‘Planet Google’ by Randall Stross, published by Simon and Schuster

Larry Page and Sergey Brin also started their company at University though, unlike Zuckerberg and Jobs, they did not drop out before graduating. Theirs is the only growth story that compares with Facebook and has the same ultimate symbol of brand success, becoming a generic verb that is used worldwide to describe computer search.

Page and Brin seem to have suffered less internal conflict along the road to success than Zuckerberg but there many other similarities in their development. They had no desire ever to sell the business and wanted to retain as much control as possible. However they decided not to act as joint CEOs; early on they recruited Eric Schmidt to run the business, leaving the two of them free to run the creative side. The trio worked together well at first and committed to staying together for 20 years when they made their first IPO in 2004; this commitment always seemed to be stretching things too far and in fact Schmidt resigned in January this year, reportedly with political ambitions.

The author, a business school professor with Silicon Valley experience, makes a good job of describing Google’s development, emphasising the importance of the secret algorithm behind their search rankings. He is good at describing technical issues in a way that is easy to understand and he creates a clear picture of the physical and people side of Google. He makes the point that the relatively unsophisticated hardware - lots of unmanned PCs joined together in dark warehouses - has in fact been an advantage because it has allowed flexibility to cope with growth and new demands.

The book is quite soft around the apparent desire to seek world domination, which is clearly expressed in their vision to ‘organise the world’s information’. Neither do the issues of intrusion into private lives and disregarding of copyright law get too much coverage; it would have been good to have some acknowledgement of the challenges that this creates for the future. There is also limited reference to the fact that, despite all their attempts to extend and diversify, the advertising revenue from their basic service remains the main income stream on which they are largely dependent.

There is one particularly reassuring story in the book, around their battles with Yahoo, whose market share has been decimated over the years. Apparently Google tried to launch ‘Google News’ to compete with Yahoo’s successful news service. This failed very quickly and it was because the computerised editing of Google could not match the human selections made by Yahoo’s team of people. Despite one’s admiration of what Google has done, it is difficult not to feel pleased by this.

When discussing the future for Google, Professor Schloss makes the interesting point that no computer company has ever enjoyed pre-eminence over two successive technological eras (I wondered about Apple but I guess there was a gap in-between). This might throw doubt on the future of Facebook and Google; maybe right now there are students at Harvard and Stanford who are developing the technology that will move them off their perches. Will they wish that, like Bill Gates, they had left to become philanthropists while they were at the top?

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