I'm Feeling Lucky

The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

By: Douglas Edwards

Narrated by: Douglas Edwards

Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. No academic analysis or bystander's account can capture it. Now Doug Edwards, Employee Number 59, offers the first inside view of Google, giving listeners a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company.

Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. We see the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's young, idiosyncratic partners; the evolution of the company's famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently); the development of brand identity; the races to develop and implement each new feature; and the many ideas that never came to pass. Above all, Edwards - a former journalist who knows how to write - captures the Google Experience, the rollercoaster ride of being part of a company creating itself in a whole new universe.

I'm Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, yet profoundly important culture of the world's most transformative corporation.

©2011 Douglas Edwards (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This lively, thoughtful business memoir is more entertaining than it really has any right to be, and should be required reading for startup aficionados." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Douglas Edwards is indeed lucky, sort of an accidental millionaire, a reluctant bystander in a sea of computer geniuses who changed the world. This is a rare look at what happened inside the building of the most important company of our time." (Seth Godin)

"Douglas Edwards recounts Google's stumble and rise with verve and humor and a generosity of spirit. He kept me turning the pages of this engrossing tale." (Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It)

“With a warm, approachable tone and perfect pacing, Edwards narrates his detailed account of his experiences as an early employee of Google, Inc….Edwards seems a natural as he provides a highly listenable audio performance….the listener walks away with a better understanding of how true organizational creativity and brilliant technical engineering can impact the human condition and world culture.” ( AudioFile)

I Loved this book... enough said

This story of one of the original googlers moves along, and has several interesting turns.

Incredible insight into Google from the inside

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I have already recommended this book to every entrepreneur that I know. Incredible 3rd person insight into the operation and startup of the most influential company on the 21st Century.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Inspired by his dedication to his family, his job, and how he was able to help the creators of Google fulfill their vision.

Any additional comments?

If you are an entrepreneur or starting up a company then this is a must read for you.

Google raise from a non techie perspective

Interesting passages from the inside of a growing technology big one. Gives you a feeling of some things that have been done differently in Google: rely on its own technical excellence, rather than on well known marketing recipes that apply almost everywhere.

Helped me understand my engineer husband!

I enjoyed this book and loved all the inside tidbits about engineer behavior (seeing the world in black and white, having to fix something to make it better even if it's not broken, etc.)
I liked Douglas' emphasis on certain words and sentences, and hearing it straight from him made it even better.
I have always loved Google and enjoy using its services even more now that I feel like I've been behind the scenes at such a crazy, fun company.

Good Narrative, Horrible Performance

Good, interesting first-hand insight on the inner-workings and struggles of Google in their early years. However, the author/narrator's cadence and affectations are unbearable. He adds SO... MUCH... EMPHASIS... and so many pauses... in nearly EVERY... sentence... that I had to LISTEN... at 1.25X speed... JUST to make sure... I finished the book. I would've enjoyed it a lot more reading it for myself.

Definitely worth a credit

This follows the author from his hire when Google was a startup until the IPO. It's a parallel story of Google the company and his personal odyssey from being a key player at the beginning to slowly becoming marginalized, and finally shown the door.
Recounting successes and failures, it's fascinating to hear the accounts of when AOL and Yahoo! were the big fish, and Google had to swim carefully to keep from upsetting them.
It's also a fascinating account of being in a company when it's an infant and there are no walls, and watching the company become a corporation. Anyone who's been in an organization during a growth phase has been in the situation where it goes from being this wide open playing field and you can talk to the "big boys and girls" anytime you wish, to watching walls spring up, things start to divide, and finding yourself boxed on the wrong side of the wall. The previously friendly faces are replaced by new people that make power plays to take your authority and slide you into the outer circle until the day you sit across from some person you don't know, being informed you no longer have a place at the company where you were once a key player.
I don't know how much you'll learn about business from this book, except that the founders of Google believed strongly in certain things. They pushed hard for their beliefs, but as much as they tried, Google eventually became another corporate entity. It was still different in a lot of ways, and they challenged a lot of traditional business thinking.
There's more there, I think, than the author intended.

A great read!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Compelling insight, honesty and self-awareness in this storytelling. Excellent composition.

What was one of the most memorable moments of I'm Feeling Lucky?

"When were we ever wrong? Not often, but not often is not never."

"Smart people, motivated to make things better, can do almost anything."

Any additional comments?

Thank you for this book! As an engineer myself, I am hoping it will help me to be able to better explain to my husband (a non-engineer) how an engineer's brain works and why it is so hard to not be a perfectionist all the time.... It has already helped me to better understand how foreign an engineer's thinking can be to someone with a non-engineer's mindset - by seeing this directly through Mr. Edward's eyes. A true eye opener in this regard!

A great story which is well read

Where does I'm Feeling Lucky rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This was my first audiobook and, unfortunately for subsequent books, sets a pretty high standard. The story is engaging, there's an inevitability to the outcome (no I don't mean Google getting big) but the story unwinds at a good pace. You don't really need to know anything about Google to enjoy this book - it possibly helps if you know very little.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Doug is obviously the main character but Marissa Mayer comes across in a very interesting light - no spoilers here but you do get a great insight into her personality

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, this is one to enjoy over a period of time.

Really interesting

Where does I'm Feeling Lucky rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Average. There are so many good books.

What other book might you compare I'm Feeling Lucky to and why?

I just read the biografy on the man who invented the Mine Craft game. That is the closest to this one.

Any additional comments?

I'm Feeling Lucky is a very good title.

It was hard to stop listening.

A fascinating look into Google, done in an honest and fair way. I don't "talk tech" so there were things that I didn't exactly understand but that never took away from the story. It's easy to see why Google is so popular!