Customer Reviews

Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was fascinating in that it is an unauthorized documentary of the thought processes of the Google founders and their adult supervision, CEO Schmidt. The author does a comprehensive job of analyzing each decision made by "the Google Guys" and how it fits into the overall strategy of the company. These guys come off as being brilliant because they more often than not get it right. It takes other companies weeks, months or maybe never to realize that what Larry and Sergey are doing is the right way to monetize something if it's possible. From their early rejection of paid search placement that was not rejected by the clueless at AOL (AOL actually tried it thus lowering revenues) to their clear vision that Google is a search company (something that Yahoo lost along the way), the guys consistently get it right. It's not that they were correct on every single product, but they are smart and figure this stuff out very early on. This book is a homage to the brilliance of the Google founders. The Google guys correctly have high regard for engineering and engineers and much lower "tolerance" for most other professionals. Google puts money into engineering and shuns advertising which is why their company leads the pack. While not an advice book, any company can lead in their field if they only applied some of the principles and thought processes of the Google Guys.

This is one of the volumes in the "Inside [Someone's] Brain" series published by Portfolio, a division of the Penguin Group. Although each volume has a different author, the primary objective of all of them seems to be the same: To explain the multiple of mindsets that prominent business thinkers such Peter Drucker, Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch, Barack Obama, and in this instance, Larry Page and Sergey Brin possess. The reader is also provided with substantial biographical information as well as selections from their published works (if any) and correspondence as well as comments by those who know them best. If and when possible, there are also interviews during which important insights are frequently revealed.

The title of my review refers to observations that Richard Brandt shares on Pages 175 and 176 when discussing Google's supernetwork and its significance (and potential vulnerability) as a competitive advantage. "Anyone who uses an application from Google is tapping into this incredible store of computing power. This is the main reason Google's competitors have such a hard time matching the company's capabilities. And it allows Google to enter any business that Larry, Sergey, or their ambitious team of computer scientists find interesting...Google is changing the rules of business, from news delivery to PC computing to books to watching video...And business that deals in the collection and dissemination of information is in danger of having its infrastructure collapse its feet like Wile E. Coyote standing on an overhanging cliff. Larry and Sergey move like roadrunners, charging ahead with their visionary plans, saying nothing about where they're headed, or why. There's a good reason for that. They often don't know where they're going until they get there."

Brandt probably had about as much access as could be obtained to Page and Brin, to their past and current Google associates, and to the shared journey that Page and Brin took from when they first met at Stanford until Brandt provided the manuscript of this book to his publisher.

These are among the questions I was most eager to have answered...and Brandt does so while carefully examining (no small feat) the interdependence that continues to guide and inform, indeed drive the collaborative efforts of Page and Brin.

1. What do they share in common? How are they significantly different?
2. How and why have they worked so effectively together for so many years?
3. What do their respective family backgrounds reveal about their values?
4. What were their expectations when Google was launched in December of 1998?
5. How has it since then become a media giant?
6. When and why was Eric Schmidt hired to become Google's CEO?
7. What is his division of authority and responsibility with Page and Brin?
8. To what extent (if any) have Page and Brin changed in terms of their ambitions for Google?
9. What are the most serious challenges that Google now faces?
10. How will it probably respond to them?

While working my way through Brandt's lively and eloquent narrative, I highlighted more than one hundred brief passages and now provide a representative selection that, hopefully, will suggest the thrust and flavor of his thinking and writing.

"It seems today that it was always inevitable that Larry and Sergey would turn their search engine into a company. But that was not the case. `Larry has a million ideas,' says his early partner Craig Silverstein. `If he didn't make a company out of this, he'd be happy to make it out of something else later. If they had found someone who took their work seriously, and wanted to own it and offered the right price, they would have sold. We didn't find that so we said, `OK, we'll do it ourselves.' In 1998, they began looking for investors to get them started." (Page 48)

"Computer scientists and engineers are infected with the desire to do something incredible, the disease propagated by Larry and Sergey. Sergey has emphasized this fact, noting that it's especially important as the stock retreats. `This is where you want to be sure you are hiring employees because they love to work here, they love to create things, and they're not here primarily for the money,' he says. `Although when they do create something valuable, you want to reward them. That's when these things really pay off.'" (Pages 55-56)

"It is now extraordinarily difficult for any competitor to catch up to the infrastructure and deign of Google's advertising system. Google had too much of a head start and never stops refining and advancing its system. The system was obviously doing something right and filling an unmet need; Google has captured the overwhelming share of all revenue on the Internet, and regulators and competitors are warning that it has become an Internet advertising monopoly." Page 105)

"Larry and Sergey see their task as nothing less than creating a new Hellenistic Age. `We did not think necessarily we could make money' off Book Search, says Sergey. `We just feel this is part of the core mission. There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site.'" (Page 167)

"Everyone likes to speculate, but there's no telling where Larry and Sergey will take their company next. There's one thing that's certain: they are going to be breaking rules, pissing people off, and trying to make the world a better place for decades to come. Love them or despise them, everyone must contend with them. They are having greater impacts on the business world and on people's lifestyles than any other business executives in the world. Their hearts are in the right place, even if their heads are sometimes not." (Page 227)

Of all the volumes in the "Inside [Someone's] Brain" series, I think this one provides more and better information about its subject than do any of the others. Not only does Richard Brandt explore (to the extent anyone can) the two minds that have created what Google has become thus far; in addition, he has examined the global as well as historical context within which that process of creation occurred. Bravo!

Richard Brandt's use of vignettes drawing parallels to the Great Library of Alexandria created by Ptolemy I is a nice device for humanizing the scope and desires of much of what's afoot at Google, "the de facto head librarian of the world's information." Don't be put off by the "brain" construct of the title. This book is well written, well organized and is grounded in serious and intelligent reporting about what Sergey Brin and Larry Page actually do, not any sort of imagining of what they must be thinking. This book leaps past the wealth factor and the gourmet kitchens to offer a fascinating run-down of how Google is using massive, massive scale to change the world.

This book gives a good insight in the kitchen of Google. That's nice, but halfway the book irritation starts to grow. The Google slogan "do no evil" is used by the author as "see no evil, hear no evil, write no evil". Everything Google does is for our own good according to the author, without questioning anything. This book is written by a Google fan, not by a journalist. Keep that in mind when reading the book.

I like this book because it humanizes the heroes of this drama without getting too deep in the drama. The books gives a lot of detail about how Larry and Sergey created their pet project and how it came to rule our lives, it doesn't gloss over complaints, but doesn't delve too deeply in the soap opera elements of unhappy former employees, etc.

This book talks a lot about the business strategy and the future of the Internet, search and the potential impact on our lives, noting that experts say search is less than 5% solved. It adds that the linked connection to create a better search engineer that Larry and Sergey designed wasn't unique and they would have created some kind of business regardless.

The book goes through a lot of they key players and key events not only in the lives of the Google twins, but also in the evolution of what is becoming a key element in the lives of most humans on the planet -- the evolving Internet.

I like the detail and next to What Would Google Do, this is my favorite Google book. Good stuff.

First, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Google technology, Google culture and all things Google. But this book clearly doesn't deliver on its title. It's like an essay written by a teenager -- promotes a single simple message (L&S are different), mentions a random collection of facts loosely related to that idea, but doesn't deliver any real substance. Granted, I know more about Google than an average user, so I was looking for more in-depth analysis of their personalities or Google culture. If you know absolutely nothing about the company, then I guess it could be an OK first read. But with the pace of modern technology this book will become obsolete in a year or two (if it still isn't) because it doesn't contain any universal timeless value in it.

Publisher's Weekly:
"In this must-read for anyone who deals seriously with cyberspace, Brandt has a remarkable profile in present-day innovation and potential."
[...]

Library Journal:
"...this book delves into the psyches of Page and Brin and describes their transformation from shy and socially awkward computer geeks to skilled business and technology leaders. ... will appeal to a large readership as the public's interest in Google and its future is broad and growing."
[...]

Elise Ackerman, SJ Mercury News:
"...chockfull of new insights about one of the world's most thoroughly scrutinized companies. It illustrates the value that thorough, straightforward, extensive shoe-leather reporting can bring to a even the most over-exposed subject. ... "Gracefully written" ... Readers interested in acquiring a deeper understanding of Google's world would be hard-pressed to find a more knowledgeable guide."
[..]

Clint Boulton, Google Watch:
"'Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain' is the first book on Google that I've read since Randall Stross' "Planet Google" last year. The two books are similar and I recommend both to anyone who wants to get a grip on what Google is all about, from its college-like corporate culture, to its philanthropic activities, to its pioneering search service, to applications, etc.
[...]

Traffick:
",,,a compelling read. ... dogged, traditional research, and a judicious way of selecting the important parts of the past ten years of Google history, provides an original insight into what makes Google tick."
[...]