The Google Story: For Google's 10th Birthday (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[The authors] do a fine job of recounting Google’s rapid rise and explaining its search business.”—New York Times

“An intriguing insider view of the Google culture.”—Harvard Business Review

“Fascinating…meticulous…never bogs down…Even if you think you’ve heard about Google ad nauseam, you will find new items about this important company.”—Houston Chronicle

“An interesting read on a powerhouse company…if you haven’t read anything about one of today’s most influential companies, you should. If you don’t read The Google Story, you’re missing a few extra treats.—USA Today


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, "change the world" through a powerful search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free. The Google Story takes you deep inside the company's wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and culture of innovation enabled a search engine to shake up Madison Avenue and Wall Street, scoop up YouTube, and battle Microsoft at every turn. Not afraid of controversy, Google is expanding in Communist China and quietly working on a searchable genetic database, initiatives that test the founders' guiding mantra: DON'T BE EVIL.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Delta; Updated edition (September 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038534273X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385342735
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Enthusiastic and inaccurate, December 15, 2008

By	E. Ribeiro "Avid reader" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well, this book was quite disappointing.

At first, I liked how the author was able to tell the story and how he has connected the pieces together, but he has perpetrated huge mistakes like, for example, forgetting how some first generation googlers were vital to the success of the company.

I am talking of people like Eric Veach, who created the algorithms for AdWords, Jeff Dean, who created important infrastructure tools, Paul Buchheit, the Gmail creator and many, many other googlers. Fortunately, Craig Silverstein and Craig Nevill-Manning were not forgotten but the author barely mention their names.

Did you know that the "Don't be evil" motto was created by Paul Buchheit and Avid Pattel? Well, this fact is totally ignored by the author! If you read the book it will look like it was created by Brin and Page. Even Wikipedia is more accurate than this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars nothing new but still fascinating, November 28, 2008

By	Robert J. Morrow "HamiltonHomeReview.com" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

The updated version for 2008 doesn't supply anything new other than a chapter on how much richer Brin and Page are, and a more useful chapter on future endeavours.
However, if you didn't read the first edition, this is a must read story--especially ten years after the company's debut. As an avid business user of Google, I enjoyed reliving the memories of how simple concepts created millionairs of people like you and me...and how it still does if you just follow the simple plan the boys envisioned. Even this time around, I still found a couple of things I had forgotten that I immediately incorporated into my current webpage to ensure the googlebot liked me even more. And like clockwork, it worked immediately.

If you're new to adwords or adsense, be sure to read the chapters on SEO; it's not as complicated as it seems. If you spend the time and build it properly...they will come!
If nothing else, the updated release (as I'm sure it was intended) reminds the online businessperson that this is mandatory reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A useful refresher but very little that's not available elsewhere, November 1, 2008

By	Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Google Story: For Google's 10th Birthday made for very easy airplane reading on a cross country trip last week. The authors's styles very much reflect their newspaper training and experience, and to a certain extent, missing a bit of the tough editing one is used to during their day jobs.

Nonetheless, it was fun to read a comprehensive review of what has become one of my favorite links online, and it reminded me of several of my own experiences along the way:

-- Nine years ago folks on "The New York Times" Crossword discussion group had an intense debate over whether "google" could be used as a verb and whether it had to be capitalized -- that's an absolute non-issue today several billion searches later.

-- In 1999 we tried to license the search engine for a Fortune 100 company; I now understand why Google down played that effort for a number of years and couldn't make a deal.

-- The checklist of shortcuts was mostly old news, but a couple of the hints had value.

-- Some of the beta features sound fascinating and once I had access to the Internet I signed myself up.

Overall, for anyone who uses the search engine on a regular basis and reads about Google in the newspaper, there is very little new here. But it was fun to review the bidding and speculate a bit with the authors about the future.

Robert C. Ross 2008