I would hire any of these people in a heartbeat.
These are some of my favorite people in the world:
- Brad Hawkes
- Jason Shellen (Manager, New Business Development, Google)
- Chris Wetherell
- Mihai Parparita
- Laurence Gonsalves
- Ben Darnell
- Justin Haugh (Software Engineer, Google)
- Steve Goldberg (Engineering Management, Google)
- Kevin Fox (Senior Experience Designer, Google)
“Why?” you ask. I’ll tell you why. It’s not just because they contribute to the official Google Reader Blog (arguably the best blog in the world for the best blog reading software in the world). It’s not just because they are exceedingly smart, handsome, and/or beautiful. It’s because they are the type of people who, despite having no obligation to do so, would go out of their way to help a fellow blogger in need. A blogger who uses and relies on Google Reader to keep feeding his blog. A blogger who ran into a slight problem with his Google Reader account, waited, waited some more, tried asking an influential friend to help, and tried official channels to get help.
So run, don’t walk, to meet Brad Hawkes, Jason Shellen, Chris Wetherell, Mihai Parparita, Laurence Gonsalves, Ben Darnell, Justin Haugh, Steve Goldberg, and Kevin Fox and to tell them thanks for being great Google ambassadors, great bloggers, great citizens, great role models.
And tell them Erik said thanks (in advance) for their help.