There are a lot of books in market about Google, but most of them focus on its core feature, that’s search!
There is lot more to Google than just search. David A. Vise’s **The Google
Story **focuses on Google as a company, with deep insights into its work culture. What
is it that scientists are leaving universities, NASA, Bell labs, Microsoft and elsewhere for Google, which till recently used to have setting that resembles a grad school campus.
With this book you go through the entire journey of how Larry and Sergey, two Stanford Phd students started Google from the university campus building ‘William Gates Computer Science’
building (funded by Bill Gates) at Stanford university, to taking Microsoft head on in 2005 by hiring their senior executive Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. It gives your trivia like how employees are fed like family, with healthy juices and snacks in abundance. Conveniences like onsite laundry, hair styling, dental and medical care, a car wash and day care, fitness facilities with personal trainers, professional masseuse are available to all. Beach volleyball, foosball (not football!), roller hockey, scooter races, palm trees, bean bag chairs are some of the other incentives of working Google.
The book delves into the life of Larry page and Sergey Brin (the founders of Google!), their families and their academic orientation towards data mining from the beginning.
While Sergey is skilled at establishing relationships and handling transaction of all kinds, Larry is quieter and more contemplative. Sergey it turns out is quite a good deal maker, and Page is adept at finding ways to cut
costs. With Eric Schimdt as CEO, at Google it’s the trio of Larry, Brin and Eric at the helm of affairs.