The Google Story: For Google's 10th Birthday

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Does this let you search or just read a story

Worth the read

Good insight into the making and workings of one of the most important companies around.

The Abridged Search Story

In scanning the bookshelves for biographies I came across this short little novel on the founders of Google. As a historian, one has to immediately dismiss the fact that this is an uncompleted story. Yet at the speed in which companies in this era (and individuals) go from nadir to apex and back again Google's story is probably almost over!

In any case, Vise provides us with very little into the background of the two protagonists, Brin & Page. We get a glimpse through the keyhole of their parents background (of which that they were professors is repeated ad nauseam) a fly by of their childhoods and then a rapid decent into their years of graduate school at Stanford.

Here Vise slows the pace enough to go into a bit more detail into the interactions and daily lives. This is enough to enable the reader to gain a flimsy understanding of how and why they started Google. Vise also does enough to provide detail into how Google went from start-up to getting venture capital (VC) funding as well as a good level of how those relationships developed from and up to the point when the third musketeer is brought in, namely Eric Schmidt. Schmidt's background and personality are also covered to no real depth which leads to the main issue with the book.

Vise does not develop his characters. It would have been great to have a higher level of input from those that had direct interaction with the pair (or trio) whether it was prior co-workers, colleagues, or other peer students. Or even individuals that may have had somewhat indirect contact but yet involved in the field such as Jerry Yang, Steve Case, Andy Grove..etc.

While a light read & with some good detail into the culture (e.g.: Burning man) one should wait for either the autobiography or a more thorough investigation into the account of the head Googlers.

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