I'm Feeling Lucky: the Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

I'm Feeling Lucky: the Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
by Douglas Edwards
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

So you want to know how Google soared from start-up obscurity to dictionary definition in five years? In I'm Feeling Lucky: the Confessions of Google Employee Number 59, ex-Google marketing guru Douglas Edwards suggests that its success stems from a mix of perfectionism and self-belief. Look no further than the episode where Edwards tells Google co-founder Larry Page that Google is merely right ''more often than not.''

'Larry looked at me with the same stare he had directed at the code on his screen, as if he were trying to decipher some undigested bit of an equation that refused to resolve itself,' Edwards writes.

''More often than not?' he asked me. 'When were we [open italic] ever [close italic] wrong?'

'He didn't smile as he asked his question or arch an eyebrow to signify annoyance. He simply wanted to know when he had been wrong so he could feed that information into the algorithm that ran his model of the universe. If he had made a mistake, he needed to know the specifics so he could factor that into the next iteration of the problem if it reappeared.

''Oh. That's right,' I thought, awakening from my reverie. 'I don't work at a big traditional company anymore. I work at Google.''

From 1999 to 2005, Edwards was the search superpower's director of consumer marketing and brand management. The job meant long hours lightened by free amenities including massage, hockey and gourmet food. But the pace was relentless in step with the 'Googley' ethos of integrity, frugality and efficiency.