Googled, Ken Auletta
Googled, Ken Auletta
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Googled
The End of the World as We Know It

Author: Ken Auletta

Narrator: Jim Bond

Unabridged: 13 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/03/2009

Synopsis

In Googled, esteemed media writer and critic Ken Auletta uses the story of Google’s rise to explore the inner workings of the company and the future of the media at large. Although Google has often been secretive, this book is based on the most extensive cooperation ever granted a journalist, including access to closed-door meetings and interviews with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt, and some 150 present and former employees. Inside the Google campus, Auletta finds a culture driven by brilliant engineers in which even the most basic ways of doing things are questioned. His reporting shines light on how Google has been so hugely successful—and why it could slip. On one hand, Auletta reveals how the company has innovated, from Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Earth to YouTube, search, and other seminal programs. On the other, he charts its conflicts: the tension between massive growth and its mandate of “Don’t be evil”; the limitations of a belief that mathematical algorithms always provide correct answers; and the collisions of Google engineers who want more data with citizens worried about privacy. More than a comprehensive study of media’s most powerful digital company, Googled is also a lesson in new media truths. Pairing Auletta’s unmatched analysis with vivid details and rich anecdotes, it shows how the Google wave grew, how it threatens to drown media institutions once considered impregnable—and where it is now taking us all.

About Ken Auletta

Ken Auletta has written the Annals of Communications column for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of eight books, including THREE BLIND MICE: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; GREED AND GLORY ON WALL STREET: The Fall of The House of Lehman; and WORLD WAR 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies. In naming him America's premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review said, "no other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta." He lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on February 25, 2010

I live my life on the part of the technology curve normally associated with Luddites and the Amish. Finally, after years of hectoring by my friends, I gave in and bought a cell phone. But, for the life of me, I can't remember my cell number, and I have an apparently irresistible tendency to use it t......more

Goodreads review by Blog on Books on March 29, 2010

Like IBM in the 60s, Microsoft in the 80s and Apple in the 90's, there are many books nowadays about the search and online behemoth known simply as Google. Then there is Ken Auletta's. Unlike everything that has come before it, Auletta's `Googled' is the ultimate volume by which the search giant's b......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on January 02, 2010

While there wasn't much new here for those who follow tech news closely, having the full history of Google laid out in careful and comprehensive detail was useful - this book tied together so many disparate threads, news that you read in bits and pieces - allowing you to see the big picture of how t......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on June 22, 2012

Maybe the best book I've read about Google and tech culture. It has made me think - despite many who are using it to herald the decline of Google - to further invest in the company. I think it's interesting how rarely writers call these businessmen out on their conflicts of interest or accurately co......more

Goodreads review by Tom on September 24, 2016

This is a nice follow-up to The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture as this has a lot of detail on how Google has used its position and immense resources after dominating Internet searching. This includes a lot of failures (Orkut, print & radio......more

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