Chade-Meng Tan (), known informally as Meng, is an author, philanthropist, motivator, and former software engineer. He was previously employed at
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
and greeted celebrities who visited the
Google campus. He retired from Google as its "Jolly Good Fellow" at the age of 45. He co-founded the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, along with
Marc Lesser, and is co-chair of One Billion Acts of Peace, which was nominated eight times for the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
. He is also an adjunct professor at the
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
History
The Lee Kuan Yew School of ...
in the
National University of Singapore, and a graduate from
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Career
Meng was Google employee number 107 and his job title was "
Jolly Good Fellow". He joined Google in 2000 after working for five years at
Kent Ridge Digital Laboratories in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
. At Google, he worked for eight years in engineering on projects such as mobile search and search quality. Tan earned his eccentric Google title after starting “
mindfulness training” courses at the company — a groundbreaking mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course called Search Inside Yourself, which was featured on the front page of the Sunday Business section of ''The New York Times'' in April 2014. ''Search Inside Yourself'' is also the title of Meng's 2014 self-help book, which became a ''New York Times''
bestseller and was endorsed by President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
and the Dalai Lama.
Mindfulness non-profits
Motivated by his belief that happiness is a state of mind, these mindfulness training courses were meant to help Googlers find inner peace and clear their minds to manage stress and negativity. The classes proved extremely successful at Google, which led Meng to write a best-selling book, “Search Inside Yourself”. These successes (outside of his engineering role) led him to work for two years as the Head of
Personal Growth and to chair non-profit “Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute” (SIYLI, pronounced “silly”), to bring the same popular Google class to others.
Meng has left Google on October 30, 2015 to focus spreading his message and courses on happiness, meditation and spreading world peace, as announced on his personal blog. He hopes that ''Search Inside Yourself'' will eventually contribute to world peace in a meaningful way.
Meng is part of the team of the
non-profit organisation
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
One Billion Acts of Peace, which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015. The nomination was signed by six Nobel Laureates.
In 2018, Meng stepped down from the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute at the board's request following the results of a third-party investigation citing “inappropriate behavior” prior to the founding of SIYLI.
Select bibliography
* ‘’Search Inside Yourself’’
* ‘’Joy on Demand’’
Celebrity photo collection
Meng started collecting celebrity photographs when
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
and
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
visited the
Google campus. This became a tradition, and he now has a large collection of photographs of his meetings with celebrities at Google.
References
External links
Personal websiteSearch Inside Yourself— about the book
Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tan, Chade-Meng
1971 births
American software engineers
American Buddhists
American people of Chinese descent
Google employees
Living people
University of California, Santa Barbara alumni