A way of life

On our recent trip we listened to the book The Google Story, by David A. Vise. I highly recommend this book as a fascinating way to learn about a product that, for most of us, has become a part of our way of life. Some highlights that I remember are:

-Both of the founders (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) parents were University professors and they grew up with the latest technology in their homes
-The name Google comes from the word "googolplex" which refers to a very large number, but it's shortened version googol was already taken as a web name so they used Google instead.
-Brin and Page are revolutionaries in the way they run their business, got financing, went public, and create new ideas
-For the first many years of operating their business, Brin and Page had no idea how they were going to make money
-The sponsored links that come up on the right hand side of Google searches and Gmail are really ads that, when you click on them and buy things, are how Google makes money.
-The sponsored links are targeted ads that correspond to whatever word you are searching. The advertisers are not given a prime spot on the sponsored links list just for paying more money, but the ads higher up on the list are those that, over time, receive the most clicks.
-Since Google came about when other .coms were crashing, they were able to capture really talented engineers who were just happy to have a job in the technology field. They are all now probably millionaires.
-Google runs its search engine using basic PC computers- thousands of them- all wired and networked together to do the searching job.
-They have something called 20% time at Google where for one day a week (or one month a year) the engineers are given time to just work on projects that interest them in the hopes of turning it into a new google service. One of these projects spurred the creation of Google news.
-Google hired a full time chef (the former chef of the Grateful Dead) to work in their facility. He created much of the culture that exists there today.
-The Googleplex (the name they use to call their facility) is like a home away from home- they have day care, a masseuse, dry cleaning, a grocery store, and health services on the campus.
-Gmail was very controversial when it was first created (and tension still exists) as people were outraged that Google could have a computer scan their personal messages and use key words to target the sponsored links on the side.
-The Google guys have been sued a lot over using other people's ideas and making them actually work in the online arena

I still need to listen to the last CD, but really enjoyed learning about the history of the greatest search engine around.

The Google guys went into the business to provide the best search engine around, at a time when no one thought search was any big deal. At the time, Yahoo and MSN portals to the web were the big thing, while the Google guys focused exclusively on search. However, now Google has grown to include email, maps, news, shopping, blogger, images and basically become its own portal to the web. But I wonder- is Google getting too big to stay on top of everything? Will the search engine, the thing they set out to do initially, suffer? Will their expanding services just turn them into a Yahoo or MSN copycat? Can Google be number one at everything? I guess time will tell, but for now they are still at the top of my list for offering an excellent product.