also mentioned that she met her husband and Sergey Brin during her time at Stanford.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Anna Patterson's recent appearances.
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Transcript (3 segments)
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Anna Patterson0:11
Anything and it can do anything. My dad was a NASA engineer. He used to tell us all kinds of stories, going to space, and kind of dreaming big dreams. I wanted to be a painter. I was applying for art scholarships and I was putting together my portfolio when my next door neighbor came home after studying art and she moved back in with her parents. When you're 17, you're really dying to make sure that you can stay away from your parents. I mean, stay independent of your parents. I realized then that I should really think about my other passions. I didn't know as a high school student that I had a talent in math. A lot of people out there don't realize what their talents are.
The lottery. The atmosphere at Stanford was really that we are the ones we've been waiting for. Things out there waiting to be created, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be monetized. We were going to be the ones to do it. One week it got warm and I asked people—I had no idea who they were—hey, let's go to the beach. I could not find anyone to go, so I vowed that I would meet and make friends with the most irresponsible people at Stanford. And that's the week I met my husband and Sergey Brin. Tom and I have been married, maybe 15 years. And we have four kids. Pregnancy is a really creative time and a lot of people ask me, doesn't that mean that you're going to be taking time away from work? And does that mean that you're going to have to slow? And you know what I always tell people is there's nothing like a hard deadline. It's one of those times where you really have to get your act together.
Up on some angel money. And that's when the dot-com crash hit and funding was very frozen. I did have to think, when re-entering the workforce, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What do I like? What do I want to do? When I started at Android, it was sub-100 people. So it really felt like a startup. And it wasn't clear that it was the rocket ship that it became. I joined mobile because I thought it was going to be transformative for society. We're at the next mobile revolution and I feel very fortunate to have started with Android when it was so small. We just shipped a new search infrastructure on the phone that will index all your personal data in a lot more mobile-friendly way. We could index the web in eight minutes on all the machines in the world, and it doesn't get better than that.
