Larry and Sergey were always skeptical of marketing proposals, but they were skeptical about everything unless there was data to support it. The one major campaign I convinced them to try was a recruiting campaign for engineers that included a lot of unconventional messaging, like a Google Labs Aptitude Test (GLAT) and billboards that read, "The first ten-digit prime in e.com," which, if you could solve it, led to a website for Google recruiting. Sergey had his own view of what would be effective from a marketing standpoint, like inoculating Chechen refugees against cholera to generate positive press, or distributing Google branded condoms to high-school seniors. I was not terribly enthusiastic about either of those ideas, though we did hand out boxer shorts imprinted with "I'm Feeling Lucky."

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There's quite a bit on Urs in the book, but here are a couple of key points: Urs believed "good enough is good enough" and insisted that engineers work on priority projects until they were 80% done at which point they should shift to the next project. The last 20% was not as important as getting the product out the door and letting the public identify what needed to be fixed. He also told engineers to focus on hiring, since that was the only way they could double their productivity. The catch was, they could only hire people at least as good as they were, and he enforced that principle without exception. Urs was also a very good communicator, who instantly grasped the crux of a problem and was able to drive conflicts to resolution without wasting time on politics or ego. Everyone I talked to for the book credits him with keeping Google alive during the early years.

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No. I thought they'd be out of business in 12 months. They had no revenue, had hired a chef and massage therapists the week I joined and everyone looked to be 12 years old. I just wanted a change and a chance to see what the inside of an internet startup looked like. I figured I'd get some experience, build my online credibility, and jump back to a traditional media company once they went under. They never went under.

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In the book I talk about how they wanted daily reports on the hundreds of banner ads we ran as part of barter agreements with Netscape and other sites. They wanted projected results for B2B campaigns we launched for AdWords and then definitive reporting on how close we came to those objectives once the campaigns ended. They tried to track the effectiveness of every promotional line we put on the home page in terms of how often the people who saw them came back to Google, compared to those who didn't see them. Most of that data was just noise, but it gave the illusion of measuring our marketing efforts, and they seemed comforted by that.

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There were several. From a staffing standpoint, the importance of hiring Urs Holzle as the first VP of engineering cannot be over-emphasized. He not only brought a crisp understanding of what systems should be built to make Google scale, but he hired the key engineers to build them.

From a business standpoint, signing Netscape proved Google could manage a partner relationship, signing Yahoo proved the company could handle any volume of search traffic, and signing AOL proved Google could monetize pages more effectively than any other online ad server.

Take your pick.

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Haven't talked to them in a few years, so it's hard to say. It was interesting to me that Larry killed Google Labs recently, which indicates to me that he's more focused than he was back when I worked in the Plex. He seems to be saying Google should continue to innovate, but within the boundaries of their existing products (diverse as they are). In the old days, he didn't want to put any limits on where Google might go as a company.

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That the mission statement, "Organize all the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible" is not some feel-good bit of fluff. Larry and Sergey really believe they can transform the world with technology that makes things work better, beginning with a better way to find information when you need it. That information is not restricted to text found on web pages. I believe they won't be satisfied until everyone has a brain implant that augments their sensory perception of the world with a constant stream of relevant data instantaneously delivered. The Google you see today is a technology still in its infancy.

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Google always viewed itself as a technology company, run by engineers. Yahoo wandered off down the path of becoming a media company that viewed itself in the entertainment industry. They licensed their search technology from Inktomi, then Google and now Bing. It's hard to lead in innovation when you're buying your technology from someone out of house. People noticed that Google's search just worked better.

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I settled in to a role as "The Voice of Google," meaning I channeled the vision of our founders into communication with users. I wrote all the text that went into our products or described them, came up with our April Fools jokes and expressed our corporate values through posts like "Ten Things Google has Found to be True." I was especially pleased with the alert I wrote for our Google Toolbar downloader, which warned users "READ THIS, IT'S NOT THE USUAL YADA YADA" and explained the privacy tradeoffs of enabling the toolbar's special features. I think that helped people view Google more as a trusted friend than just another soulless technology company.

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The complete lack of structure, including job descriptions and clearly defined roles thew me for a loop at first. It took me a while to figure out what exactly I had been hired to do, since none of the traditional marketing steps (branding guidelines, a marketing plan, etc.) seemed to be what was wanted.

A lot has been written about the free food, massages, dogs roaming the halls, etc. and that was all part of the experience - the place was meant to feel like a college dorm - but the flip side was the expectation that you would earn those perqs through long hours and enormous productivity. For five years, I was never entirely offline or completely separated from my work life.

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Started in November, 1999 after 7 years at the San Jose Mercury News. Sent out dozens of resumes to internet startups and had several interviews, but Google seemed the best fit. And they actually offered me a job. I detail the interview process in my book, but it entailed Sergey Brin, wearing roller hockey skates and pads, asking me about my GPA and requiring me to explain to him "something really complicated that I don't already know."

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Probably not supposed to link offsite, but there's a good list here: http://www.quora.com/Google-Inc-company/Who-are-the-best-engineers-at-Google-Why

I'd put Urs Holzle at the top of my list, because he hired almost all of the key engineers (like Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat) who did the heavy lifting in the early days. Salar Kamangar and Eric Veach for their work on the ads system that funds everything else. Webmaster Karen White who had a big hand in cleaning up the look and feel as a member of the original UI team. The Bens (Ben Smith, Ben Gomes, and Ben Polk) for the real down in the dirt systems stuff. Many others are described in the book.

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How strong Larry's vision was about the future of technology and the role Google could play in it. He never looked at the business from a month to month or quarter to quarter basis - he looked at trends in computing and science and sensors and projected what that could mean in ten years or twenty years. They both adamantly refused to accept the status quo or conventional wisdom in any area and always challenged assumptions. That could be frustrating when we were under pressure to just get things done, but their refusal to do things the traditional way gave the company an enormous advantage in everything from hardware speed to advertising targeting.

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I would have spent a lot more time talking about user privacy and positioned Google as the internet company that was completely upfront about all the tradeoffs users make when they use search engines and other online services. I saw how effective that was with our "Not the usual Yada Yada" message warning about the special features of the Google Toolbar. I think engaging the issue head on in the early days would have made Google unassailable on the privacy issues that have surfaced in the last few years.

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Multiple reasons:
-Had been there 5 long years and grew tired of 12-16 hour days. They were interesting, challenging and often fun days, but days I wasn't spending with my wife and 3 children.
-Company culture shifted as grew from 60 people to many thousands
-My boss left, which meant moving into a different part of the organization, where I didn't see a clear role for a brand manager
-IPO made it possible to be more selective about my employment options and gave me the opportunity to pursue other interests without the pressure of needing a weekly paycheck.

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No, but I nailed Jonathan Rosenberg, VP of product management, with it, as well as Salar Kamangar, who's now head of YouTube. Larry actually dunked me on a canoe trip, so I guess I still owe him one...

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Not a great number of them. The brand is one of the world's best known and most trusted.

The hits they've taken around privacy were often self-inflicted though, and squandered an opportunity to forge an even closer relationship with users. As noted in one of the other answers, I advocated over-communicating around the issue of privacy to educate people about the tradeoffs any online action involves. That viewpoint did not prevail. While I don't believe Google does anything "evil" with the information they collect, their reluctance to talk about how they use the data leads people to that conclusion sometimes.

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Because I had signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) when I started working there, I did let Google review the manuscript before publication. They didn't request any changes. They could have been much more demanding, which likely would have meant getting lawyers involved. There's no law against writing about your former employer, but if you have signed an NDA with them, you probably want to talk to an attorney before spilling secrets. And if you intend to reveal information that will directly benefit one of their competitors (the secret recipe for Coke, or the page ranking algorithm for Google), you should be prepared to be sued. I'm no lawyer, so I won't predict the outcome of a lawsuit, other than that the legal fees will be very, very expensive.

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