The Google Story

With some free time, I have spent more time to read up the biography of several top internet companies. Treading across the various biographies in the bookstore, I have decided to check out the history of Google. After all, everyone in the world is reliant on Google to find the answers of their daily queries. With the company's expansion towards online enterprise tools (Google Docs/Spreadsheets/Presentation),  innovative new APIs (OpenSocial, GWT and Android) and  fun applications like Google Earth, the company is now touted one of the most innovative companies in the world. The book "The Google Story" by David A Vise and Mark Malseed provides a good description of the company who rocked the world with their search engine a decade back. Interestingly, I was one of the few early adopters of the Google search engine, when it was first launched as a Stanford project. Since my first use, I totally gave up my favourite search engine then, Altavista and never turned back. I found a few interesting lessons that I learn from Google with regards to management and venture funding.

• Even the biggest companies can make mistakes and you should never give up even they turn you down: Believe it or not, when the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page approached to license their technology to all the major search engines in that time, no one wanted to buy it. Check out the Google stock price today and you realize that even the best companies of that time can make such mistakes. Yahoo! has the chance of acquiring Google at US$1M and they just missed it. However, that also spells one thing foI r entrepreneurs. If you believe in your own product like the Google founders, you should go ahead and pursue your passions. Sometimes, being rejected does not mean that your ideas are bad, but you have to persevere till the end.
• Don't give in so quickly to the venture capitalists: In the book, the authors described the tale how the Google founders have to play both sides in order to attract investment. They were pursued by two of the biggest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley (who have the habit of wanting only exclusive rights of investment: Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. The founders were prepared to walk off the deal by assembling another way of funding Google at that point of time. It finally made both venture capital firms work together and do a joint investment of US$25M, with the condition that both founders hire an experienced guy to be their CEO.
• Hire a more experienced person to join your team, but get him to put a stake: Of course, the founders took a long time to pick their CEO, who turns out to be Eric Schmidt. In fact, they did something that very few companies would do. They made the person who come in to be the CEO to invest a million into their company, so that they are sure that the person believed in what they do. One interesting point that is highlighted by the authors is that the founders of Google was impressed by the fact that Eric Schmidt (during his days in Sun) took on Microsoft and lost the battle. They felt that it was that experience of defeat in Eric Schmidt might be able to help them to tackle against the giant in time to come. Indeed it is now happening, with Google taking on Microsoft in a big way (NY Times). Sometimes, we need to put faith in people who are defeated because they would know how to win the next battle with the lessons learnt.

I found this book very easy to read and it brought out a lot of what made Google to be one of the top innovation companies in the world. Actually, the most enjoyable part is the Google Labs Aptitude Test (GLAT), where I get to sample some of the fun problems posed by Google for recruitment. Well, at least, it is fun to solve some puzzles along the way. The other thing which I liked about this book is that the authors have made a note on sources and the actual financial data of Google over the years. It gave a much complete picture of how the most powerful search engine company in the world (or should I say, online advertising company) has emerged to be one of the giants in Silicon Valley.

Comments

[Roy Sutanto]

Hey..I'm currently reading this book too. I am so impressed by the Google Culture.. Celebrate IPO by eating ice cream. Haha...what the new creative way for celebration. From the book description, I can feel that Googleplex is the best working environment in planet earth. Free healthy meal etc.

I am amazed by this billionaire dollar company. I'm thinking how am I going to be a Billionaire like them. Can this happen to me? hehe..:)