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“Bob Sanchez is a consummate writer.”
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Book Reviews
A readable and well-told tale filled with color, sensitivity, humor and plenty of research.
—Midwest Book Review
Get out the tinfoil hats
GOOGLE SPEAKS:
Secrets of the World’s Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs,
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
By Janet Lowe
315 pp. Wiley $19.99
Reviewed by Adam Wilson
Who doesn’t love Google...well, I suppose people who work for Microsoft probably aren’t huge fans. But besides them? Well...maybe the folks at AltaVista or Yahoo or any of the other search engines. And possibly also anyone who thinks that Google is too big for its own good and is trying to take over the world one Street View image at a time. But I’m sure everyone else loves Google, right?
Janet Lowe, a veteran author of business books, has given us a look at the way Google got started and the way it has expanded to become the behemoth it is today. Any biography of a really large company runs the risk of sounding as if it were written by the company’s PR department or by the PR department of their biggest competitor, but I think Lowe did an excellent job of keeping everything neutral and unbiased.
This book is logically organized, from Google’s inception—including bios of Brin and Page, who turned a university research project into the colossus Google is now—up to the present day. Google is a fascinating place, and this book gives what I imagine to be a first-rate report on what the company is like, what the founders represent, and what it is like to work there.
This is the second book I have read about Google recently. The first one, What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis, is totally different, though. That book examined Google’s success and tried to apply it to other industries. It assumes you at least have a basic knowledge of how Google works, which I think is a fair assumption. Janet Lowe, however, explains the background of the company—both good and bad. And while the basic biographical information is good to know, I thought the more interesting portion of the book was near the end, when she discusses the company’s influence on society.
Google certainly has a lot of fans...and a lot of detractors. The main complaint against Google is the privacy factor. In order for Google to search and find the topics you are looking for, or target ads toward what you need, or get me from my house to somewhere I’ve never been before, it has to gather information. A ton of information. If you are using a Google product, or even visiting a webpage where Google’s AdSense program is running, you are being tracked. Now this is where concern arises. Some people don’t like being tracked that way—they really fear that Google has evil ulterior motives and will eventually try to take over the world. Personally, I think that fear is silly, and would rather look at the awesome amount of progress we have been able to make almost entirely because of Google. What do you think?
Another aspect of the book I thought was particularly well done was the section on Google’s “other” pursuits. It spends a lot of time and money trying to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Its managers are especially interested in finding cheaper energy alternatives, though this is not all philanthropic, since Google’s server farms use an awful lot of electricity. Google has researchers working on solar, wind, geothermal, and other potential energy creating methods.
If you have any interest at all in Google as a company, I would highly recommend this clearly written, unbiased book. The sections are relatively short, which makes reading easy. That said, if you think Google’s satellites are zooming in on your house right now, I would advise that you move to the basement, make a hat out of tinfoil, and unplug all of your Internet connections. Or—you can go through with this option, as reported on by The Onion:
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
Adam Wilson lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife and three dogs. He writes the "greatest non-fiction book reviews...ever" at www.lettersonpages.com.
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