Daily Archives: July 9, 2008

Dennis Hwang the Google Doodler

Dennis Hwang, aka Hwang Jeong-mok, is probably the most famous unknown artist in the world. He started as an intern at Google in the summer of 2000. At the time, he was a Stanford undergrad majoring in art and computer science. When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin found out he was an art major, they tapped him to do his first doodle. (Bastille Day, July 14, 2000 – see above). He’s been making whimsical logos for Google’s homepage ever since.

While the doodles are only a small part of his actual job, Hwang’s favorite doodles are the birthday series honoring Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and other famous artists. You can see list of past logos here. BTW, next time try clicking on the Google Doodle, the doodled logos link to Google search results about that topic.

Here’s Dennis Hwang showing you how a Google Doodle is made

Here’s some example of Google Doodles over the years

Earlier this year K-12 students were invited to Doodle 4 Google. The winner was Grace Moon with a doodle entitle “Up in the Clouds”.

VC Tim Chang talks Internet & Hollywood

Tim Chang is a Principal Partner at NorWest Venture Partners. Tim holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in electrical engineering/system engineering as well as a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. He focuses on investments in wireless and digital media as well as business development initiatives in Asia-Pacific.

In this interview, he covers the changing shifts between Hollywood and Silicon Valley (can you say Hollywood 2.0?). With MySpace and Yahoo! in Los Angeles as well as the amount of money in Hollywood and number of celebrities, it only a matter of time when you see more entrepreneurs coming out of Hollywood. It’s already starting with weplay.com and ibeatyou.com. He also covers why an ad-support model is a lazy entrepreneurs business model. (Read: you need to sell stuff). Video analytics may be the next hot thing.

Watch Tim Chang discuss Internet & Hollywood

Guitar Hero creators Kai and Charles Huang

Guitar Hero, created by Kai Huang and Charles Huang, has redefined the rhythm game genre. Kai Huang is the man widely lauded as the person who thought up the idea for the Guitar Hero game. The Huang brothers are co-founders of RedOctane. (Before Guitar Hero, the company was known for DDR dance pads.)

The original Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II was a collaboration between Red Octane and Harmonix Music Systems. The success for Guitar Hero immediately took off. Miley Cyrus, My Chemical Romance, and Korn are known to be fans of Guitar Hero. In 2006, things changed for the two companies. Harmonix Music Systems was bought out by MTV Networks and went on to create rival game “Rock Band.” Meanwhile, Red Octane was acquired by Activision and continued the franchise with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

The Guitar hero brand continues with the recently released Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS. Guitar Hero: Metallica will be available in 2009. Also expected later this year is Guitar Hero World Tour (formerly known as Guitar Hero IV). This game is expected to rival Rock Band with a drum set with cymbal interfaces and Guitar Hero Studio, where you can create your own music.

Watch Kai and Charles Huang talk about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

Another interview with Kai and Charles Huang about Guitar Hero