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Product Details
Simon & Schuster, April 2011
Hardcover, 432 pages
ISBN-10: 1416596585
ISBN-13: 9781416596585
Description
Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters—the Googleplex—to show how Google works. While they were still students at Stanford, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow (until Google’s IPO nobody other than Google management had any idea how lucrative the company’s ad business was), Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more. The key to Google’s success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After its unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers—free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses—and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire. But has Google lost its innovative edge? It stumbled badly in China—Levy discloses what went wrong and how Brin disagreed with his peers on the China strategy—and now with its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete? No other book has ever turned Google inside out as Levy does with In the Plex.
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"Levy is America’s premier technology journalist. . . . He has produced the most interesting book ever written about Google. He makes the biggest intellectual challenges of computer science seem endlessly fun and fascinating. . . . We can expect many more books about Google. But few will deliver the lively, idea-based journalism of In the Plex.”
-- Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Washington Post
"Almost nothing can stop a remarkable idea executed well at the right time, as Steven Levy's brisk-but-detailed history of Google, In the Plex, convincingly proves. . . . makes obsolete previous books on the company."
-- Jack Shafer, The San Francisco Chronicle
"The rise of Google is an engrossing story, and nobody's ever related it in such depth."
-- Hiawatha Bray, The Boston Globe
"Dense, driven examination of the pioneering search engine that changed the face of the Internet.
Thoroughly versed in technology reporting, Wired senior writer Levy deliberates at great length about online behemoth Google and creatively documents the company’s genesis from a 'feisty start-up to a market-dominating giant.' The author capably describes Google’s founders, Stanford grads Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as sharp, user-focused and steadfastly intent on 'organizing all the world’s information.' Levy traces how Google’s intricately developed, intrepid beginnings and gradual ascent over a competitive marketplace birthed an advertising-fueled 'money machine' (especially following its IPO in 2004), and he follows the expansion and operation of the company’s liberal work campus ('Googleplex') and its distinctively selective hiring process (Page still signs off on every new hire). The author was afforded an opportunity to observe the company’s operations, development, culture and advertising model from within the infrastructure for two years with full managerial cooperation. From there, he performed hundreds of interviews with past and current employees and discovered the type of 'creative disorganization' that can either make or break a business. Though clearly in awe of Google’s crowning significance, Levy evenhandedly notes the company’s more glaring deficiencies, like the 2004 cyber-attack that forced the removal of the search engine from mainland China, a decision vehemently unsupported by co-founder Brin. Though the author offers plenty of well-known information, it’s his catbird-seat vantage point that really gets to the good stuff.
Outstanding reportage delivered in the upbeat, informative fashion for which Levy is well known."
Thoroughly versed in technology reporting, Wired senior writer Levy deliberates at great length about online behemoth Google and creatively documents the company’s genesis from a 'feisty start-up to a market-dominating giant.' The author capably describes Google’s founders, Stanford grads Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as sharp, user-focused and steadfastly intent on 'organizing all the world’s information.' Levy traces how Google’s intricately developed, intrepid beginnings and gradual ascent over a competitive marketplace birthed an advertising-fueled 'money machine' (especially following its IPO in 2004), and he follows the expansion and operation of the company’s liberal work campus ('Googleplex') and its distinctively selective hiring process (Page still signs off on every new hire). The author was afforded an opportunity to observe the company’s operations, development, culture and advertising model from within the infrastructure for two years with full managerial cooperation. From there, he performed hundreds of interviews with past and current employees and discovered the type of 'creative disorganization' that can either make or break a business. Though clearly in awe of Google’s crowning significance, Levy evenhandedly notes the company’s more glaring deficiencies, like the 2004 cyber-attack that forced the removal of the search engine from mainland China, a decision vehemently unsupported by co-founder Brin. Though the author offers plenty of well-known information, it’s his catbird-seat vantage point that really gets to the good stuff.
Outstanding reportage delivered in the upbeat, informative fashion for which Levy is well known."
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"An instructive primer on how the minds behind the world's most influential internet company function."
-- Richard Waters, The Wall Street Journal
"[Steven Levy] spent much of the past three years playing anthropologist at one of the Internet's most interesting villages and set of inhabitants -- the Googleplex and the tribue of Googlers who inhabit it. . . . A deep dive into Google's culture, history and technology."
-- Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News
"The wizards of Silicon Valley often hype their hardware/software breakthroughs as 'magical' for the products' ability to pull off dazzling stunts in the blink of an eye. And true to the magicians' code, these tech talents rarely let mere mortals peer behind the curtains. . . . That's what makes Levy's just-out tome so valuable."
-- Jonathan Takiff, The Philadelphia Daily News
"The most comprehensive, intelligent and readable analysis of Google to date. Levy is particularly good on how those behind Google think and work. . . . What's more, his lucid introductions to Google's core technologies - the search engine and the company's data centres - are written in non-geek English and are rich with anecdotes and analysis. . . . In The Plex teems with original insight into Google's most controversial affairs."
-- Andrew Keen, New Scientist
"Steven Levy's new account [of Google], In the Plex, is the most authoritative to date and in many ways the most entertaining."
-- James Gleick, The New York Review of Books
Yahoo! News, April 16, 2011
...Jobs they wanted him to be Google’s CEO in 1999, according to a new book about Google, In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy ...
Huffington Post, April 15, 2011
...just one facet of the companies' opposition. But Google and Apple used to be far cozier, according to Steven Levy's new book, In the Plex . Steve Jobs once had an especially intimate relationship with Google's co-founders Larry Page and ...
TechEye, April 15, 2011
...not understand why anyone would want so much storage space on Gmail . In his new book about Google , "In The Plex", Steven Levy talks about Bill Gates ' reaction to Gmail six months after the service launched. According to the ...
EFYTimes.com, April 15, 2011
...A new book by Steven Levy titled 'In the Plex', which is based on research inside the Google campus for two years, reveals that Apple CEO Jobs hid the iPad development from Google CEO Schmidt ...
Techland, April 14, 2011
...turned Google accounts into a virtual file system, let users use the e-mail account as file storage. Writer Steven Levy documents the Gates' reaction in his new book, In The Plex, which tells the story of how Google came to be. It shows the ...
Huffington Post, April 14, 2011
...the most unexpected times--a problem Google had to face developing a spam-free search engine. In his new book In The Plex , author Steven Levy describes the method Google used to rid itself of early porn spammers. Though engineer Matt Cutts ...
Chevy Chase Patch, April 14, 2011
...You can kick off the festival at 7:30 p.m. on Friday by attending a discussion by Steven Levy, a senior writer for Wired magazine, about his new book "In the Plex," in which he explores all things Google — how it thinks, how it works and ...
Media Post, April 14, 2011
...MOST READ 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Matt Cutts reviews a book by Steven Levy called "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives." Cutts gives the book a thumbs up when it comes to providing insight on "how Google ...
World News Network, April 13, 2011
...Google Buzz's development, launch, and "scar" are discussed in Steven Levy's new book, In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, And Shapes Our Lives. In his description of the product's origins, Levy explains that Google Buzz's original ...
World News Network, April 13, 2011
...of space Gmail provides. Bill Gates, at least initially, didn't see the need. In his new book In The Plex, Steven Levy details Bill Gates' reaction to Gmail six months after the service first launched. Levy recalls telling Gates how even ...
Mac Daily News, April 13, 2011
...Apple Online Store • iPhone 4: From $199. Free shipping. • 13-inch MacBook: From $999. Free shipping. • 11-inch MacBook Air: The best of iPad meets the best of Mac. From $999. Free shipping. • 13-inch MacBook Air: The next generation ...
World News Network, April 13, 2011
...By Jonathan Takiff Philadelphia Daily News Daily News Columnist THE GIZMO: Digging "In the Plex," Steven Levy's new book on "How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives" (Simon & Schuster, $26). MAGIC MAKERS: The wizards of Silicon Valley ...
NBC Bay Area, April 12, 2011
...company's rise to Silicon Valley elite details the relationship between Google's founders and the Apple CEO. "In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives," tells the story of Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and ...
TechEye, April 12, 2011
...he has been betrayed by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. According to a new book, Steven Levy's 'In the Plex', the pair wanted to hire Steve Jobs to be their CEO. Jobs was working for Apple, which in those days was much bigger than ...
Times of India, April 11, 2011
...fell out with Apple's Steve Jobs and what happened in the search engine's exit from China. 'In the Plex' was written by Steven Levy, a technology reporter who says his latest work is "informed by a two-year deep dive into the company," ...
Topnews.in, April 10, 2011
...fell out with Apple''s Steve Jobs and what happened in the search engine''s exit from China. ''In the Plex'' was written by Steven Levy, a technology reporter who says his latest work is “informed by a two-year deep dive into the ...
Tech.Spreadit.org, April 10, 2011
...week is supposed to be so hot that it may tear the roof of the secret Google empire. “In The Plex” is a book authored by one Steven Levy who is a tech reporter who states he?d done two years of research into Google. The book supposedly ...
Slashdot, April 9, 2011
...A Reader notes, Steven Levy's latest book, 'In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,' lifts the lid on the secretive world of Google, revealing how the founders fell out ...
Newsvine, April 9, 2011
...fell out with Apple's Steve Jobs and what happened in the search engine's exit from China. 'In the Plex' was written by Steven Levy, a technology reporter who says his latest work is 'informed by a two-year deep dive into the company ...
Defamer Australia, April 5, 2011
...about tech CEOs? A new book reveals Schmidt tried, and failed, to scrub his own Google results. From In the Plex by Steven Levy: One day Denise Griffin got a call from Eric Schmidt?s assistant. ?There?s this information about Eric in the ...
Switched, April 4, 2011
...FILED UNDER: politics, web, google, In his new book, 'In the Plex,' tech journalist Steven Levy traces the history of Google and exposes some juicy details about the company along the way. The New York Times recently reviewed an advanced ...
TechEye, April 4, 2011
...donation he made to be removed from the internet giant's search engine. According to a new book, In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives by technology journalist Steven Levy, Schmidt's request was rejected as ...
Sydney Morning Herald, April 1, 2011
...s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday. The Times said Schmidt's request is recounted in In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives, a book by technology journalist Steven Levy which is to appear in US stores on ...
AFP via Yahoo!, April 1, 2011
...s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday. The Times said Schmidt's request is recounted in "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives," a book by technology journalist Steven Levy which is to appear in stores on ...
TheInquirer.net, April 1, 2011
...fighting its impact. The New York Times has seen an advance copy of a book by technology journalist Steven Levy, who was apparently treated to an extensive tour of Google's offices and lent an ear to its internal discussions. In the book, ...
Telegraph, April 1, 2011
...about the challenge from Facebook, according to an author who has just spent three years inside the firm. Steven Levy, a veteran technology journalist, was granted access to Google's Silicon Valley headquarters to write his forthcoming book ...
World News Network, March 31, 2011
...just four years later was inevitable because operations there were troubled from the start. Josephine Schiele/Wired The author Steven Levy. Add to Portfolio Google Inc Go to your Portfolio » That is the conclusion of Steven Levy, a longtime ...
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