On reflecting about the time he joined Google, Arora said that he was planning to do something on his own when a friend asked him in 2004 to consider joining a company that could offer a start-up kind of an atmosphere. The two Google founders conducted the interview among the artifacts of the British Museum; he says “We walked around. We looked at the exhibits and a lot of our conversation was about the Rosetta stone,” referring to an Egyptian artifact that dates to 196 BC and is inscribed in three languages.

Majumdar writes that one of Arora’s key contributions at Google has been driving revenues from other regions and building relations with advertisers. Presently more than half the company’s revenue comes from outside of the U.S. compared to just one-third when he joined eight years ago. It’s thus obvious why Google made a rare move last month, and decided to pay its top salesman $8 million in cash, instead of the previously agreed upon stock options and stock units. Arora, who made more than $23 million last year, will have to repay Google if he chooses to leave his position before April 25, 2015, the date the stock units and options will have vested.

Majumdar writes, whilst Arora at the age of 45 already been a top player at Google, and won’t he remain the tallest pygmy in a company where the founders are much younger than him? Before winding up his worthwhile conversation, he asks Arora, what’s next? To which Arora says, “Does things to undo the pattern every time his life takes on a steady pattern”. But he still loves going to office every day in a company that loves disrupting conventions, and where his colleagues are always excited about solving the most complicated of technological problems, Majumdar adds.