Google has been backing away from the unofficial motto of “don't do evil” for some time now, but still avoids the level of scrutiny and criticism reserved for rival Microsoft, according to Janet Lowe's profile of the company in Google Speaks: Secrets of the World's Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Written in “a conversational style that successfully captures the essence of these business leaders” that can be initially off-putting, Lowe's analysis is in fact both detailed and balanced in its scope. Google Speaks covers the history of the company from a college project to the introduction of its name into the Oxford English Dictionary, touching on all the major successes, failures, PR scores and public missteps along the way.
Research and Tone
Lowe uses a very casual style, which gave this writer the impression that the book was going to be a shallow, cheer leading fluff piece. However, this impression is not at all accurate. The bibliography alone attests to the amount of research that went into its writing, and the author takes pains to discuss criticisms of the company as well as accolades. Her conversational style in fact makes the book a very easy read that is as engaging as it is thorough. Only in the early chapters, which focus on the early history of Google's ancestor BackRub, gives the reader the false impression that the book is merely a brochure for Google's goodness.
Don't Do Evil
Lowe carefully documents many of Google's high-profile forays into morally gray areas, agreeing that given its reach and technology that many of its decisions land it in uncharted legal waters. Some examples include:
- Being sued by Geico for allowing competitors to bid on its name as a keyword
- Being sued by Viacom for permitting copyright infringements on YouTube
- Trying to claim making scanned copies of copyrighted books available online is no different than what public libraries do
- Censoring search results in China and elsewhere
- Ongoing concerns about how it will use the vast personal data it has accumulated.
On the other hand, the book demonstrates the philosophies that make Google different from, and often better than, other large corporations.
- The initial public offering that shut out Wall Street entirely
- The Playboy interview that became part of the initial SEC filings
- The attempt to provide free internet to all of San Francisco
- The constant push for renewable energy sources
The reader is left with the sense that Google is sincere in its attempts to both do good and make money, and that the size of the company make its successes and failures large enough to shake worlds. Missing is any story of vicious competition along the lines of Microsoft's destruction of Netscape, for Google has kept its competitive edge civil. For example, it prevented Microsoft's from buying its competitior Yahoo! by offering to partner with the other search company instead of getting into a bidding war. By the time regulators nixed the deal, Microsoft was no longer interested in the smaller company. Whether Google's interest in Yahoo! was sincere or a clever way to ruin the company is a judgment Lowe allows her readers to make with the ample evidence she provides.
Innovative Successes and Failures
Google has launched or acquired a stupendous number of services that it typically offers for free. They range from the well-known search functions to the more obscure, like 800-GOOG-411, the company's free and automated local business search. They have launched services to compete with Facebook and Microsoft, ad have acquired companies like Blogger and YouTube, with varying commericial success. Google does not share much information with Wall Street analysts, and so the viability of its many ventures can only be guessed at with circumstantial evidence. The company historically has invited employees to devote a percentage of work time to pet projects, many of which evolve into Google services. However, the Great Recession has caused Google to lay off thousands and discontinue its less popular offerings.
The company's business model derives virtually all of its income from online advertisements placed by other businesses in its search results and throughout its network of affiliates; all of its products and services are directly or indirectly tied into this sole revenue stream. This reliance on the buying of keywords should make the company's layoff unsurprising, but Google Speaks details the innovative ways that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin keep the model fresh and successful.
Company Culture
Google is shown as a marvelous company to work for, with perks that range from free meals and day care to stock options that made many of its early employees into millionaires. However, such perks are a technique to get those employees to spend far more time at the Googleplex (the company's headquarters) or local office than they do at home. Some former employees hint that this is exploitation, but as no subterfuge is suggested it's clear that any exploitation is accepted willingly by the workers.
Although her style is disarming at first, Lowe presents a spotlight of Google that is both easy to read and well-researched. It chronicles how the company's founders have adapted to their tremendous fortune while attempting to keep their brainchild on a success path that doesn't do evil.
Terence P Ward - Terence P Ward has a business writing website, but spends a bit too much time writing press releases, blog posts, and thought leadership ...
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