14 DAY TRIAL // Matt Cutts, the third most well-known employee after the two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, has announced he will extend his unpaid leave he took from the company.
One of the first and most important "googlers," Matt Cutts has been crucial in developing Google's main project, its search engine, where he helped develop products like SafeSearch, and headed the Webspam Team.
Mr. Cuts left the company in July 2014, when he announced on his blog he would be taking an unpaid leave for six months to spend more time with his wife.
That leave was extended in October of the same year, and now on an appearance on the "This Week in Google" show, he said he would not be returning to the company anytime soon.
"Google's been very kind about letting me take time off," said Matt Cutts, which apparently is now busy doing other more important things, like joining a 30-day challenge in which he has to take a cold shower each day for the next month.
Google is still paying for Matt Cutts health expenses
Mr. Cutts also said Google paid his salary for a short period of time into his unpaid leave, but he's not being paid right now. The company is still paying for his health insurance though.
In May this year, Google also took a step into moving away from Mr. Cutts' leadership, announcing it officially replaced him with another engineer, but decided not to name him.
As SearchEngineLand pointed out, this might have to do with Mr. Cutts' previous comments, pointing out that being a public figure for Google's search policies can be a lightning rod for negative energy.
The Mr. Cutts addresses the issue from minute 2:00 onwards.
