Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Nerd Alert: Here Come Two More Google Books!

Although there have already been several big-deal books on Google already–including Ken Auletta’s “Googled,” which was bought by Hollywood for a movie–a new pair is about to debut in coming months.

One is penned by prominent Silicon Valley journalist Steven Levy, who had a lot of access to the Google and its denizens, and the other is what appears to be an insiderish tell-all by a former employee.

That would be “I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59,” which sounds naughtier than it probably is.

Reads the Amazon description of the book, coming out in mid-July, in part:

“Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. No academic analysis or bystander’s account can capture it. Now Douglas Edwards, Employee Number 59, offers the first inside view of Google, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company.”

Apparently, Edwards was the search giant’s first director of marketing and brand management, although I do not recall him at all from when I covered the company in its early days.

Actually, the book likely to get more attention–and written by someone I do know well–is Levy’s, coming out in mid-April and titled “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives.”

That would be the Googleplex in Moutain View, Calif., where Levy was ensconced for a while.

It will be interesting to see what he comes out with, given he seems to have been up close and personal for Google’s two biggest crossroads–the rise of its Android mobile operating system and the rise of social networking giant Facebook.

So too, the recent hand-over of top management from CEO Eric Schmidt to co-founder Larry Page, which will take place right around when Levy’s book comes out.

While business tomes, especially ones on Internet companies, have yet to make big bank, the topic will be much in the news then.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik