I'm Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards - review

I'M FEELING LUCKY: THE CONFESSIONS OF GOOGLE EMPLOYEE NUMBER 59

The rise of the Google empire has inspired understandable awe. A pair of geeky grad students invent a new kind of search technology. They set up a business in a friend's garage, and within a decade it has become a $200 billion corporation relentlessly transforming the world's means of accessing information.

This has looked like a miracle not just of technology and commerce but also of worker liberation. Those employed in the Silicon Valley GooglePlex have been reported to feast for free in on-campus gourmet restaurants and to enjoy complementary onsite hairdressing, laundry, medical care and counselling. Twenty per cent of their working hours are devoted to projects of their own devising.

Optimists have suggested that the apparent success of this model may point to an unexpectedly blessed future for the lackeys of capitalism. Google's workplace culture has therefore been much examined, most recently in Steven Levy's comprehensive In the Plex. Levy, however, was an observer from outside. Douglas Edwards offers the first in-depth account by an insider.

Regrettably, he was not on hand as Google's story soured, with the growing uproar over privacy breaches, protests from copyright owners and even grumbling about charges for workers' childcare.

Employee number 59 made his exit in 2005; what he therefore offers is a ringside view of the company's wondrous genesis.

For Edwards, things began much as you might have expected. In November 1999 he was interviewed for a marketing job by one of Google's two founders, Sergey Brin, who arrived clad in gym shorts on inline skates. "I'm going to give you five minutes," he announced. "When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know." Then he rolled away to a snacking area.

Edwards passed this test, only to find that the post for which he'd applied didn't actually exist, although another candidate had also been appointed to it. "Titles aren't important," explained Brin.

"We'll do better if we have a flat organisation."

A world-class chef and massage therapists had also been hired, and all looked peachy. Yet this promising impression was to prove misleading.

The new chef served great lobster, but Edwards often had to eat it at his desk. He worked 16 hours a day and was on call for the other eight.

He couldn't discover the corporate strategy he was supposed to be implementing because it existed only inside the founders' heads, and they declined to divulge it. They wouldn't tell him which decisions needed their approval and reversed policy in his own field behind his back.

By this account, early-years Google was more of a harsh and chaotic dictatorship than a benevolent fraternity. Still, everyone was focused on the same goal and sought only to get things done.