Ben Darnell ’02 featured on TechCrunch

Park Scholar featured on TechCrunch, one of the most widely read Web 2.0 entrepreneurship blogs in the world.

It may be hard for some to remember the Internet without Google. These days, GMail, Google Maps, Google Docs and YouTube are all part of people’s everyday habits. But back in 2002, Google was still relatively small and growing. This was a full two years before GMail came out and three years before Google Maps would be unveiled. But Ben Darnell, class of 2002, passed Google’s famously difficult interview process and went to work for the growing search engine company based in Mountain View, Calif.—right in the heart of Silicon Valley. Considering that Google now employs more than 19,000 people, Ben was among its earliest hires!

After seven years with Google and successfully working on a number of projects (Google Reader, for instance), Ben decided to get back into startup mode by joining FriendFeed, a popular social media aggregation Web site founded by several former Googlers. Among the hyperactive technology scene in Silicon Valley, lucrative employee grabs make headline news on the most popular Web 2.0 startup blog TechCrunch dedicated an entire post to his recent shift.

Congrats Ben for the move and best of luck at FriendFeed!

UPDATE: The 13-person FriendFeed has been acquired by Facebook! Wow!

~posted 2009.08.18