The Google Story

Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time

By: David A. Vise, Mark Malseed

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Here is the story behind one of the most remarkable Internet successes of our time. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, the book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company whose name is a favorite brand and a standard verb recognized around the world. Its stock is worth more than General Motors' and Ford's combined, its staff eats for free in a dining room run by the Grateful Dead's former chef, and its employees traverse the firm's colorful Silicon Valley campus on scooters and inline skates.

The Google Story is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world's most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere.

In 1998, Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, "change the world" through a search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free.

While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google's quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database. Listeners will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; and the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft's dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders' mantra: DO NO EVIL.

©2005 David A. Vise (P)2005 Random House, Inc.

How Google came to be

Posting this review, since there are so few.
I hadn't read anything before about how google was formed and worked, and hadn't followed the news during the its IPO. This audiobook was recommended on a podcast, and it is based on is one of the two presently on Google's history. I liked this book, it's a quick and easy listen. I enjoyed being put back in the late nighties when Web Portals were believed to be the future, HotBot and AltaVista ruled, and search was believed to be a fixed problem, with results based on frequency and paid spots. I chose the abridged version because of cost and I preferred the voice sample of this narrator over the unabridged version, and I have not regretted it.

This book may be interview quotes and anecdotes already available elsewhere, and is not for webmasters, but rather for people who want to get quickly up-to-speed with what's behind the web phenomenon. It is similar in tone to an in-depth magazine article.

It is true that the author sometimes refers to the founders with their first names ("Sergey and Larry", and at other times their last names ("Brin and Page"), which can be a little confusing. The book moves swiftly and is hard to put down. It takes about 4h to go from Stanford University to the messy IPO process. The narrator is clear, solid, and never distracts from the material.

googling

This was a quick listen to learn how the google phenomenon occured, and to get some insight into the minds of the two guys that started the business. What was most interesting was to get a better understanding of the impact Google wants to make on mankind. Really big thinking here, and it goes way beyond using search to find the lowest price for an mp3 player.

I'd be embarrassed

This should have been a fascinating story. It was instead an incredibly sophomoric, starry-eyed, seemingly unedited ramble.

I am fascinated by Google, but this awful book, written at the gifted 3rd grade level, makes me think a whole lot less of the company and its founders. Such a shame. I'd love to have my time and money back.

Outdated book

I made the mistake not to see the date of this book and it is outdated by 7 years. In 2005 it should had been interesting.