MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.--One empty chair remains in a small conference room at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Eight people sit around a rectangular table making small talk, checking their watches and waiting. It's almost like the calm before a storm.

There are a couple of half-hearted attempts to get the meeting started. But it's as if they know better—they can't begin until the last seat is filled.

Then you can hear her coming. The slight tap of her heels is faint at first, but grows louder. Now she's here. The meeting can start.

As Google's vice president of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer has her hands in almost every product and tool a Google user experiences.

She is the last stop before products go to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page for final approval. She is quick, assertive and smart, so pay attention.

The quarterly "Doodler" meeting moves at a sprint, and if you get distracted—even for a minute—there's a good chance you just missed three decisions.

The 50-minute meeting determines which special occasion logos, known as "Google Doodles," will be featured on the iconic minimalist Google home page to celebrate important dates, inventions, famous birthdays, national holidays, etc.

A spreadsheet of three months of requests by countries and organizations for their special occasion to be recognized on Google's home page is projected on the wall. It's an intimidating worksheet with dozens of columns cross-referenced with other charts. It would make any Excel lover shudder, but Mayer doesn't bat an eye.

Over 100 requests have to be sorted through—and Mayer 'yays' or 'nahs' very quickly. Decisions are made so rapidly they almost seem out of haste. But a little prodding finds that detailed thought went into the decision.

Click here to read a Q&A session with Mayer

Every day millions of people use Google to gather information, and Mayer knows what to look for in a potential design. Mayer's love of art pokes through as she is familiar with almost every request for an artist's birthday to be celebrated. Her love of science comes to light when she gets excited over a Doodle celebrating a molecular breakthrough

Then the meeting is over and Mayer is gone, already late for the next one.

Ease of Transition

Mayer's next two meetings are in a bigger conference room, and as Googlers trickle in with their laptops in hand (no old-fashion pen and paper for this company), they get connected and ready to start.

The meetings focus on user interface and are much more intense than the Doodle meeting. There is more on the line for the people presenting their ideas. Mayer adapts quickly to the change of pace and jumps right in. Once again, she takes charge.

Ideas for new search tools and enhancements, along with mock page layouts are projected onto the wall.

Mayer quickly notices discrepancies in the amount of space between icons, color inconsistencies and other problems that might confuse the user.

"I really like to put the user first when I get ideas pitched to me," Mayer said in an interview with FOXBusiness.com at the end of the day. "I like to think of my mom and people I know and wonder if they would be able to get this new idea right off the bat."

Google's Golden Girl

Mayer stands out from the crowd at Google. For most employees, the dress code is jeans, a polo shirt and a laptop tucked under the arm. Mayer wears a simple chic black dress with a cardigan and a funky silver necklace. And if you peak under the table, her black heels stand out in a sea of Converse, Puma and Tevas.

Mayer has been labeled by some as the "gorgeously geeky Googler," and it's not hard to see why. She has stunning blue eyes, shoulder-length blonde hair and an impeccable sense of style.

But when asked which she would rather be known as--geeky or glamorous--she pauses for a second and replies, "I am very much more geeky than I am glamorous. I walk out of the house every morning with my hair dripping wet—I am lucky if both my shoes match."

As the 20th employee at Google, Mayer now plays a large role in hiring new Googlers. She has two standards for new employees: they must be smart and able to get things done.

"If you have smart people who don't get things done and they just sit around doing nothing, or if you have people who get things done but aren't smart and do all the wrong things, well, you are going to have a problem."

Mayer makes a ton of decisions every day, and they require her to stay current on all the projects, prototypes, and ideas making their way through the company's giant megaplex.

Her method of critiquing and approving new features is known as the "Marissa Gauntlet."

She is a tough critic, but she never simply kills an idea. Instead, she comes up with ways to evolve it into something more user-friendly and helpful.

"I have a very good gut for what I think consumers like as well as how they're likely to interact with services—that's something that needs to be honed over time. But even my instinct is wrong 20, 30% of the time."

Back to Red and White

In a nod to her professors at Stanford, Mayer leaves her office door open for an hour (though it tends to last longer) every day to allow Googlers to ask questions, get advice or just get her approval on a project.

A large white board sits in front of her office on which 10 slots are offered each day. If you want to get in with Mayer on Wednesday, you better sign up on Tuesday. People wait their turn on over-sized beanbag sacks or funky-colored chairs, while some choose to sit on the floor.

Some questions are pretty standard -- for instance, "What color should this icon be?" Others seem to come out of left field: Does she like the idea of adding a pirate talk section to one of the pages? While meeting with Mayer, Googlers get her full attention—she doesn't check e-mail or answer the phone.

"You never know who is going to show up at office hours that afternoon, so you actually might run into a colleague you haven't had the chance to talk to in a month or two because you might not have bothered to spend time scheduling a meeting with them," she said.

Sneak a peek around Mayer's office (which she shares with three other people, though it is probably no bigger than her dorm room at Stanford) and you will find salad dressing bottles waiting to be used, awards, and silly toys. While it's hard to know exactly what color the top of her desk is, everything looks like it is in its place.

Leftover cakes outside her office point to her love for sweets. The company celebrated her birthday a few days earlier, but the cakes do more than just reflect her sweet tooth: they also pay homage to her business side -- she is part owner of a bakery.

Google celebrates its 10th birthday in September, and Mayer is optimistic for the future.

"We've come so far in just a short period—but there is still a long way for us to go," she said. "I can't put in three-pronged queries into the search box and just ask questions; I can't speak to it in voice; and I can't find every book that's ever been published in the world."

Not yet.