by Doug Edwards ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2011
An insider’s look at the growth of Google from the perspective of a former employee.
Given Google’s current dominance of search, it can be difficult to remember a drastically different Internet landscape. Edwards, the director of consumer marketing and brand management for Google from 1999 to 2005, describes not only the growth of a startup into a publicly traded behemoth but also the development of an iconic brand. The author found that the leadership at Google did not take kindly to traditional marketing strategies (i.e., anything that cost money) and, in fact, wasn’t too keen on much of anything traditional at all. This generated an incredible amount of innovation and, at times, a considerable amount of frustration for Edwards. “This book,” he writes, “tells how it felt to be subjected to the g-force of a corporate ascent without precedent, to find myself in an environment where the old rules didn’t apply and where relying on what I knew to be true almost got me fired.” Confidence in good ideas, he writes, could quickly morph into arrogance or bad management, and the author’s insider point of view sheds light on the problems the company faced—and still faces—regarding user privacy and copyright issues. Edwards takes a broad view throughout the narrative and addresses Google history and workplace culture as well as marketing. His perspective as an early employee is valuable and unique, but it also occasionally pulls attention from his area of expertise. Given the availability of other books on general Google history (see Steven Levy’s In the Plex, among others), the author might have been better off limiting his scope. When he addresses engineering issues, the subject matter is such that tech-savvy readers may find the level of technical detail insufficient, while casual readers may be overwhelmed. Like the company itself, Edwards never takes himself too seriously, and the somewhat goofy tone occasionally becomes grating. Could have used more focus, but the former "voice of Google" provides a detailed, quirky and expansive half-memoir/half-historical record.
Pub Date: July 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-41699-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Enrico Moretti ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2012
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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