RATING-3.5/5
THE GOOD:- A biography with a plot
THE BAD:-Hasn't really entwined corporate aspects with technical aspects of the company.
The book that i am going to review today most probably involves the way you found me here. It may also involve your email service, or your browser itself. Anyhow, love it or hate it, it involves something which has become an integral part of the world, on and off the web.
Its a company whose name is an official verb in Oxford, its a company that does no evil, its a company that helped form several of the worlds youngest self made billionaires.
Yes, the company is Google, and here is my review of David Vise's "The Google Story".
This book shows us the rise of Google, from an idea in a doctoral students head to such an empire as we now know it.
It is not one however, for techno-history teachers or computer students, as a way of researching Google's history. I mean, a history book usually has,you know all this history. History books don't usually have plots, do they?
There is really hardly any computer jargon in this. While this could be a plus point for those non-nerdy guys,it becomes more of a motivational book, telling adolescents to use their creativity to the max, and push boundaries of their imagination. It tells us how Larry Page and Sergey Brin did this and make it is one of the most pervasive things in our daily life, even though it was born as recently as 1998. It also gives us a relatively detailed account of the founders' endeavors on Wall Street.
However, it explains to the reader very superficially how and why the founders' innovative algorithms and methods helped Google to reach such a paramount level.
Now the fact is, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are a different kind of entrepreneurial pair. They focus more on the technological aspects of each thing the company was doing and the products it rolls out, and deferrs most of the biz work to the CEO, Eric Schmidt. So while Google as a company, remains a money machine, it was founded, is based upon, and grows through technical innovations. A major portion of this book, as I said previously, focuses on the corporate world, talking about markets and lawsuits, and only initially does the book talk about technical aspects.
And another thing: in my opinion, when one talks about the rise of a company, or for that matter, biographs anything, he doesn't usually use vulgarity. I mean, the author stating that Microsoft lacked sex appeal, not really a biography term. And quoting Steve Ballmer when he said " I'm going to fucking kill Google"...not expected in these kind of books, ya know? I mean he could have at least put "#%@*" instead of "fuck". In essence, it became a PG-13 book because of these 2 words.
But one thing that is highly commendable is this is not an advertisement of Google, at least not directly. As in a Bollywood movie, we see the hero(Google) have many ups and downs and at one time on the verge of failure. But it gets up, dusts off, and starts again.
So, I agree in part with the Baltimore Sun when it says that "if its plot you want...[The Google Story] is the best offering so far. " And that's what really made this book a hit. I found most if it interesting too, but i had to skim over a few paragraphs here and there.
In short, if you want to research Google's history, google it. :) don't make this your text.
But if you just want a glimpse of how this empire rose, and you are not really a history-phile, then, yes, the way a plot seems to be defined in this, with the google guys as the heroes and Microsoft as the villain, with Yahoo! as an on-off friend, is definitely commendable.
I rate it 3.5/5.
And as for the title of this post, just in case you don't know, 1 with a hundred zeros behind it is one googol, which was misspelled and became the company we know and trust.
And free healthy lunch is offered at the Googleplex, the HQ's of Google.(and googolplex=1 with a googol zeros behind it, go figure)
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