onde gastar 4 mil milhões de dólares?

[Recentemente vi na televisão uma reportagem sobre a política de contratações do Google e fiquei impressionado. O que impressiona mais é o ambiente de trabalho... Certo dia Larry Page chega a uma reunião e diz: «acho que não temos festas suficientes», ao que um dos directores responde: «nunca conheci empresa que tivesse tantas festas...». A cantina tem comida para todos os gostos, à borla, e com muita cor e alegria. Toda a empresa privilegia a cor e um ambiente adolescente e moderno. As contratações são muito rigorosas e todas as semanas são contratadas pessoas - por dia recebem 1000 currículos. Existem cerca de 10 entrevistas antes de uma contratação.]

Where to Spend $4 Billion? Google Has Plenty of Projects in Mind
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21 - In all the speculation that followed the announcement from Google on Thursday that it planned to raise an additional $4 billion by selling stock, no one seemed to recall the space elevator.
The elevator - a fanciful alternative to rocket boosters to reach earth orbit - is one of the dozens of business ideas that have been considered by the company's wide-eyed founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. It also is one of the ideas that the company's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has taken pride in keeping "below the line."
Of course, such fringe ventures could easily consume any number of billions of dollars that Google might raise on the stock market. It has been Mr. Schmidt's ability to keep the company focused on its stated mission of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful" that has so far made the company a powerful threat to larger rivals like Microsoft.
Indeed, that focus is so deeply interwoven in the company's culture that whatever direction Google turns, it is likely to disappoint those expecting a blockbuster acquisition. The 4,100-employee company that the three computer scientists have built has maintained a marked predisposition toward building and not buying its future. Indeed, its acquisitions to date have exclusively been of small technology start-ups led by designers whom Google wanted to hire.
mais in NYTimes