There are many success stories relating to Google’s newly minted millionaires, who are generally software gurus and sales whizzes. Now all assortment of people are becoming millionaires. Ms Bonnie Brown’s — a masseuse’s — success story is worth a read…
“Ms Brown was not in a position to haggle. She was recently divorced and living with her sister, so when a small technology start-up offered her a job in 1999 as a part-time masseuse she took it. The post paid $450 a week, plus a pile of what were then worthless stock options.
“Today, on the back of that package, Ms Brown, Google employee No 41, is a multimillionaire.It is estimated that 1,000 employees, Ms Brown among them, have accrued fortunes worth at least $5 million apiece from the nine-year-old web giant’s rise and rise,” reports The Times.
“The money has flowed from Google’s stranglehold of the hugely lucrative online advertising market (it reported revenues of $7.5 billion in the first half of the year alone) and investors’ seemingly insatiable appetite for the group’s shares. Yesterday, the company, founded in a garage by two students, sported a stock market value of some $207 billion.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.