Sam Talks Technology

The first Google employee hired outside of the US.  She went on to be Google's UK MD before running AOL, Bebo, DailyMotion and BuzzFeed in Europe.  Today she is a VC partner at Hambro Perks.   We talked about her early days selling online classified adverts at The Sun and blinking banner ads for AltaVista.  How Google changed online advertising forever and became the cash cow behemoth it is today. We discussed the rapid growth of Google and it's 'don't be evil' culture and how Kate fought for diversity against the bros-culture found in the US.  And finally, we discussed some of the major challenges facing Google today from EU regulation over copyright and threats to break it up for being anti-competitive, through to the higher tax levy proposed for online giants like Google in Europe, as well as the opportunity and threat of voice search.     As the web turns 30 this week, Kate can safely say she has been there, seen it, done it and even has the many t-shirts!!!