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The Google Story

I have just finished reading a fantastic book on Google called The Google Story. I didn’t think for a minute that what I would be reading would open up my thinking on business so much. It is true to say that Google are one of the biggest DotCom super companies on the stock exchange today and how they (Sergey and Larry) got Google there is just phenomenal.

The first part of the book really talks about Google’s early days on the internet when it was just a PhD project for Sergey and Larry, before it became the super search that it is today. What was interesting at this point was how Sergey and Larry where so confident that their search engine could revolutionise the internet and how big ‘portal’ companies like Yahoo and MSN where concentrating on being a portal and not internet search. I think this played a major factor in bringing Google to where is it today, without these competitors completely writing off search technology in Google’s early days when it wouldn’t have been able to compete if Yahoo and MSN had tried, allowed Google to grow fast but not at a pace which wasn’t possible.

The second key factor to Google’s search monopoly is its concentration on innovation. A theme which is consistent throughout the book and if I am honest every paper, article and story I read on a technology super company has the same theme, innovation, innovation, innovation. It is without doubt what is keeping Google ahead of the game now. The competition in the search engine market is fierce, now that Google have shown they can make millions from it (also covered in The Google Story) and what keeps Google ahead of their competitors is innovation. Innovation from some of the best mathematicians and computers scientists on the planet, which is another interesting chapter in The Google Story; recruitment.

The book in itself talks about many aspects of Google’s business in the early days through to now. What is fantastic about the book is allot of the key principles that got Google where they are now can be drawn out from this book and played into another company. Of course you need a relatively open market and a revolutionary product as well, but there have been plenty of those that have failed due to lack of leadership. What The Google Story does is shine some insight into how Sergey and Larry became leaders to take their product to the world.