Five thousand jobs in twenty years: between Google and Zurich, an almost perfect relationship

Published on November 25, 2024 at 7:49 p.m. / Modified on November 25, 2024 at 9:41 p.m.

The largest research center outside the United States, around 5,000 employees from around seventy countries, twenty years of presence in Switzerland… These figures alone testify to the almost fusional relationship between Zurich and Google. We tend to forget it in French-speaking Switzerland, but the multinational has become a giant beyond Sarine. This Monday, the Californian company celebrated its twenty years of presence in Zurich. The opportunity to discuss its links with Switzerland, in a relationship nevertheless crossed by several tensions.

But first, a bit of history. If this digital giant is strongly established here, it is thanks to one man, Urs Hölzle. A graduate of the ETH Zurich in computer science, the engineer then obtained his doctorate at Stanford University. In California, he met Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who had just founded Google in 1998. The two entrepreneurs were looking to establish their start-up in Europe. Urs Hölzle praises the merits of Zurich to them (the EPFZ, centrality in Europe, stability, etc.) and this is how this begins. success-story.

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