Google Speaks: Secrets of the World's Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page

In many ways, Google is the prototype of a successful twenty-first-century company. It uses technology in new ways to make information universally accessible; promotes a corporate culture that encourages creativity among its employees; and takes its role as a corporate citizen very seriously, investing in green initiatives and developing the largest corporate foundation in the United States. Following in the footsteps of Warren Buffett Speaks and Jack Welch Speaks?which contain a conversational style that successfully captures the essence of these business leaders?Google Speaks reveals the amazing story behind one of the most important new companies of our time by exploring the people and philosophies that have made it a global phenomenon in less than fifteen years. Written by bestselling author Janet Lowe, this book offers an engaging look at how Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, transformed their vision of a better Internet search engine into a business colossus with about $16 billion in annual revenue. Lowe discusses the values that drive Brin and Page?for example, how they both live fairly modest lives, despite each having a net worth in excess of $15.9 billion?and details how they have created a culture that fosters fun while, at the same time, keeping Google at the forefront of technology through relentless R&D investments and imaginative partnerships with organizations such as NASA. In addition to examining Google's breakthrough business strategies and new business models?which have transformed online advertising and changed the way we look at corporate responsibility and employee relations?Lowe explains why Google may be a harbinger of where corporate America is headed. She also addresses controversies surrounding Google, such as copyright infringement, antitrust concerns, and personal privacy and poses the question almost every successful company must face: as Google grows, can it hold on to its entrepreneurial spirit as well as its informal motto, "Don't do evil"? What started out as a university research project conducted by Sergey Brin and Larry Page has ended up revolutionizing the world we live in. Google Speaks puts these incredible entrepreneurs in perspective and shows you how their drive and determination have allowed them to create one of today's most powerful companies.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 The Google Guys 13 Sergey Brin 13 Russian Roots 13 American Passage 14 Educating Sergey 15 The Road to Stanford 15 Boy Genius to Adult Genius 16 Wedding on a Caribbean Sand Bar 17 23andMe 18 Flying High 20 Larry Page 21 Cradled in a Computer Culture 22 Nikola Tesla, Page’s Hero 23 Tesla’s Story 24 The Tesla Car 25 Motivated by Montessori 26 The Leadership Program 27 The Solar Racer 28 Go West, Larry 28 Lego-centricity 29 Mensa Boy 30 Larry Gets Married 30 The X-Prize 31 No More Laundry 32 The Power of Partnership 33 Forging the Stanford Connection 35 A Creative Environment 35 A Poignant History 37 An Academic or an Entrepreneur? 39 A Grim Goodbye 39 Networking at Its Best 40 Burning Man 42 Adult Supervision 44 The Collective Wisdom of Silicon Valley 45 He’s Been the Rock; They’ve Been the Rockets 46 A Man of Influence 47 Climbing a Different Kind of Mountain 50 In The Beginning 51 The Ultimate Search Engine 55 Not Inventing, but Improving Upon 57 Look Around You for Inspiration 59 How Search Works 60 Platform Power 63 Open Platform 66 Google By Any Other Name 68 A Blessed Blunder 68 From Noun to Verb 69 Playing with the Name 70 The Google Logo 71 The Google Doodle 72 Google Zeitgeist 74 A Company is Born 78 Yahoo! Drew the Map 79 The Requisite Garage 81 The Venture Capitalists 83 The Elusive Business Plan 86 Investing in Wild Ideas 88 Good Ideas Put to Good Use 91 Dealing with Dark Matter 91 Aversion to Advertising 93 Advertising that Delivers Results 95 Two Ways to Advertise: AdWords and AdSense 96 Extending the Google Reach 100 The Science of Advertising 101 Google Didn’t Advertise Itself—at First 101 Birth of the Google Economy 104 Going Public 106 “We’re Different” 109 The Dutch Auction 111 Buffett on Google 113 Berkshire Hathaway’s Share Structure versus Google’s 114 The Playboy Interview 116 Ten Years Later 118 The Vision 123 Make It Useful 125 The Many Ways to Google 127 Make It Big 132 We Serve the World 133 Make It Fun 135 Google Users Hearken to the Call 138 Don’t Do Evil 139 How Google Defines Evil 140 The Motto Loses Some Shine 143 Can Free Speech Go Too Far? 144 Make It Free 146 Google Culture 148 New Management Style 149 Ten Things Google Has Found to Be True 153 Riding the Long Tail 156 20 Percent Projects 157 Perpetual Beta 159 Fabled Workplace 160 An Alternative Point of View 163 Googleplex 164 Google in Ireland 168 Top Ten Reasons to Work at Google 169 The Battle for Brainpower 171 Guarding the Secrets 177 Google Grows Up 180 Conflicts and Controversy 181 Click Fraud 182 Avoiding—or Not Avoiding—Pornography 184 Privacy Issue 188 Advertising Products 190 Gmail 192 Street View 193 Can They Snoop—and Will They Tell? 197 Hello, Human Rights 200 The Great Chinese Firewall 201 Principles of Freedom 203 Copyright Infringement 205 The Authors’ Revolt 205 Grand Ambitions 206 The Snippet Defense 208 Whose Property Is It, Anyway? 209 All About Advertising 209 The Game-Changing Settlement 210 Lawsuits Everywhere 212 Google Gets an Airplane 218 Google Gets a Satellite 220 Good Citizen Google 223 Google.org—the Philanthropic Part 225 Google and the Environment 227 Renewable Energy Less than Coal 229 Geothermal Power 230 Energy from the Sea 230 Energy-Efficient Googleplex 231 Google’s Future 233 Artificial Intelligence 238 Onward to Web 3.0 241 Cloud Computing 243 YouTube 248 The Google Phone 250 White Spaces 254 The Dominant Power in the Industry? 259 Google, Microsoft, and the Internet Civil War 264 The Battle of Yahoo! 267 Gates on Google 271 Conclusion 273 Lessons from Larry and Sergey 278 The Traits of Those Who Change the World 279 Timeline 281 Glossary 288 Notes 295 Permissions 315

About the Author :
JANET LOWE is the author of the bestselling Warren Buffett Speaks, Jack Welch Speaks, and Bill Gates Speaks, all from Wiley. Her articles have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.