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)

Interesting

Any additional comments?

The book provides interesting insights into a company that is otherwise very secretive about it's inner ongoings. I would be interested in knowing the other side of some of the stories in the book, though. Especially of some of the quarrels between the author and Marissa Mayer.

A must read for anyone in the IT industry

It takes you into the other side of a story we may have experienced as customers of this incredible company... is inspiring and interesting all along...

nice compliment to "In The Plex"

Several times, Doug's writing cause a laugh to spurt from my mouth. You get a sense of the talents he brought to Google as he employs them in describing his experience as their first brand manager.

Halfway through the book I had to check who the narrator was - he was doing such a good job of inhabiting the text. And lo, it was Douglas himself! May you have more adventures to tell us about.

If you're looking for a thorough review of what went into the technical accomplishments, look into Plex.

Entertaining

The author is funny and a great storyteller. I wonder if writing this was a way to get a chip off his shoulder. I enjoyed all of it.

Interesting Insights

If you could sum up I'm Feeling Lucky in three words, what would they be?

Insightful, long, interesting

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More character development/descriptives

Which character – as performed by Douglas Edwards – was your favorite?

Serge

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The author's persistence to forge forward when faced with moving targets and negative feedback.

Any additional comments?

An epilogue that listed "where they are now" for employees #3-60 would have been interesting.

Great listen and insight into startup

Any additional comments?

Well written and comes across very genuine. No pretence. Great storytelling.

Highly Amusing

This is not just your yaddah yaddah tell all. I came away tremendously impressed by Google, Douglas Edwards, the Founders and a truly amazing cast of characters making their way in a world of opportunity on a rather bizzare silicon valley playing field. I admit that that I only understand some of technical issues a little better. Nevertheless, if, like me, you have used Google's growing arsenal of tools since its infancy, you will find this a particularly interesting history lesson, even though some of it is going to be over your head too.

Entertaining

An entertaining, well written personal story of the career-choice of a lifetime. Highlights include the AOL-negotiations and the behind-the-curtain look at the googlers on the annual ski-trip. Edwards doesn't drop any huge bombs or surprises, except how blatantly he describes his sour relationship with Marissa Mayer who cannot be very pleased reading this book.

Good Inside Story

Very entertaining book. To hear first hand about what it was like at Google in the early days was insightful and fun.

This is not a 'comprehensive' biography of the company. This book is more of a personal memoir. The author keeps the book fairly linear but does jump around a bit to follow a continuous thought based on an event or project within Google.

Overall this was an enjoyable listen and now I want to move on to Steve Levy's "In the Plex".

A fascinating account of the inside of Google

Did you ever wonder what it’s like to work at Google? Now you can find out. Well, that’s only part true. Edwards was Google employee number 59 and worked there from 1999 till 2005. We should perhaps instead have asked: Did you ever wonder what it was like to be Douglas Edwards while he worked at Google?

We listened to the Audible unabridged version of this book (at double speed — it’s addictive), and found it to be an appealing account of a work-place totally dominated by engineers — or should we say nerds?

Edwards sets the scene by recounting an episode from 2002 where he basically asks Page for a confirmation that, although Page and Brin had been right most of the time, Edwards’ expertise had also been important to the company. Page answers dryly: “When have we not been right?” And such is Edwards’ depiction of the nerd couple being Larry Page and Sergei Brin. They sincerely believe that they are right, that what they are doing is right and that anyone who believes otherwise is simply misguided.

Edwards ends up being misguided a lot of the time. And he is honest about it in his book. After all, his background in marketing is of the traditional type. He came from an executive position in marketing at the newspaper of the Valley, turned down an offer with Yahoo!, only to end up working with a future CEO of Yahoo!: Marissa Meyers just got hired at Yahoo!, but used to work alongside Edwards as a UI expert and later in the product management group reporting directly to Larry Page. It’s safe to say that Meyers and Edwards didn’t get along so well.

The book is largely anecdotal. Hear about the firing of middle-managers in a public staff meeting; Vice-President Al Gore spending his abundance of spare time wandering the corridors of the Google HQ and Eric Schmidt entering the scene during the long-lasting process of “we should probably get ourselves a CEO”.

Edwards asked Eric Schmidt, after a particularly exhilarating argument with Page and Brin in which Schmidt backed Edwards, if he didn’t think Page and Brin were a handful sometimes. Schmidt supposedly answered:

“I’m well compensated. Now, excuse me while I walk around the building a few times.”

September 11 affected the people at Google in much the same way that it affected anyone else. One early response was “Is Google alive?” meaning, are the people at the Manhattan office OK? Yet, the account of decisions made in the surge for information following the attack is memorable.

Edwards took compromises in a lot of places in order to spend time at Google. We say he was motivated by his eagerness to be a part of something bigger. When that feeling went away, he left Google in March 2005. He felt lucky, and he probably was.