What makes it so great?
Our new No. 1 sets the standard for Silicon Valley: free meals, swimming spa, and free doctors onsite. Engineers can spend 20% of time on independent projects. No wonder Google gets 1,300 résumés a day.
Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

Life for Google employees at the Mountain View campus is like college. It feels like the brainiest university imaginable - one in which every kid can afford a sports car (though geeky hybrids are cooler here than hot rods).

Here the shabbily dressed engineers always will be the big men (and, yes, women) on campus. "Hard-core geeks are here because there's no place they'd rather be," says Dennis Hwang, a Google Webmaster.
Another similarity to college: New Googlers (Nooglers, in Google parlance) tend to pile on the "Google 15" when confronted with all the free food.

It's easy for Google's people to be energized when their company is so stinking rich that it continues to ooze cash even while lavishing benefits on its staff.

Is Google's culture the cause of its success or merely a result? Put another way: Is Google a great place to work because its stock is at $483, or is its stock at $483 because it's a great place to work?



Google employees enjoy a game of pool on a company table.

 

The people at Google, it should be stated, almost universally see themselves as the most interesting people on the planet. Googlers tend to be happy-go-lucky on the outside, but Type A at their core.

Ask one what he or she is doing, and it's never "selling ads" or "writing code." No, they're on a quest "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That's from the actual mission statement, by the way, which employees can and do cite with cloying frequency

A rock climbing wall is one of the fun activities on the Google campus.

In a move seen as controversial when they unveiled it before the IPO in 2004, the founders retained voting control of the company, meaning that as long as Sergey Brin and Larry Page are in charge, they get to decide whether the upkeep on the lap pool and climbing wall is worth the expense.when confronted with all the free food.

Googlers can play beach volleyball on campus. Other fun activities at Google include Foosball, videogames, pool tables, ping pong and roller hockey twice a week in the parking lot.

In a now famous founders' letter Larry Page and Sergey Brin distributed to prospective Google shareholders before the company's 2004 IPO: "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." Mission accomplished.

A beach volleyball pit is an unusual sight on a corporate campus - unless you're a Google employee.

Google's founders have sought out a role model for building their culture, and it's not a tech company or an ad giant. It's Genentech, the biotech company that is No. 2 on our Best Companies list (and was No. 1 last year).
Genentech has seen drugs succeed wildly and fail miserably, has had years when its stock soared and years when it sank. But through all its ups and downs over 30 years, the company has remained a scientist's paradise and a place where people love to work.

Massage chairs are not exactly par for the course in most corporate settings, but Google strives to create its own culture.

Work is such a cozy place that it's sometimes difficult for Google employees to leave the office, which is precisely how the company justifies the expenses, none of which it breaks out of its administrative costs.

Even people who don't work here like to loiter: The company has become a stop on the world lecture circuit, attracting the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. "You've got to ask yourself why these people are coming here," says 24-year-old engineer Neha Narula. "I think they come here to be energized by the people at Google."
Dogs are a regular part of the Google atmosphere

Genentech CEO and Google board member Art Levinson says, "What draws people to both companies is the environment, one where they have an ability to pursue things largely on their own terms."

Of course, there is one more reason Levinson is a Google acolyte: "Here I am a guy who can afford a good meal, and every time I go to a Google board meeting, I don't leave until ten o'clock at night because I get a free dinner there."

A Google employee pumping iron in the onsite gym.

Looking to make new friends? Attend a weekly TGIF party, where there's usually a band playing.

You could also participate in one of the campus's regular charity events, or sit in the all-organic café on "pajama day" and strike up a conversation about your neighbor's flannels.

Employees participate in the four-legged holiday race, a charity race held on campus.