Ken Auletta - Googled

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First published in the United States in 2009 by The Penguin Press,
a member of Penguin Group (USA)

First published by Virgin Books in 2009

This edition published in 2010

Copyright Ken Auletta 2009

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Designed by Nicola Laroche

ISBN: 978-0-753-54688-8

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

For Kate and Mike

The product of more than 150 interviews, inside Google and outside this is a book of even-handed reportage, which is as unsparing of Googles faults as it is appreciative of the firms indisputable successes brilliant

The Times

The most important company of the internet era, and the most controversial new media company for a generation, has deserved a more accessible account for the general reader. In the hands of Ken Auletta, media writer for The New Yorker magazine, it gets one

Financial Times

The story he is telling, and its ramifications, is a narrative which is shaping the era in which we live, and at a frightening pace

Daily Telegraph

A telling portrait of a paradigm-altering company, which in eleven years has utterly transformed the business and media landscape

The New York Times

Richly reported Auletta has provided the fullest account yet of the rise of one of the most profitable, most powerful and oddest businesses the world has ever seen San Francisco Chronicle

Compelling The Economist

Absorbing I read the book in three huge gulps and learned a lot Nicholson Baker, Scotsman

Ken Auletta, one of Americas best business journalists, has turned his attention on the firm, with particular reference to the challenges it faces superbly reported John Lanchester, Observer

Ken Auletta is a rare business journalist and author who manages to combine extraordinary access to the kings and queens of industry without ever compromising his editorial integrity. If anyone can shed light on the Google monster, it is Ken Michael Grade

No other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta Columbia Journalism Review

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 balanced and thoughtful way, both that glory and that disruption Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of TIME, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute

Googled functions as a fine primer for anyone looking to get to a grip on the companys history and its repercussions on the current media landscape Los Angeles Times

A sharp and probing analysis of the apocalyptic upheavals in the media and entertainment industries Publishers Weekly

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

The world has been Googled. We dont search for information, we Google it. Type a question in the Google search box, as do more than 70 percent of all searchers worldwide, and in about a half second answers appear. Want to find an episode of Charlie Rose you missed, or a funny video made by some guy of his three-year-old daughters brilliant ninety-second synopsis of Star Wars: Episode IV? Googles YouTube, with ninety million unique visitors in March 2009two-thirds of all Web video traffichas it. Google makes information accessible.

Googles uncorporate sloganDont be evilappeals to Americans who embrace underdogs like Apple that stand up to giants like Microsoft. Googles is one of the worlds most trusted corporate brands. Among traditional media companiesfrom newspapers and magazines to book publishers, television, Hollywood studios, advertising agencies, telephone companies, and Microsoftno company inspires more awe, or more fear.

There are sound reasons for traditional media to fear Google. Today, Googles software initiatives encroach on every media industry, from telephone to television to advertising to newspapers to magazines to book publishers to Hollywood studios to digital companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, or eBay. For companies built on owning and selling or distributing that information, Google can be perceived as the new Evil Empire.

Google is run by engineers, and engineers are people who ask why: Why must we do things the way theyve always been done? Why shouldnt all the books ever published be digitized? Why shouldnt we be able to read any newspaper or magazine online? Why cant we watch television for free on our computers? Why cant we make copies of our music or DVDs and share them with friends? Why cant advertising be targeted and sold without paying fat fees to the media middleman? Why cant we make phone calls more cheaply? Googles leaders are not cold businessmen; they are cold engineers. They are scientists, always seeking new answers. They seek a construct, a formula, an algorithm that both graphs and predicts behavior. They navely believe that most mysteries, including the mysteries of human behavior, are unlocked with data. Of course, Wall Streets faith in such mathematical models for derivatives helped cripple the American economy.

Navet and passion make a potent mix; combine the two with power and you have an extraordinary force, one that can effect great change for good or for ill. Google fervently believes it has a mission. Our goal is to change the world, Googles CEO, Eric Schmidt, told me. Making money, he continued, is a technology to pay for it.

I came away from two and a half years of reporting on Google believing that its leaders genuinely want to make the world a better place. But they are in business to make money. Making money is not a dirty goal; nor is it a philanthropic activity. Any company with Googles power needs to be scrutinized. I also came away impatient with companies that spend too much time whining about Google and too little time devising an offense. Most old media companies were inexcusably slow to wake to the digital disruption.