Author: David Vise with Mark Malseed
I purchased this book for a mere Rs 100/- in Aundh, Pune. I (like many others) always wanted to know the story of Google's success and how Google actually makes money, while providing everyone online with free services, namely its search engine.
The author has given insights into many interesting events and aspects relating to Google and the Google Guys (founders of Google).
Amongst the first ones is - the Google Guys, right from their college days, pursued excellence. This is how they began to build the world's best search engine. And they never bothered about starting a company or how to make profits, from the search engine. The only thing mattered was to build the 'Search Engine' which would cater to all needs, even if it meant 'downloading the entire internet'. This reminds me of the Hindi movie '3 Idiots', where Aamir Khan's character tries to explain to his fellow mates that while studying (or work) everyone should go for excellence and success will follow. For some, this would be a far-fetched idea. But this is what the Google Guys have done and shown a pragmatic example to the world to see.
Among other things that I admired in the book, is how the Google Guys raised start-up money from friends and investors, but continued to pursue excellence. They never let anyone pressurize them and came up with great way to monetize Google and also retain their holding.
Another very interesting event discussed in the book is the Google work culture. The most I liked was the hiring of a full time chef 'Charlie Syers', whose job was to provide great food for the employees of Google. Hence the employees never had to worry about such things, but would only concentrate on their work. With the kind of culture Google created, such as, focus on innovation, providing food, to university like environment, Google must be the dream company to work with.
Frequently, from my own personal experience, I have found that the company's work culture affects the productivity of the employees. And maintaining a good and conducive work culture goes in benefiting the company in the long run.
Some interesting events penned down are how the Google's IPO, deals and competition with Yahoo, Microsoft, problem in China and several objections, litigation, etc were handled. Also new ideas such as digitizing entire books, genetics research, etc are in progress. It really takes courage to go through these things.
Finally, I found few Indian names mentioned in the book and their important contributions. Not just in Google, but the service that they have provided to the world via Google is laudable. (Google News is created by Krishna Bharat.)
Overall a great book to read and has definitely become one of my favorite books.
I purchased this book for a mere Rs 100/- in Aundh, Pune. I (like many others) always wanted to know the story of Google's success and how Google actually makes money, while providing everyone online with free services, namely its search engine.
The author has given insights into many interesting events and aspects relating to Google and the Google Guys (founders of Google).
Amongst the first ones is - the Google Guys, right from their college days, pursued excellence. This is how they began to build the world's best search engine. And they never bothered about starting a company or how to make profits, from the search engine. The only thing mattered was to build the 'Search Engine' which would cater to all needs, even if it meant 'downloading the entire internet'. This reminds me of the Hindi movie '3 Idiots', where Aamir Khan's character tries to explain to his fellow mates that while studying (or work) everyone should go for excellence and success will follow. For some, this would be a far-fetched idea. But this is what the Google Guys have done and shown a pragmatic example to the world to see.
Among other things that I admired in the book, is how the Google Guys raised start-up money from friends and investors, but continued to pursue excellence. They never let anyone pressurize them and came up with great way to monetize Google and also retain their holding.
Another very interesting event discussed in the book is the Google work culture. The most I liked was the hiring of a full time chef 'Charlie Syers', whose job was to provide great food for the employees of Google. Hence the employees never had to worry about such things, but would only concentrate on their work. With the kind of culture Google created, such as, focus on innovation, providing food, to university like environment, Google must be the dream company to work with.
Frequently, from my own personal experience, I have found that the company's work culture affects the productivity of the employees. And maintaining a good and conducive work culture goes in benefiting the company in the long run.
Some interesting events penned down are how the Google's IPO, deals and competition with Yahoo, Microsoft, problem in China and several objections, litigation, etc were handled. Also new ideas such as digitizing entire books, genetics research, etc are in progress. It really takes courage to go through these things.
Finally, I found few Indian names mentioned in the book and their important contributions. Not just in Google, but the service that they have provided to the world via Google is laudable. (Google News is created by Krishna Bharat.)
Overall a great book to read and has definitely become one of my favorite books.
