EBOOK
About
Douglas Edwards wasn't an engineer or a twentysomething fresh out of school when he received a job offer from a small but growing search engine company at the tail end of the 1990s. But founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed staff to develop the brand identity of their brainchild, and Edwards fit the bill with his journalistic background at the San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper of Silicon Valley.
It was a change of pace for Edwards, to say the least, and put him in a unique position to interact with and observe the staff as Google began its rocket ride to the top. In entertaining, self-deprecating style, he tells his story of participating in this moment of business and technology history, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes the idiosyncratic Page and Brin, the evolution of the famously nonhierarchical structure in which every employee finds a problem to tackle and works independently, the races to develop and implement each new feature, and the many ideas that never came to pass.
It was a change of pace for Edwards, to say the least, and put him in a unique position to interact with and observe the staff as Google began its rocket ride to the top. In entertaining, self-deprecating style, he tells his story of participating in this moment of business and technology history, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes the idiosyncratic Page and Brin, the evolution of the famously nonhierarchical structure in which every employee finds a problem to tackle and works independently, the races to develop and implement each new feature, and the many ideas that never came to pass.
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Reviews
"Affectionate, compulsively readable.... This lively, thoughtful business memoir is more entertaining than it really has any right to be, and should be required reading for startup aficionados."
Publishers Weekly
"[A] highly entertaining new memoir ... I'm Feeling Lucky is at its best, and most hilarious, in its account of the company's earliest days."
Bloomberg News
"Edwards does an excellent job of telling his story with a fun, outsider-insider voice. The writing is sharp and takes full advantage of the fact that Edwards was in a unique position to gauge Google's strengths and weaknesses, coming as he did from an 'old-media' background ... Part of what makes the book so rewarding is Edwards's endlessly nuanced take on his former company and its employees."
The Boston Globe