Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Mike Miller http://pulse2.com Sun, 27 May 2012 19:13:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Google Ann Arbor Office Now Has Over 300 Employees http://pulse2.com/2012/02/02/google-ann-arbor-office-now-has-over-300-employees/ http://pulse2.com/2012/02/02/google-ann-arbor-office-now-has-over-300-employees/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:57:03 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=56485 Continue reading →]]>
Google has hit 300 employees at their Ann Arbor sales office said Mike Miller. The Ann Arbor office has just celebrated their five year anniversary. The Google Ann Arbor office is still focused on North American sales, but they have recently started providing services to YouTube and Google+.

“Our hope would be that we continue to grow, that our business overall continues to grow, that the office will continue along that path,” stated Miller.

Google is starting to expand functions of its Ann Arbor office beyond sales. Google opened their Ann Arbor office in September 2006 in a small second-office floor above a restaurant and bar called Vinology on Main Street. After that they expanded into a bigger office at the McKinley Towne Centre at the corner of Liberty and Division.

Google co-founder Larry Page is friends with U of M President Mary Sue Coleman, which played a major role in the company creating an office in Ann Arbor. Google was also attracted to young talent in Ann Arbor.

Google was originally planning to add 1,000 jobs over the first five years in their Ann Arbor offices, but the company personnel growth slowed during the middle of a global financial crisis.

To help Google offset their personnel costs, Google received approval from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) board in 2006 to get a tax credit of up to $38.25 million over the next 20 years. Google will not be forced to pay back taxes because MEGA tax credits are distributed on an incremental basis per hired employee. The MEGA tax credit program stopped in 2011 as part of Governor Rick Snyder’s business tax reform legislation.

[AnnArbor.com]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/02/02/google-ann-arbor-office-now-has-over-300-employees/feed/ 0 Google Ann Arbor Exec Grady Burnett Leaves To Become Facebook Sales Head http://pulse2.com/2009/06/04/google-ann-arbor-exec-grady-burnett-leaves-to-become-facebook-sales-head/ http://pulse2.com/2009/06/04/google-ann-arbor-exec-grady-burnett-leaves-to-become-facebook-sales-head/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:10:28 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=16048 Continue reading →]]> grady-burnett
Last month University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Google co-founder Larry Page gave a commencement speech.  One of the reasons why Google has a major advertising operations office in Ann Arbor is because Page is deeply tied to the city.  His parents had actually met each at the University of Michigan according to Page’s speech.

Unfortunately for Google, the head of advertising operations at the Google Ann Arbor office Grady Burnett has stepped down to become the head of global online and inside sales at Facebook.  Facebook Inc. has about $716 million in total funding and is pushing towards $500 million in revenue this year.

Burnett has been leading the AdWords division in Ann Arbor since 2006 and he will be replaced by Mike Miller.

“As you might imagine, this was a hard decision for me and my family. We love Michigan and I thoroughly enjoyed my nearly four years working for Google,” stated Burnett in an e-mail to CrainsDetroit.com.

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