I'm Feeling Lucky

The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

By: Douglas Edwards

Narrated by: Douglas Edwards

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)

It Started Out OK, But It Lost Me

I think I may have been expecting a little too much from a book about one of the most exciting and interesting companies to ever come around.

It started out OK as we heard about how Google sprouted from an acorn, but about a quarter of the way through I lost interest as the minutia in the details was too much.

Google fanatics will probably enjoy it. I preferred to use my other audibe.com credits and move on. Perhaps I gave up too soon and will one day revisit.

Great Insight.

Great book from someone who got in on not quite the ground floor of Google, maybe the 1st floor! It shows the passion of the founders and their bucking of traditional marketing ideas to make one of the most powerful tech companies on the planet.

Great book

I wish it was more linear in time, the flip-flopping in time caused me some issues completely understanding the order of the events.

Really enjoyed this book

It was interesting to read an insider talk about Google. Yes he lef a while ago but it wasmeant to be his personal story and he conveyed it with sincerity, fairness and even humor.

A Balanced Insight Into the Early Days at Google

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

A true insider's view of the genesis point for Google. Doug was close enough to the action to observe and comment but not too close that it affected his objectivity or at least the appearance of objectivity.

What about Douglas Edwards’s performance did you like?

Clearly his background as a journalist came through in this book. You could see the effort to present a balanced perspective on any of the issues, even when it cast him in a dimmer light. He has an easy to listen to style.

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

Yes, once you understood the characters and Google's evolution accelerates, it was hard to put down!

Entertaing and incitefull read

Entertaing and incitefull read from a person who worked inside google during it's startup period through it's major growth period.

Never heared this side of Google before

This book is a great (audio)book after you've finished the biography of Steve Jobs. It gives the same kind of inside view of one of the most succesful tech companies.

I never thought Google was such a mess at times. After listening about how employees had to work such long days to install new servers in all the time and reading their mail at 2:00 AM, you'd almost get tired of listening about all those 4-hour nights of sleep.

This book certainly shows a different side of being in a booming startup like Google in the early 2000's.

Very interesting story

Written from the perspective of a mid-level manager, it gives a complementary view to the Google story.

Interesting Insight into Google

I think Google is an interesting company. This was a good look into the company by an early employee.

Engaging insider perspective of Google.

What did you love best about I'm Feeling Lucky?

Plenty of detail regarding the the day-to-day operations at Google.

What did you like best about this story?

It covered the the internal corporate tension that is not typically revealed to the public.

What does Douglas Edwards bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He was there from the start; he was authentically Google-ly, and humble enough all the same -- could pick this up in his narration.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

"A talented, non-Engineer at Google claws and scrapes, in an effort to be noticed and respected among a sea of top-tier CS Majors." --- OK, obviously I won't be making a career writing tag lines...

Any additional comments?

A bit better than "In the Plex".