I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

by Douglas Edwards

Overview

“An exciting story [that] shines light on the inner workings of the fledgling Google and on the personalities of its founders.”—The Daily Beast

In its infancy, Google embraced extremes—endless days fueled by unlimited free food, nonstop data-based debates, and blood-letting hockey games. The company’s fresh-from-grad-school leaders sought more than old notions of success; they wanted to make all the information in the world available to everyone—instantly. Google, like the Big Bang, was a singularity—an explosive release of raw intelligence and unequaled creative energy—and while others have described what Google accomplished, no one has explained how it felt to be a part of it. Until now.

As employee number 59, Douglas Edwards was a key part of Google’s earliest days. Experience the unnerving mix of camaraderie and competition as Larry Page and Sergey Brin create a famously nonhierarchical structure, fight against conventional wisdom, and race to implement myriad new features while coolly burying broken ideas. I’m Feeling Lucky captures the self-created culture of the world’s most transformative corporation and offers unique access to the emotions experienced by those who virtually overnight built one of the world’s best-known brands.

“Edwards does an excellent job of telling his story with a fun, outsider-insider voice. The writing is sharp.”—Boston Globe

“An affectionate, compulsively readable recounting of the early years of Google.”—Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547737393
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	04/03/2012
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	95,158
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

DOUG EDWARDS was the director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google from 1999 to 2005 and was responsible for setting the tone and direction of the company’s communications with its users. Prior to joining Google, Edwards was the online brand group manager for the San Jose Mercury News, where he conceived and led development of the technology news site siliconvalley.com.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction ix

PART I: YOU ARE ONE OF US
1. From Whence I Came 3
2. In the Beginning 15
3. A World without Form 31
4. Marketing without “Marketing” 42
5. Giving Process Its Due 51
6. Real Integrity and Thoughts about God 60
7. A Healthy Appetite for Insecurity 76
8. Cheap Bastards Who Can’t Take a Joke 93
9. Wang Dang Doodle — Good
Enough Is Good Enough 121
10. Rugged Individualists with a Taste for Porn 136

PART II: GOOGLE GROWS AND FINDS ITS VOICE
11. Lift off 155
12. Fun and Names 183
13. Not the Usual Yada Yada 193
14. Googlebombs and Mail Fail 200
15. Managers in Hot Tubs and in Hot Water 214
16. Is New York Alive? 228

PART III: WHERE WE STAND
17. Two Speakers, One Voice 245
18. Mail Enhancement and Speaking in Tongues 255
19. The Sell of a New Machine 265
20. Where We Stand 286
21. Aloha AOL 295
22. We Need Another Billion-Dollar Idea 312
23. Froogle and Friction 326
24. Don’t Let Marketing Drive 335
25. Mistakes Were Made 356

PART IV: CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END?
26. S-1 for the Money 377

Timeline of Google Events 391
Glossary 394
Acknowledgments 399
Index 402

Editorial Reviews

I’m Feeling Lucky  is funny, revealing, and instructive, with an insider’s perspective I hadn’t seen anywhere before. I thought I had followed the Google story closely, but I realized how much I’d missed after reading—and enjoying—this book." —James Fallows, author of Postcards from Tomorrow Square

"Douglas Edwards is indeed lucky, sort of an accidental millionaire, a reluctant bystander in a sea of computer geniuses who changed the world. This is a rare look at what happened inside the building of the most important company of our time."—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

"This is the first Google book told from the inside out. The teller is an ex-employee who joined Google early and who treats readers to vivid inside stories of what life was like before Google became a verb. Douglas Edwards recounts Google's stumble and rise with verve and humor and a generosity of spirit. He kept me turning the pages of this engrossing tale." —Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

From the Publisher

An affectionate, compulsively readable recounting of the early years (1999–2005) of Google from Edwards, its first marketing executive. Accustomed to a traditional corporate environment, Edwards found himself over his head when he came on board at Google, stymied by the hierarchy-free flat company that boasted about 50 employees (working at desks consisting of large wooden doors mounted on metal sawhorses) whose engine was doing 11 million searches a day, barely a blip against Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. The author describes the meteoric rise of a company where all assumptions were challenged, where every problem was viewed as solvable and skirmishes sprang from convictions, not ego, and where an idiosyncratic corporate culture (in-house massages and doctors, bacchanalian parties) reigned from its earliest days. The book's real strength is its evenhandedness; though the author notes the weaknesses of Google 1.0, the occasional mishandling of its own relationships with openness and disclosure, and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin's overweening confidence in their convictions—he also speaks with great warmth and respect about the evolution of a legendary company. This lively, thoughtful business memoir is more entertaining than it really has any right to be, and should be required reading for startup aficionados. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Google's first director of marketing and brand management offers a you-are-there account of Google's birth and boom. Lots of accounts out there, but this one has an insider's advantage. Go for it.

Library Journal

An insider's look at the growth of Google from the perspective of a former employee.

Given Google's current dominance of search, it can be difficult to remember a drastically different Internet landscape. Edwards, the director of consumer marketing and brand management for Google from 1999 to 2005, describes not only the growth of a startup into a publicly traded behemoth but also the development of an iconic brand. The author found that the leadership at Google did not take kindly to traditional marketing strategies (i.e., anything that cost money) and, in fact, wasn't too keen on much of anything traditional at all. This generated an incredible amount of innovation and, at times, a considerable amount of frustration for Edwards. "This book," he writes, "tells how it felt to be subjected to the g-force of a corporate ascent without precedent, to find myself in an environment where the old rules didn't apply and where relying on what I knew to be true almost got me fired." Confidence in good ideas, he writes, could quickly morph into arrogance or bad management, and the author's insider point of view sheds light on the problems the company faced—and still faces—regarding user privacy and copyright issues.Edwards takes a broad view throughout the narrative and addresses Google history and workplace culture as well as marketing. His perspective as an early employee is valuable and unique, but it also occasionally pulls attention from his area of expertise. Given the availability of other books on general Google history (see Steven Levy's In the Plex, among others), the author might have been better off limiting his scope. When he addresses engineering issues, the subject matter is such that tech-savvy readers may find the level of technical detail insufficient, while casual readers may be overwhelmed. Like the company itself, Edwards never takes himself too seriously, and thesomewhatgoofy tone occasionally becomes grating.

Could have used more focus, but the former "voice of Google" provides a detailed, quirky and expansive half-memoir/half-historical record.

Kirkus Reviews