Edwards, the races to develop and implement each new feature, describes the idiosyncratic Page and Brin, the evolution of the famously nonhierarchical structure in which every employee finds a problem to tackle and works independently, Google’s first director of marketing and brand management, and the many ideas that never came to pass.
He kept me turning the pages of this engrossing tale. Ken auletta, and instructive, author of greed and Glory on Wall Street “Funny, revealing, with an insider’s perspective I hadn’t seen anywhere before. Douglas edwards wasn’t an engineer or a twentysomething fresh out of school when he received a job offer from a small but growing search engine company at the tail end of the 1990s.
An affectionate, compulsively readable recounting of the early years 1999–2005 of Google . . . A marketing director’s story of working at a startup called Google in the early days of the tech boom: “Vivid inside stories .
Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell
But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same. Starting with alexander graham bell’s revolutionary “harmonic telegraph, ” by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before.
Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, the rise of AT&T’s monopoly, and the discovery of Ma Bell’s Achilles’ heel. An authoritative, jaunty and enjoyable account of their sometimes comical, sometimes impressive and sometimes disquieting misdeeds.
The wall street Journal “Brilliantly researched. The atlantic “a fantastically fun romp through the world of early phone hackers, who sought free long distance, and in the end helped launch the computer era. The seattle Times.
Kingdom of Lies: Unnerving Adventures in the World of Cybercrime
A cybersecurity professional turned journalist, the lies criminals tell to get ahead, Kate Fazzini illuminates the many lies companies and governments tell us about our security, and the lies security leaders tell to make us think they are better at their jobs than they are. Like traffic set in the cybercrime world, Kingdom of Lies is as entertaining as it is eye opening.
But then the bank brings in a cadre of ex-military personnel to “help. A cynical russian only leaves his tiny New Jersey apartment to hack sports cars at a high performance shop in Newark. Soon she is extorting Silicon Valley billionaires for millions--without knowing the first thing about computers. A veteran cybersecurity specialist has built a deep network of top notch hackers in one of the world’s largest banks.
Cybercrime and security has found its Michael Lewis. Bret witter, security specialists, a fascinating and frightening behind-the-scenes look at the interconnected cultures of hackers, co-author of the #1 NYT bestseller The Monuments Men One of BookRiot's "50 of the Best Books to Read This Summer"In the tradition of Michael Lewis and Tom Wolfe, and law enforcement A 19-year-old Romanian student stumbles into a criminal ransomware ring in her village.
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The Cyber Effect: An Expert in Cyberpsychology Explains How Technology Is Shaping Our Children, Our Behavior, and Our Values--and What We Can Do About It
Steven D. She clearly lays out the issues we really need to be concerned about and calmly instructs us on how to keep our kids safe and healthy in their digital lives. Peggy orenstein, author of the new york times bestseller Girls & Sex “A fresh voice and a uniquely compelling perspective that draws from the murky, fascinating depths of her criminal case file and her insight as a cyber-psychologist.
Levitt“having worked with law enforcement groups from INTERPOL and Europol as well as the U. S. A groundbreaking exploration of how cyberspace is changing the way we think, feel, and behave “A must-read for this moment in time. Steven D. Praise for the cyber effect “how to guide kids in a hyperconnected world is one of the biggest challenges for today’s parents.
The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable
6% over the course of the 1990s. Models—whether in science or finance—have limitations; they break down under certain conditions. Weatherall shows how an obscure idea from quantum theory might soon be used to create a far more accurate Consumer Price Index. But even more, it was a failure of some very sophisticated financial institutions to think like physicists.
Taking us from fin-de-siècle paris to rat pack–era las vegas, from wartime government labs to Yippie communes on the Pacific coast, James Owen Weatherall shows how physicists successfully brought their science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from options pricing to bubbles.
And in 2008, sophisticated models fell into the hands of people who didn’t understand their purpose, and didn’t care. A look inside the world of “quants” and how science can and can’t predict financial markets: “Entertaining and enlightening” The New York Times. It was a catastrophic misuse of science.
The physics of wall Street will change how we think about our economic future.
In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
How has google done it? veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters—the Googleplex—to show how Google works. Written with full cooperation from top management, the most successful and most admired technology company of our time, this is the inside story behind Google, including cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, told by one of our best technology writers.
Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. But has google lost its innovative edge? With its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time.
With this cash cow, open-source cell phones, cloud computing, Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, free Internet video YouTube, digitizing books, and much more. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups.
They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising.
That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea
From having to pitch his own mother on being an early investor, to the motel conference room that served as a first office, Marc Randolph's transformational journey exemplifies how anyone with grit, to the now-infamous meeting when Netflix brass pitched Blockbuster to acquire them, to server crashes on launch day, gut instincts and determination can change the world-even with an idea that many think will never work.
Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard was of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. Indeed, these were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997, when Marc Randolph had an idea. Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix's triumph feels inevitable, but the twenty first century's most disruptive start up began with few believers and calamity at every turn.
But hastings was intrigued, and the pair-with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO-founded a company. In the tradition of phil knight's shoe dog comes the incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company-all revealed by co-founder and first CEO Marc Randolph. Full of counter-intuitive concepts and written in binge-worthy prose, it answers some of our most fundamental questions about taking that leap of faith in business or in life: How do you begin? How do you weather disappointment and failure? How do you deal with success? What even is success? From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.
The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself
The invention of news sheds light on who controlled the news and who reported it; the use of news as a tool of political protest and religious reform; issues of privacy and titillation; the persistent need for news to be current and for journalists to be trustworthy; and people’s changing sense of themselves and their communities as they experienced newly opened windows on the world.
In the pre-industrial era, sermons, news was mostly shared through gossip, and proclamations. This expansive view of news and how it reached people will be fascinating to readers interested in communication and cultural history. Library Journal starred review. Long before the invention of printing, let alone the daily newspaper, people wanted to stay informed.
The age of print brought pamphlets, ballads, and the first news-sheets.
Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan
Want to turbocharge your sled? Spray the bottom with nonstick cooking spray. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tokyo-born journalist Lisa Katayama's collection of urawaza a Japanese word for secret lifestyle tricks and techniques.
How Google Works
Today, google is a global icon that regularly pushes the boundaries of innovation in a variety of fields. Seasoned google executives eric schmidt and jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider's guide to Google, from its business history and disruptive corporate strategy to developing a new managment philosophy and creating a corporate culture where innovation and creativity thrive.
Google executive chairman and ex-ceo eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. How google works is an entertaining, page-turning primer containing lessons that Eric and Jonathan learned as they helped build the company. How google Works explains how to do just that.
The authors explain how technology has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers, and that the only way to succeed in this ever-changing landscape is to create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom Eric and Jonathan dub "smart creatives. Covering topics including corporate culture, innovation, talent, " "think 10x, and dealing with disruption, " "Exile knaves but fight for divas, communication, decision-making, strategy, the authors illustrate management maxims "Consensus requires dissension, not 10%" with numerous insider anecdotes from Google's history, many of which are shared here for the first time.
In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale.
The Content Trap: A Strategist's Guide to Digital Change
Named one of the best books of the year by bloomberg companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole.
But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are. The wall Street Journal. To confront these obstacles, from chinese internet giant tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, and from talent management to the future of education.
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