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

From the Publisher

A revealing, forward-looking examination of the outsize influence Google has had on the changing media Landscape.

There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. As only he can, bestselling author Ken Auletta takes readers for a ride on the Google wave, telling the story of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses-from newspapers to books, to television, to movies, to telephones, to advertising, to Microsoft. With unprecedented access to Google's founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined.

Using Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution, Auletta takes readers inside Google's closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with-and against-them. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account ever told of Google's rise, shares the "secret sauce" of Google's success, and shows why the worlds of "new" and "old" media often communicate as if residents of different planets.

Google engineers start from an assumption that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient, an approach that has yielded remarkable results- Google will generate about $20 billion in advertising revenues this year, or more than the combined prime-time ad revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. And with its ownership of YouTube and its mobile phone and other initiatives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Auletta his company is poised to become the world's first $100 billion media company. Yetthere are many obstacles that threaten Google's future, and opposition from media companies and government regulators may be the least of these. Google faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. In coming years, Google's faith in mathematical formulas and in slide rule logic will be tested, just as it has been on Wall Street.

Distilling the knowledge accrued from a career of covering the media, Auletta will offer insights into what we know, and don't know, about what the future holds for the imperiled industry.

Publishers Weekly

Two Googles emerge in this savvy profile of the Internet search octopus. The first is the actual company, with its mixture of business acumen and naïve idealism (“Don't Be Evil” is the corporate slogan); its brilliant engineering feats and grad-students-at-play company culture; its geek founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two billionaires who imbibe their antiestablishment rectitude straight from Burning Man; its pseudo-altruistic quest to offer all the world's information for free while selling all the world's advertising at a hefty profit. The second Google is a monstrous metaphor for all the creative destruction that the Internet has wrought on the crumbling titans of old media, who find themselves desperately wondering how they will make money off of news, music, video and books now that people can Google up all these things without paying a dime. The first Google makes for a standard-issue tech-industry grunge-to-riches business story, its main entertainment value being Brin's and Page's comical lack of social graces. But New Yorker columnist Auletta (World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies) makes the second Google a starting point for a sharp and probing analysis of the apocalyptic upheavals in the media and entertainment industries. (Nov. 3)

Library Journal

A corporate upstart just over a decade old, Google has wormed its way into our lives, our vocabulary, and even the hallowed halls of academe, with Internet dominance and multibillion-dollar advertising revenues that make it one of the largest media entities of all time. New Yorker media critic Auletta (Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way), who spent several years researching Google and interviewing hundreds of company and industry players, delivers the real scoop on how this Internet giant fits into the larger media landscape. His fascinating examination illuminates Google's world from just about every conceivable angle: competitive, legal, regulatory, cultural, and ethical. He wraps up with an assessment of where the behemoth might be headed but provides enough insight to allow readers to draw their own conclusions about Google and whether its emergence really does spell the end of the world as we know it. VERDICT While the Google phenomenon has spawned dozens of books, Auletta's years of research and firsthand access to insiders, critics, competitors, and commentators give readers a well-rounded perspective on the company and how it fits into the wider milieu.[See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/09.]—Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Whitewater

Kirkus Reviews

The New Yorker's "Annals of Communication" columnist Auletta (Media Man: Ted Turner's Improbably Empire, 2004, etc.) goes behind the digital revolution to detail the past decade of astonishing growth at Google. The greatest fear of Microsoft's Bill Gates-"someone in a garage who is devising something completely new"-was realized in Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who parlayed their breakthrough search engine into an all-purpose threat to newspapers, books, television, movies, phones, advertising and even Microsoft. Page and Brin believe that their enlightened business practice of putting end users first reflects the firm's motto, "Don't be evil." Their tendency as engineers-to dismiss what cannot be objectively measured-has helped them undercut traditional advertising firms incapable of pinpointing the effectiveness of campaigns. It has also left them sometimes so hilariously deficient in emotional intelligence that, Auletta writes, they "naively believe that most mysteries, including the mysteries of human behavior, are unlocked with data." CEO Eric Schmidt has balanced their desire to move nimbly against the larger world's fears about privacy, copyright and antitrust issues. In a high-tech, high-wire act, Google has combined in-house initiatives and daring acquisitions, producing one innovation after another and aiming to become a $100 billion media company (more than twice the size of Time Warner, the Walt Disney Co. or News Corp.)-and battling legal moves from alarmed old-media rivals. While praising its innovations, Auletta criticizes the company for not living up to its ideals in, for instance, China, where it agreed to censor sites to assure access in theauthoritarian-controlled nation. Though not a vivid stylist, Auletta uncovers some endlessly colorful material and assesses its prospects critically but fairly-Google will thrive, he thinks, but they'd better guard against naivete and complacency. New York launch event. Tie-in to author's lecture schedule

What People Are Saying

Walter Isaacson
"Ken Auletta has produced the seminal book about media in the digital age. It is a triumph of reporting and analysis, filled with revealing scenes, fascinating tales, and candid interviews. Google is both a driver and a symbol of a glorious disruption in the media world, and Auletta chronicles, in a balance and thoughtful way, both that glory and that disruption."--(Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

Marc Andreessen
"A uniquely incisive account of the new Internet revolution, powered by Ken Auletta's unparalleled access. Essential reading."--(Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and cofounder of Ning)

Larry Lessig
"Auletta has captured something critical and true about the tribe that made the enormous success of Google possible. His understanding is critical and essential for anyone trying to predict how long this run of enormous success will continue. Bottom line: Not forever, and maybe not much longer. Here's exactly why."--(Larry Lessig, author of Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy and Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity)

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