My personal rating 4 out of 5 stars (Amazon system).
It took me about 4 months to read this books with several timeouts, simultaneous reading of another books, and luck of inspirations to finish it. However during the last two chapters I have finally achieved the high level of immersion to feel this book.
The author, Douglas Edwards, a former journalist, who worked in Google from 1999 to 2005 wriiten light, filled with sympathy story about the early days of great technological company. You will not a lot of “hot” insights or success secrets, though it feels very sincere in my perception.
I particularly like the last chapter about post-IPO days and changed of philosophy among many employees. In fact I would like to read more about the transformation of Google from start-up culture to a corporation.
Here the things(facts) I found interesting throughout the book
1 The questions founders of Google used during the interviews : “"I am going to give you 5 minutes. When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know."
2 Everybody knows four P’s, five M’s. Here is the definition of three B’s from Edward – Buckets of Baffling Bullshit :)
3 TGIF – was a weekly Friday meeting, where Nooglers (new Googlers) introduced themselves and the founders shared the important news of the week.
4 Google made recruiting ads to technical keywords like “TLB shootdown” or “lock free synchronization”
5 About design of Google interface “Artur G. Clarke once postulated – any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
6 “Guiding principles for Google brand strategy
-PR and word of mouth work better than ads
-Paid ads work against your brand. Focus on the joy of discovery
-We will grow faster getting current users to search more than by mass marketing
-All our promotions must include a way to measure success
-Product interaction is, and must remain, the primary branding experience
-User retention efforts should center on improving UI and user support
7 Ten things we found to be true – actually, you may find them here
8 “Underpromise and overdeliver. Became as important a mantra to us as Don’t be evil”
9 the definition of SWAGs in planning – “scientific wild-ass guesses” :)
10 in negotiations with AOL about ads “Alan knew how to deal with middle managers trying to score points at the last minute to impress their bosses. Fine, he replied, if you care that much about it, you call Dave Colburn (AOL biggest boss ) and have him call Eric Schmidt… Suddenly the language was no longer an issue “
11 “The founders weren't above bribing senior engineers to attend. Each December, Larry and Sergey "surprised" the staff by handing out a year-end thousand-dollar cash bonus at TGIF…By the end of next year amount of cash needed for the bonuses became unwieldy. Armored cars and shotgun-toting guards were needed to transport and watch over funds until they could be distributed”.
12 About innovations in recruiting “hey had realistic Google ID badges with pictures of real Google engineers on the front and coding challenges on the back to be solved and sent with résumés to our HR department”…” They had a billboard that was simply a mathematical equation followed by ".com." No logo or identification. Those who solved the equation and entered the solution as a web address would get another puzzle and ultimately a Google recruiting page”
13 Orkut story – how start-up mentality fights with established corporation and losses
14 APMM – associate product marketing manager.
15 Google made its IPO in manner "People should feel privileged to buy our stock"
Google has stated in its annual filing for 2004 that every one of its 3,021 employees, "except temporary employees and contractors, are also equity holders, with significant collective employee ownership"
16 About the world
“Why aren't all the signal lights synched to keep traffic flowing at optimum speed? Why, if I punch in my account number when I call customer service, do I have to give it to them again when I get a live person? These are all solvable problems.
Smart people, motivated to make things better, can do almost anything. I feel lucky to have seen firsthand just how true that is “
17 And I have finally learned about M in CPM
“CPM: "Cost per thousand impressions"-a method of paying for online advertising in which advertisers pay a set rate to have their ads displayed a thousand times, regardless of whether anyone actually clicks on them. The M in CPM comes from the Latin word "mille," which means one thousand.”