There was a time when it was true that being a Googler meant you were pretty hot shit, but that was decades ago at this point. Not insulting any of the talented people who work there, it's just a much bigger company with 1000x more people on staff, so obviously it's not just the top, crème de la crème nerds in the world, even if many of them are there.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that this article is an example of pride or bragging. It seems like an inventory of what's unusual about Google. It also includes some somewhat cutting remarks about its dysfunctions, e.g.:

> Most 10-50 million user problems aren’t worth Google's time, and don’t fit their strategy. But they’ll take on significant effort on problems that do fit their nature, strategy, and someone’s promotion goals.