I am more than halfway through John Battelle's excellent book, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in Google, in the search industry and in technology innovation. Personally, I have found it very readable and extremely candid in its exploration of its subject matter, and John is to be commended for pulling no punches. I will be writing more about the book on my new blog, Googleology, which I anticipate will go live in early October. I'll keep you posted on that schedule.
In the book, John mentions Andy Bechtolsheim, a co-founder of Sun, who was one of Google's earliest investors. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, did a demo of the early search engine beta for Bechtolsheim in 1998 and, within minutes, he pulled out his checkbook and wrote them a check for $100,000, double the amount they requested. These first dollars led directly to the legal incorporation of Google on September 7, 1998 and, as they say, the rest is history.
In today's New York Times, Bechtolsheim, who has returned to work at Sun, is now quoted as saying, "writing checks and watching companies grow is not my cup of tea." Good thing for Larry, Sergey and, well, the rest of us, that he didn't discover his "cup of tea" back in 1998!
The Search is filled with the well-worn lore of Silicon Valley, as well as other great stories that I've never heard before. (Of course, since I'm not a part of that world, I found them especially interesting.) So, without question, I'd say this book is worth picking up.
UPDATE: The Financial Times has named The Search as one of its six finalists for the best business book of 2005, along with The World is Flat, Freakonomics and others. See, I told you it's worth picking up!
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