Preston Crawley, "Google Fiber Center Street, Provo", 2021, via https://universe.byu.edu/2021/01/15/google-fiber-and-provo-city-negotiate-new-agreement/
By: Bretton L - July 23, 2024
Today, Google Fiber provides high-speed internet to millions of people and businesses in the US. Google Fiber’s story can be traced back to Cedric Lam and his mission to revolutionize America’s broadband connectivity. I had the honor of being invited by Cedric to have dinner on the Google Campus where I interviewed him on his journey.
The Journey to Fiber
Cedric grew up in China before moving to Hong Kong at age 15. Throughout high school, Cedric excelled in physics, placing first in many physics competitions and all his physics classes. Cedric’s passion for physics and his practical mindset led him to major in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. His dedication to learning and academic excellence earned him a scholarship to study in the US, where he received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCLA. After graduate school, Cedric started his career at AT&T and subsequently joined a startup and became the Chief System Architect. Faced with the difficulty in fundraising for the startup company due to the 2008 financial crisis, Cedric joined Google, initially as a staff optical network engineer.
During his first year at Google, the founding CEO of Google, Larry Page was annoyed by the limited data capacity cap that Comcast imposed on his home internet plan. Page envisioned the possibility for Google to jump-start the lagging broadband access network infrastructure in the US and allow people to benefit from blazing-fast data networks nationwide. Mr. Page turned to his team to find qualified employees at Google to help start that project. Since Cedric had previously written a book on broadband access technology, Passive Optical Networks: Principles and Practice, he was given the opportunity to investigate the feasibility of the GFiber project, which initially was his 20% exploratory project. As the first and lead engineer on the project, Cedric quickly assembled a team of knowledgeable Googlers, eager to contribute their expertise and make a difference in the world, and many of them eventually became his good friends.
Insights for Emerging Entrepreneurs
Throughout our dinner, Cedric shared his experiences with me from his immigrant story to his success at Google. Additionally, he spent time explaining the technology behind how fiber can carry high-speed internet data to homes and businesses. Nonetheless, I had some questions of my own about advice he might give to younger generations of entrepreneurs.
Was there a specific moment that drove you to take the lead and start Google Fiber?
“I studied optical communication networks at graduate school and I already had the vision to use fiber for broadband access networks. Later when I joined AT&T Labs, I was doing research on the techniques to employ fiber optics for low-cost broadband access. Nonetheless, the US already had a pervasive copper-based access network, whether that’s the DSL network operated by the telecom operators or the coaxial cable network operated by cable TV operators. Without a compelling demand and application, there is very little incentive, including AT&T who allowed me to do research on the subject, to actually build a new fiber-based access network because of the high infrastructure construction cost. When I was approached to start fiber optics at Google, it was the opportunity I had been waiting for.”
Could you describe a time when you faced a significant challenge while working on the project and how you overcame it?
“Although it doesn’t directly relate to working on the development of GFiber, the greatest challenge I ever faced was having to take on that manager role while managing a large team full of friends. This was my first time officially being a manager and many early team members were my good friends who followed me and supported my vision. It was always a struggle to balance my personal friendships with my coworkers while having to look at their productivity and the work they did from the view of a manager, wanting to see success within my team and the overall Fiber project as a whole.”
Do you have any advice for aspiring young entrepreneurs?
“Find your passion and pursue it. Only when you are truly passionate about something, you can become really good at it and you can become successful in what you do. So always follow your heart but make sure to use some intuition and logic to help guide you to finding success. Whenever you are presented with opportunities, seize them because you may never find that opportunity again. Also, build a strong analytical capability through your school training, because no matter what you do, it is a very important skill on the path to success.”
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