Richard L Brandt's The Google Guys delves deep into the world of Google, or more precisely "Inside the brilliant minds Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin," and comes up with interesting anecdotes that give us a better understanding as how the people behind one of the world's largest and most powerful technology companies function.
As Google is emerging as an all-encompassing technology behemoth, it becomes more important for us, consumers of Google's services, to know more about the company, inside out. Brandt succeeds in this endeavour.
Brandt draws a parallel between the evolution of the Great Library of Alexandria and that of Google. And there, of course, are many parallels. But this comparison also brings to mind the destruction of what was possibly the ancient world's greatest collection of information and the fear that something as devastating can also occur in this information age of today.
At the onset the book reads like an paean and I was considering if I should continue reading. But Brandt, as I progressed more into the book, did not let his obvious awe of Larry Page and Sergey Brin come too much in the way of my sceptic mind.
The book's biggest drawback is that it feels dated. It was first published in 2009 as Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain and a lot has changed since then. Tough the publisher has attempted to make amends with a new afterword, it feels more like a patchwork. They should have instead made changes to the existing text.
After reading The Google Guys, the image that I had in my mind about Google's founders hasn't changed much but it has given me some additional ground to substantiate my beliefs.
My favourite portion in the book is where Brandt discusses Google Books, one of my most favourite Google tools. Google Books I still feel is vastly underutilised and has an immense potential.
The Google Guys is not only the story of Larry and Sergey but also a tale of how the world of the Internet has shaped in the present century and what opportunities the future has in store.
Even if you think you know all that is there to know about Google, and much of that information is also googleable, The Google Guys is a recommended read.
Rating: 3/5
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