{"id":7615,"date":"2026-04-03T22:43:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/7615\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T22:43:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:43:36","slug":"googles-head-of-android-once-cold-emailed-the-2-trillion-tech-giants-founder-sergey-brin-for-graduate-school-advice-he-instead-got-a-job-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/7615\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s head of Android once cold-emailed the $2 trillion tech giant\u2019s founder Sergey Brin for graduate school advice\u2014he instead got a job offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

There isn\u2019t much that is more difficult than landing a job at Google. With an acceptance rate close to 0.2% according to CNBC<\/a>, you\u2019d have far better luck applying to Harvard<\/a> or Yale.<\/p>\n

However, for Sameer Samat, all it took was one cold email.<\/p>\n

During the dot-com boom, the then 20-something-year-old was trying to navigate the tech startup world. But with his cofounders contemplating jumping ship for graduate school, he needed advice on how to convince them to stay. So, he boldly sent Google cofounder Sergey Brin<\/a> a 3 a.m. email seeking guidance.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of them were on to go to grad school, and we had a big fight about it,\u201d Samat said to Business Insider<\/a>. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t understand how you can want to go to grad school; we\u2019re building this company.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019What would you do in this situation? I\u2019m sure you had this wrestle with this grad school decision,\u2019\u201d he recalled writing to Brin in 1999.<\/p>\n

A minute later, Brin responded and invited Samat and his team to Google headquarters. But instead of sitting them down together, he conducted 1-1 interviews on the spot\u2014and Samat landed a job offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Samat ultimately declined the role\u2014electing to stay with his machine learning startup Mohomine\u2014Brin connected him with others in the industry, including investors. Years later, he joined the tech giant in 2008 as a product management director, eventually rising to president of Android in 2024. But he couldn\u2019t have done it without that early foot in the door from Brin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t have to do any of that,\u201d Samat said. \u201cAnd so I try to pay that forward, too, when people call me up with something similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune reached out to Google for comment.<\/p>\n

Weighing going to college or becoming a tech entrepreneur<\/p>\n

The decision whether to go to graduate school is a tough decision many young adults face, especially in today\u2019s education world where AI is reshaping what students need to learn<\/a>. Samat said the decision comes down to what\u2019s better for someone personally, but sometimes, knowing less about formal strategy\u2014and instead following your gut\u2014can lead to greater success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no substitute for taking a pretty good plan and just running like hell,\u201d Samat said to BI. \u201cAnd sometimes the naiveness of someone who doesn\u2019t have that background makes a much better entrepreneur.\u201d<\/p>\n

His boss, Google CEO Sundar Pichai<\/a>\u2014who Samat called a \u201cwork big brother\u201d\u2014has similar feelings on navigating one\u2019s career path.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s tough to find things you love doing, but I think listening to your heart a bit more than your mind [helps] in terms of figuring out what you want to do,\u201d Pichai said on the Lex Fridman podcast<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Pichai\u2019s education resume includes a master\u2019s degree in material science and engineering, as well as, an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Wharton School<\/a>.\u00a0
While the price of higher education is high<\/a>\u2014and some are questioning its value<\/a>\u2014there\u2019s no question that it is one of the ultimate destinations for networking. After all, Google\u2019s founders first met<\/a> when Brin, then a graduate student at Stanford, was assigned to show prospective student Larry Page<\/a> around campus. The rest is a $2 trillion history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There isn\u2019t much that is more difficult than landing a job at Google. With an acceptance rate close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[2104,7378,474,7379,1720,2683,3313,812,7380,7381,614,5471,7382],"class_list":{"0":"post-7615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sergey-brin","8":"tag-alphabet","9":"tag-back-to-school","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-business-school","12":"tag-career-advice","13":"tag-careers","14":"tag-entrepreneurship","15":"tag-google","16":"tag-google-android","17":"tag-graduate-school","18":"tag-sergey-brin","19":"tag-tech-workers","20":"tag-the-promotion-playbook"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116343197209080966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}