The Google Story Revealed

I'm almost done reading one of the best books I've seen in far too long: The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. It reveals the inside scoop on the hottest business, media and technology success of our time.

I'm fascinated by Google. I love their tool and use it, probably like you, every day. I've been longing to read a book explaining how this company got started. I could only imagine the wizards behind it.

Well, what I imagined isn't anywhere near as good as the truth.

The story is about two guys with a mission to change the world. Their prime directive seems to be "Challenge the impossible." (That's similiar to my own "Dare Something Worthy.")

And their motto is "Don't be evil."

Side note: Hypnotherapists and NLP language masters like to claim that your subconscious mind doesn't respond to negatives, which would mean the motto "Don't Be Evil" actually is telling you to be evil. I've never agreed with that theory. Google's motto proves that your mind most certainly knows a negative when it sees one. Google is not evil. See my article on this aspect of hidden communication at http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/do-not-read-this.html )

Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page focused on creating an index of the planet, not on making money. (That's a clue to how to make money.) As a result of their passion and wisdom, they attracted people willing to invest in them, even before there was an actual company to invest in. Andy Bechtolsheim wrote them a check for $100,000 -- without a contract, agreement, or even a handshake. He saw the value of their search engine idea and wanted to support it.

And the founders are today billionaires.

The story gets juicer. Google used word of mouth advertising to get attention. They wanted to focus on building something so valuable to people that people would spread the word about it. (There's another clue to how to attract money.) They fueled this campaign with requests to "tell a friend" and so forth. And this was when Google had 5 employees and "only" 1,000,000 people a day were using it.

The Google Story is packed with great insights and stories. It's a quick and easy read. Includes photos, too. I found the material about Google making ads relevant to searches to be enlightening. As long as the ads were relevant, people welcomed them.

I also liked hearing about Googleplex, and how people enjoy their work there, are fun loving, and are fed well by a cook who makes his food with love.

If you're at all interested in passion, money, and the story behind the story, get and read The Google Story.

Remember - "Don't be evil."

Ao Akua,

joe
www.mrfire.com

PS - The section revealing 23 Google Search Tips was worth the price of the book.