John Kim (@0xjohnkim) / X

John Kim

1,176 posts

John Kim

@0xjohnkim

Co-founder, CEO @paraformtalent (we're hiring!)

Hire on Paraform:

paraform.com/?utm_source=tw…

Born August 10

Joined September 2021

John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
These folks gambled their careers on Larry & Sergei's search engine startup. They wrote Google's first lines of code. Sold its first ads. Grew its first teams. They started in a garage, and walked away with millions. Where are Google's first 10 non-founding hires now? 👇
4.1M
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Sep 27, 2024
You’ve heard of the Paypal mafia. But what about the Palantir mafia? Ex-Palantir employees are building billion-dollar companies and disrupting entire industries. Here’s a look at some of the most interesting ones 🧵
519K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Sep 16, 2024
Becoming employee #1 at Airbnb, Facebook, or Stripe is like buying a lottery ticket. Risky, but can change your life forever. So what are these early employees up to now? 🧵
855K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #1: Craig Silverstein Craig was Google’s first hire, not including the founders. He joined Khan Academy after 14 years at Google; he’s now their Dean of Infrastructure. He and his wife Mary signed the Giving Pledge in 2014, committing most of their wealth to charity.
259K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #2: Heather Cairns Heather hired the first 200 Googlers. She’s also the voice of Google’s voicemail greeting. After Google, Heather went to grad school for painting and became an angel investor in women-led companies. Now, she’s running a real estate development firm.
267K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #5: Amit Patel Amit and Gmail creater Paul Buchheit came up with Google’s slogan, “Don’t Be Evil.” Not much is known about him post-Google — he’s a private person with no public-facing social media accounts.
226K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #3: Ray Sidney Ray took a sabbatical in 2003 — when Google went public, he ended up retiring instead. He became a triathlete, got his amateur pilot’s license, donated to public causes, and learned about eco-friendly housing. He came out of retirement to become a
316K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Sep 19, 2024
Stripe is minting founders. Patrick & John Collison didn't just build a payment processor – they launched a talent incubator. 25+ startups. $2B+ raised. And at least 5 ex-Stripe founders also started companies with their siblings! Let’s look at what they’ve built. 🧵
87K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #6: Urs Hölzle @uhoelzle started as Google’s first search mechanic. He’s still at Google today. He was the SVP of Technical Infrastructure until 2023; he’s now a Google Fellow working on the infrastructure powering Google & Google Cloud.
204K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #4: Harry Cheung @harrycheung’s nickname at Google was “Spiderman" – he worked on the ‘spiders’ that crawl through the web, looking for new links to index. He became an angel investor, then co-founded home lending platform Roostify (acquired by CoreLogic last year).
250K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Nov 7, 2023
🇺🇸 Got my O1 Visa!
45K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Oct 23, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Employee #8: Salar Kamangar Salar led the development of AdWords, and pushed for the acquisition of a 2-year-old streaming site named YouTube. He’s still at Google/Youtube, in an advisory role. He was Youtube’s CEO from 2010-2014, before Susan Wojcicki (Google employee #14).
183K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Sep 16, 2024
Replying to @0xjohnkim
Apple employee #8: Chris Espinosa Joined Apple in 1976 at 14(!) to write BASIC programs in Steve’s garage. Still at Apple today. Chris is the longest-serving employee — his 48-year tenure is probably longer than you’ve been alive. He’s now working on ‘Sign in with Apple’.
50K
John Kim
@0xjohnkim
Mar 13, 2024
The hardest people to recruit: 😅 ex-founders Why? Because they'd rather do their own thing! But there's a company that's been quite successful at doing this 1/n👇
270K