I started reading this book expecting it to be boring and full of technicalities but I couldn't be more wrong. This book is a simple overview of the work culture and the whats', whys' and hows' at Google. If you want something that's complex and in-depth, this is not the book for you. The book touches on the surface but it doesn't dive deeper than that. It's getting four, not five stars because of that vagueness. Even me, a person who would've been turned off by a lot of in-depth details, would've preferred something less generic than this. But, I guess I shouldn't expect Eric and Jonathan to hand the reader everything on a silver platter.

If you can tolerate the vagueness and the books sounding a bit like a propaganda piece for Google, I'd say give it a go and see how you like it. After all, it's only about 300 pages and will only take a couple of evenings for you to finish! ;)

Few simple ideas hidden in an enormous amount of unnecessary words. Could have been a brilliant 5 page article.

Not what I had hoped. This is basically a management book mixed with Google propaganda. wish it was more about the actual workings and technologies of Google than being about how to hire the best people.

“Incredibly intelligent men who are not terribly talented writers” is my summary of this book. If this book were a reflection of Google as a company, I would be worried for Google’s future. It’s disjointed, lacking vision, and incredibly repetitive to the point of being boring.

I read most of this book for a marketing class in school two years ago and finished reading the last few sections I’d skipped over today.

Honestly, I never understood why we read this book for a marketing class when there’s an entire section of the book called “Bet on technical insights, not market research”. Unless it was my professor trying to prompt a discussion on why CEOs so often overvalue the departments which share their background.

That’s not an immediate critique which comes to mind about the book itself, but it is something I noticed while reading it. Google was founded by engineers and run by engineers; therefore, the engineers are valued infinitely more than the business personnel who keep the company moving. Are they important? Yes. But they are valued at the expense of other employees.

I don’t claim to be smarter than either of the men in this book, but with all due respect to them and their success, I think they’re missing the forest through the trees. I think they’ve reached a point that’s almost too big picture.

They give no details on the actual business and attempt to make up for it with over-philosophized self congratulation. In companies with a mentality like Google’s, there’s absolutely an element of philosophy to be injected into the discussion of their business plan, but it’s not the entire discussion. The engineers at Google actually do work, come up with things, and design products and services. They don’t spend their days staring into space pondering to themselves what the true meaning of freedom is.

This is the kind of book you quote but don’t read. There are, occasionally, sentences that are wonderful business advice, but the majority of it is a waste of your time.

I wanted to like this book. I believe it succinctly collected and shared many sincere anecdotes and helpful recommendations, such as how to hire, run meetings and administer email. But I also found some of the book's sections pompous and unjustified. Any suggestion the Google Books initiative encountered trouble for any other reason than Google didn't possess rights to the very intellectual property it was attempting to catalog, leverage and promote must be interpreted as dubious, at best. That said, Google built the best search engine, a compelling free email program and numerous other paradigm-altering tools, and therefore there is much for those unfamiliar with the company to learn reading this book, I suspect.

There are some decent ideas here and it is definitely interesting to see some of the inner workings of one of today's tech giants. However, many of the ideas were just touched upon or described in very vague terms. I'm also unconvinced that this business model is relevant for many other companies. It may work for Google, Facebook, and a few others, but I don't see how it scales across the industry.

One quick example - Google insists that they only hire "A" players (no "B" or "C" employees). Given the overall shortfall of tech workers in the US, there just aren't enough "A" players to staff existing companies - never mind any growth that happens in the near future.

They also describe how they will tolerate personality issues if the employee has strong technical skills. Given the collaborative nature of software development, this is completely backwards. A single individual who has problems with interpersonal relationships can destroy an entire team.

Interesting book and gives details on how Google was and does run. I found their hiring method interesting but in my opinion they still miss out getting some smart people. I always wonder about their process since I had applied multiple times with them. Not everything in the book will work for other companies, but provide the message to be creative and innovative.

er - used to work? This book is dated, but shows how the try to make their principles scale. Worth the read.

mostly advertising on how great google as an employer is