Global tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple have always been home to some of the brightest talents from across the world. We have heard multiple stories of some of the most brilliant minds making it to the top within these companies, but there are some who dared to take their own path by launching own startups and companies, which are growing phenomenally. We have compiled a list of a few such companies that were founded either by an ex-Googler or a team of ex-Googlers.
Xiaomi
Two of the co-founders – Lin Bin and Hong Feng – worked at Google before jointly founding Xiaomi Technologies, a company that has made quality technology accessible to everyone. Founded in April 2010, the company manufactures everything from smart devices to television sets to smartphones. It is currently one of the leading smartphone companies globally and boasts of more than 374 million smart devices being connected to its platform. The company’s caters to consumers across more than 100 countries around the globe.
One of the co-founders of visual discovery engine Pinterest, Ben Silbermann, worked with the online advertising group of Google before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey. Home to more than billions of social media enthusiasts across the world, Pinterest has redefined image sharing and in fact added an all-new paradigm to the world of social media. In addition to it, data extracted from the platform has been used for research in different domains.
Fluxon
The San-Francisco based agile product development company was founded by a team of leaders from Google and other top tech companies. The leadership team at Fluxon comprises several ex-Google employees, namely Erad Fridman, AJ Ross, Jen Gil and Praveen Telugu. Fluxon has grown from a small team of builders to a world-class product development hub, bringing together deep expertise across disciplines and industries. Fluxon started and scaled based on its engineering quality and open approach, and today has offices in the US, India, Ukraine and Canada. Its mission is to connect the best talent with the right ideas to build the world’s most innovative products.
Productiv
The co-founder and CEO of Productiv, a platform to help companies with their IT questions, has lead Google Analytics in the past. Productiv enables a unique support system for the IT needs of any company. For instance, Productiv allows IT wings of firms to identify the right applications for licensing at enterprise level. The data-driven platform has been built specifically for enterprises that intend to address their challenges by automating complex SaaS workflows and further helping in better app decision making.
Armis
Co-founded by a former Googler and Israeli armyman Nadir Izrael, Armis helps a company seamlessly manage the devices on its network while eliminating any possible security threat. Armis is essentially an enterprise class agent-less device security platform, which equips companies to take on the threats looming with unmanaged and IoT devices. While it identifies the risks as well as gaps, the platform is instrumental in critical threat detection and suitable response.
