I personally wanted to thank the Board of Directors of New York Women in Communications, Inc. for being honored with a 2010 Matrix Award.  I'm thrilled to be recognized by such an esteemed organization, one that has provided tremendous support to women in the media for over eight decades.  I'd also like to extend my congratulations to the seven other honorees who will be given the distinction of sharing the 40th anniversary of this award.

As Google's first female engineer, I'm proud to be a part of the innovation and excitement that comes with building simple and elegant products for millions of people around the world.  At Google, part of how we achieve innovation is by taking risks.  Coming to Google when it was a just a few people back in 1999 was a big risk for me.  I remember worrying about being the brunt of my family's jokes. What if we had failed? At family reunions, my parents would joke, "After she graduated, Marissa went to work at a company called, get this, 'Goo-gle'..." The name itself could have been the punchline.  But, in the end, it has become the risk that caused me to learn the most in life -- I've loved every moment of my 3,792 days (at last count!) in large part because I'm surrounded by people who I learn from every day.

For me, work is life, life is work, and work is fun!  I found myself on a recent Saturday afternoon deciding whether to go to a movie or to work, and I ultimately chose to go to work because I realized that it's actually more fun for me.  And, I love movies, so that is a very high bar.  The work at Google is fascinating, because I'm really looking forward to the exciting and challenging problems we have yet to answer in computer science.

Google has had, throughout our history, a large focus on hiring for diversity and especially on hiring women.  As a result, Google as a company is an amazingly diverse and talented group of collaborators.  The focus on hiring technical women has been especially fruitful -- building an amazing community of women technologists.  For this reason, this award holds particular meaning for me, and I share this honor with all of the brilliant women I work with at Google each day.
 

Read more about the 2010 Matrix Awards