The Google Story | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Vise, Mark Malseed
Creator: Adam Grupper
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Sales Rank: 655025
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 5
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.1 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0739321617
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.761025040973
EAN: 9780739321614
ASIN: 0739321617
Publication Date: November 15, 2005
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Amazon.com
Social phenomena happen, and the historians follow. So it goes with Google, the latest star shooting through the universe of trend-setting businesses. This company has even entered our popular lexicon: as many note, "Google" has moved beyond noun to verb, becoming an action which most tech-savvy citizens at the turn of the twenty-first century recognize and in fact do, on a daily basis. It's this wide societal impact that fascinated authors David Vise and Mark Malseed, who came to the book with well-established reputations in investigative reporting. Vise authored the bestselling The Bureau and the Mole, and Malseed contributed significantly to two Bob Woodward books, Bush at War and Plan of Attack. The kind of voluminous research and behind-the-scenes insight in which both writers specialize, and on which their earlier books rested, comes through in The Google Story. The strength of the book comes from its command of many small details, and its focus on the human side of the Google story, as opposed to the merely academic one. Some may prefer a dryer, more analytic approach to Google's impact on the Internet, like The Search or books that tilt more heavily towards bits and bytes on the spectrum between technology and business, like The Singularity is Near. Those wanting to understand the motivations and personal growth of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt, however, will enjoy this book. Vise and Malseed interviewed over 150 people, including numerous Google employees, Wall Street analysts, Stanford professors, venture capitalists, even Larry Page's Cub Scout leader, and their comprehensiveness shows. As the narrative unfolds, readers learn how Google grew out of the intellectually fertile and not particularly directed friendship between Page and Brin; how the founders attempted to peddle early versions of their search technology to different Silicon Valley firms for $1 million; how Larry and Sergey celebrated their first investor's check with breakfast at Burger King; how the pair initially housed their company in a Palo Alto office, then eventually moved to a futuristic campus dubbed the "Googleplex"; how the company found its financial footing through keyword-targeted Web ads; how various products like Google News, Froogle, and others were cooked up by an inventive staff; how Brin and Page proved their mettle as tough businessmen through negotiations with AOL Europe and their controversial IPO process, among other instances; and how the company's vision for itself continues to grow, such as geographic expansion to China and cooperation with Craig Venter on the Human Genome Project. Like the company it profiles, The Google Story is a bit of a wild ride, and fun, too. Its first appendix lists 23 "tips" which readers can use to get more utility out of Google. The second contains the intelligence test which Google Research offers to prospective job applicants, and shows the sometimes zany methods of this most unusual business. Through it all, Vise and Malseed synthesize a variety of fascinating anecdotes and speculation about Google, and readers seeking a first draft of the history of the company will enjoy an easy read. --Peter Han
Product Description
"Here is the story behind one of the most remarkable Internet successes of our time. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, the book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company whose name is a favorite brand and a standard verb recognized around the world. Its stock is worth more than General Motors’ and Ford’s combined, its staff eats for free in a dining room that used to be run by the Grateful Dead’s former chef, and its employees traverse the firm’s colorful Silicon Valley campus on scooters and inline skates.
THE GOOGLE STORY is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world’s most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere.
In 1998, 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 search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free.
While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google’s quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database.
Readers will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft’s dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders’ mantra: DO NO EVIL."
From the Hardcover edition.
Download Description
David A. Vise is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post and the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller The Bureau and the Mole. Mark Malseed, who has contributed to the Washington Post and the Boston Herald, has won high praise for his research efforts on Bob Woodward’s recent books, Plan of Attack and Bush at War.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 88 more reviews...
 A company that provides a "Perk" for a good reason! June 22, 2008
David Vise captures the true concepts and ideas of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The reader can not lose their focus with the research, knowledge of the founders purpose within each paragraph or for that matter each chapter. I highly recommended this book to anyone who has the curiosity for business. The mixture of knowlegde the author describes on how each and every employee is cared for creates a vision that the founders wanted from the beginning. The chapter that described the Chef that made "Buttermilk Fried Chicken for Elvis" was very interesting. The book is a must reader for anyone...
 Skip the book, just use Google May 28, 2008
The Google Story is not written well at all. It is a poorly written ad for Google, Standford, and a couple other people. All you get from the book is that you should do your doctoral studies at Stanford since they are all about capital gain there, and are willing to pay for your patents.
The Google guys were not normal in the slightest. They raised $900,000 from family and friends in a matter of months. Normal people couldn't get money like that in a lifetime.
Persuading the venture capitalists to let them maintain power is rather interesting though. I will give them an credit for that.
The book just has a bunch of random, vague events that anyone could find on Google is they searched. Wikipedia probably has a better description of Google than David Vise.
Don't waste your time with this book. Get online and read about Google if you want to learn more about them.
 The Traditional Media Empire Strikes Back---The Sequel May 12, 2008
This is a compelling narrative detailing how the company grew from the brainchild of several Ph.D. students to a powerful if unconventional business in the Internet advertising and e-commerce marketplace. But recent studies released by comScore and Nielsen that raised questions about the effectiveness of AdWords/AdSense have fueled skepticism about whether the Google AdWords/AdSense model will remain marketers' advertising tool of choice going forward (Reviewers' note: the company is also the owner of online display advertising platform DoubleClick).
Great book, though still a draft May 7, 2008
I think this book is great, I have to say I devoured it which means that it keeps a great flow.
However, I think it lacked some unanswered questions, seems a bit pro-Google, and it lacked a final chapter. In short, it needs a strong editorial review which would have send the authors back to the drawing board to polish some details.
1.- One constant question: How did Google managed to cope with the computer power on a constant growing demand (they broadly speak about a computing law) - this is critical to Google being fast.
2.- When it speaks about the Google Earth it fails to mention how did Google manage to get those pictures from NASA.
3.- When it talks about News Google it fails to speak about the lawsuit that was lost in Belgium where Google had to take down many newspapers and allegedly banned Le Soir and other publishers from the searchengine.
4.- There are many parties who claim that Google has destroyed their business by banning them without a reasonable explanation (include reference to Google Watch). It should include Game words such when "Bill Gates" showed strange results. Though si fair to say that the chapter Trick Click does cover the core critic to its ad revenue.
6.- More importantly, the last chapter talks about DNA (and other stuff). They should have decided either to split this chapter and add a conclusion. Is just frustrating as a reader not to know what should one expect from Google in the future: will Google become Evil through Cloud Computing and other long crawling spiders? What should it await Google?
These authoritative writers should be able to wonder in such answers.
7.- Finally, -yes - unfortunately updating is needed in such as fast changing world. Is justified, because of the popularity of this book. So do add a note to the European Parliament's report on Google, Cloud Computing and its venture in the mobile world (or maybe write a second book Google II?).
Enjoy reading this book,
Sergio
A very good overview of an important company April 5, 2008
The Google Story by David A. Vise is a clear and straightforward look at the history of this fabled company. It is written for the lay person, not just techies or business types. Anyone can, and should, enjoy it and be fascinated at this unusual company and its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
The story is told chronologically beginning with Sergey and Larry's academic careers as undergraduates at the Universities of Maryland and Michigan respectively. Both, of course, are bright and end up as graduate students at Stanford during the height of the dot com boom. In this regard, the book provides an interesting insight into Stanford and the connection between the university and the surrounding business community. The "Google Guys" as Vise keeps referring to them, try at first to sell their nascent search engine for $1 million with the intention of remaining in graduate school. Fortunately (as it turns out) there were no takers and the two young men reluctantly decide to leave Stanford and start their own company. Vise consistently refers to their business naivety, inherent goodness and iconoclastic approach to business. For example, the name "Google" itself is a misrepresentation of the word for an infinite number (googol).
As the story progresses exciting things happen, both good (mostly) and bad. Vise gives an even-handed presentation. The good outweighs the bad, but that is the reality with Google, one of the most phenomenally successful companies in American history. The good includes the ability of the Google Guys to convince two of the leading venture capital firms (Kleiner, Perkins and Sequoia Capital) to invest heavily in their firm without having to give up control, the incredible success of the IPO despite an unorthodox approach, development of an advanced system for sending and organizing emails (gmail) and the continuing development of new ideas such as digitalizing all the major library collections and plans for expansion into the fields of biology and genetics.
Vise may, however, be faulted for, in my view, glossing over the problems Google faced along the way. For example he discusses the fact that gmail constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy in that it reads email messages in order to put relevant advertisements in the sponsored links section, but then nothing more is said about this subject. He also writes that Google acknowledged that it violated its own code of ethics (do no evil) in order to gain entry into the lucrative Chinese market by allowing the Chinese government to censor its content. More tellingly, in the chapter entitled "The China Syndrome" Vise examines the competition between Microsoft and Google. He indicates that Microsoft set out to counter the Google challenge as it had so many other challenges in the past. He even quotes Microsoft CEO Steve Ball Ballmer as saying, "I'm going to f...ing kill Google." The chance comes up when a key Microsoft employee, Dr. Kai-fu Lee, decides to leave the company and work for Google as the new head of its China operations despite the fact that his contract with Microsoft contained a one year "no compete" clause. Microsoft, even Bill Gates personally, told Dr. Lee that they would sue him in order to get at Google. Despite this warning Dr. Lee did leave and went to work for Google in China. Microsoft then filed a lawsuit against Google in what Vise calls a "war." Vise then indicates that a "preliminary ruling by a judge in the state of Washington barred Lee from engaging in work that involved search or Google's plans for China, giving Microsoft a temporary victory pending a full trial in January." But at this point Vise changes gears and begins writing about a birthday party at Google to celebrate the first year of the IPO. When he does come back to the Lee case some pages later all he says is that Microsoft and Google "reached a settlement in the Kai-fu Lee case and indicated that the settlement terms were not disclosed but that Dr. Lee was now free to work for Google. Thus what started out as a potentially major issue just fizzles away.
Perhaps because of the relative shortness of the book (less than 300 pages of text), Vise was forced to leave out details on many matters. In any case, the book falls far short of being a definitive, in-depth study of the company. Finally, he also raises the issue of "click fraud," (people just clicking on an advertisement without the intention of buying anything thereby incurring a cost to the company, but does not provide much in the way of what Google is doing about it.
The book also gives insights into personal and business success if the reader is familiar with that literature. For example, Brin and Page are highly focused (Focal Point by Brian Tracy) they use a win/win strategy with a competitor, Ask Jeeves (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey), they have a burning desire for creating the best search engine (Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill) and their focus is on achieving goals, constant improvement and staying positive (The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma).
The appendices to the book are also useful. The first gives a number of valuable tips on how to make maximum use of Google. The second, a copy of the so-called GLAT test that is administered to potential new employees is a dud, first of all because it is difficult to get the answers (I could not get them from the website indicated in the book), and secondly when I did get them they proved to be disappointing--either impossibly hard or lacking any answer other than personal judgment.
In sum, the book is well worth reading. I give it a five star rating because it is a very good way for the average person to learn about this important company.
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