Book Review In the Plex, How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

Book Review In the Plex, How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives Book Review: In the Plex, How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives For those of you who have a Google job interview, I highly recommend that you read Steve Levys In the Plex before your interview.   Steven Levy, a noted Newsweek author, writes a masterful insiders account.   He traces Googles history of success, giving the reader access to the backroom discussions and the insider logic behind key decisions and milestones.   Here are the top three things Google job seekers will find helpful about this book: Employee profiles.   Levy writes vivid portraits of key Google employees from top executives such as Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt to front-line product managers such as Wesley Chan and Erick Tseng.   Levy also provides more details on influential yet out of the spotlight executives such as Salar Kamangar, Susan Wojcicki and Urs Holzle.   Levy discusses their backgrounds and the roles they played to make Google a success. Insight into Googles unique culture. The book explains they whys around Googles dominant innovation engine, tracing the roots back to the founders and their childhood backgrounds and acknowledging Montessoris influence on Larry and Sergeys iconoclastic thinking.   Key decisions, such as Googles aborted Skype acquisition, multi-billion dollar boardband spectrum auction, and Googles China policy, are discussed in detail, revealing Googles unconventional methods to attain unique goals. Never revealed details on Google technology. Levy discusses key technologies from the secret Google AdWords blackbox to their energy efficient, environmentally friendly data centers.