Saturday 25 October 2014

How Google Works - Book Review

[As seen here].

Below is my review of the book: How Google Works, by Erich Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg.

An easy 5 and a great read! This is an excellent book on so many levels. If you've been dazzled by Google's success in the Silicon Valley era, and wanted to figure out "how the hell did they manage to do it?!" Then this is the book for you. And who better can tell the story than the guys who helped make it happen -- [Eric Schmidt, former CEO and current Executive Chairman] and [Jonathan Rosenberg, former SVP of Products and a current advisor to Larry Page]?

In this book, they share their experience and spell out how any company/start-up can follow Google's example and become what Google became. The book is more about business and management, setting strategy, and acting in an age where disruption is and will be taking over almost every incumbent technology, and most importantly, talks about how to hire and keep the best people out there [which Google calls "smart creatives"]. It explains all of this and much more in a very enjoyable, humorous way. Providing many inside stories from Google, and also from the authors' past experience at other companies. They weren't even afraid or ashamed to admit and talk about some "failures"; be it in some of Google products [read Wave, Buzz, ..], or some perceptions or decisions they had made, which added more authenticity to this book.

A definite must-read for future and aspiring leaders, humorous, straight to the point, page-turning [I intend to read 20 pages and finish a chapter or 2 without even noticing it!], never wanted it to end, and when it did I just thought "hell, I need to read more of it!". Highly recommended! :)

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