Ken Auletta - Googled - The End of the World as We Know It

This book began at my journalistic home, The New Yorker, which published my initial 2007 magazine piece, “The Search Party.” Editor David Remnick bestows on his writers the luxury of time, a keen editorial eye, and a sense that he is in the managerial dugout cheering. The editorial support writers receive at The New Yorker, from senior editors who read and comment on galleys to fact checkers who exhaustively exhume every sentence to copy editors who meticulously smooth prose-and from my longtime editor there, Jeffrey Frank-fills me with awe.

Lisa Chase gave a careful and close initial reading of the manuscript and reminded me what a gifted editor she is. Lawrence Lessig read the manuscript with the care he brings to legal briefs, and his comments were acute. Barry Harbaugh meticulously fact checked the manuscript. I wrestled for months to come up with a title. It took my friend Nora Ephron about thirty seconds to cut through my morass and suggest, “Googled.” Another old friend, Milton Glaser, who designed the jacket of my first book, volunteered to design this jacket, and did so overnight. Kenneth Lerer offered valuable advice, as did his business associate, Jonah Peretti. I have received generous help from many other friends, including Tully Plesser, Susan Lyne, and John Eastman. My agent, Sloan Harris, has been a stalwart; you want him in your foxhole. Amanda Urban, as always, was my most demanding and provocative reader.

These are the folks who share credit; any blame is all mine.

Preface

xi YouTube, with ninety million unique visitors: Nielsen VideoCensus, April 2009.

xi “The Internet… makes information accessible”: author interview with Hal Varian, April 1, 2009.

xii “Our goal is to change the world”: author one-on-one interview with Eric Schmidt at a forum sponsored by the New Yorker and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University June 11, 2008.

xiii Google could become a hundred-billion-dollar media company: author interview with Eric Schmidt, September 12, 2007.

3 With his suit and tie: Karmazin Google meeting described in author interviews with Karmazin, May 13, 2008, and August 22, 2008; Nancy Peretsman, May 1, 2008; Eric Schmidt, April 16, 2008, and September 15, 2008; Sergey Brin, September 18, 2008; and Richard J. Bressler, September 26, 2008.

3 Short and pugnacious: Ken Auletta, “The Invisible Manager,” The New Yorker, July 27, 1998.

4 Google’s private books revealed: from August 2004 Google IPO registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

4 Karmazin’s destination: description of 2400 Bayshore Parkway offices from visit by author, April 18, 2008; author interviews with David Krane, April 18, 2008, and with Marissa Mayer, September 18, 2008; and from Google video of headquarters, provided by Google.

6 25.2 billion Web pages: WorldWideWebSize.com, February 2, 2009.

7 It was Google’s ambition: Schmidt and Page speech at Stanford on May 1, 2002, as seen on YouTube.

7 several hundred million daily searches: Schmidt and Page speech at Stanford on May 1, 2002, as seen on YouTube.

7 the number of daily searches is now 3 billion: internal Google documents.

7 “our business is highly measurable”: author interview with Eric Schmidt, September 15, 2008.

8 $3 million spent: Advertising Age, September 11, 2008.

8 $172 billion spent in the United States on advertising, and the additional $227 billion spent on marketing: Zenith OptimediaReport, April 2009.

9 Mayer… remembered the meeting vividly: author interview with Marissa Mayer, September 18, 2008.

9 “If Google makes”: author interview with Eric Schmidt, April 16, 2008.

9 “the long tail”: Chris Anderson, the Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, Hyperion, 2006.

10 “aggregate content”: author interview with Larry Page, March 25, 2008.

10 from a peak daily newspaper circulation: Nicholas Carr, Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, Norton; and The Project for Excellence in Journalism, “State of the News Media Report,” March 2007.

10 those networks… attract about 46 percent of viewers: Nielsen data on the 2008-9 season, May 2009.

12. “The innovator’s dilemma”: Clayton M. Christensen, Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard Business School Press, 1997.

12. “Your choices suck”: author interview with Mel Karmazin, May 13, 2008.

12 “I will believe in the 500-channel world”: Sumner Redstone speech before the National Press Club, October 19, 1994.

13 Vinod Khosla… once told: “An Oral History of the Internet,” Vanity Fair, July 2008.

13 “a tsunami”: author interview with Craig Newmark, January 11, 2008.

14 Nielsen reported: The Nielsen Company, “Three Screen Report,” May 2008.

14 In 2008, more Americans: press release from the Pew Research Center for People amp; the Press, December 23, 2008.

14 the number one network teleuision show: Nielsen Media Research.

14 an estimated 1.6 billion: Universal McCann study, “Wave.3,” March 2008, and John Markoff, the New York Times, August 30, 2008.

14 newspapers, which traditionally claimed nearly a quarter: JackMyers.com.

14 lost 167,000 jobs: Advertising Age report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 18, 2008.

14 two hundred billion dollars: Myers Advertising and Marketing Investment Insights, annual advertising spending forecast, September 15, 2007.

14 plunge below 20 percent: McCann Erickson Worldwide chart of percentage of ad dollars by media, 1980-2007.

15 it took telephones seventy-one years… just five years: Progress amp; Freedom Foundation report, January 16, 2008, and “The Decade of Online Advertising,” DoubleClick, April 2005.

15 thirty-four technology stocks: charts provided to the author by Yossi Vardi.

15 1 million job applications: author interview with Lazslo Bock, August 22, 2007.

15 Its revenues… from advertising and other Google statistics: Google’s SEC filing for fiscal year ending December 31, 2007, Google Amendment No. 9 to Form S-1, filed with the SEC August 18, 2004, and Google 10-K filed with the SEC, December 31, 2008.

16 daily advertising impressions: Google Product Strategy Meeting attended by the author, April 16, 2008.

16 Google’s hundreds of millions of daily auctions: reported in its Google 10-K SEC filing for the year ending December 31, 2007.

16 index contained: Google’s third-quarter earnings report, October 16, 2008.

16 billions of pages per day: Google internal documents for March 2008, presented at an April 16, 2008, Google Product Strategy Meeting attended by the author.

16 tens of billions: May 2007 revenue report, the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

16 YouTube… twenty-five million unique daily visitors; DoubleClick posted seventeen billion: Eric Schmidt presentation to Google employees, April 28, 2008.

16 Google’s ad revenues in 2008: “Media Spending 2006-2009 Estimates,” JackMyers. com, January 29, 2008.

16 “We began”: Google 10-K filed in 2008 for the period ending December 31, 2007.

16 “We are in the advertising business”: author interview with Eric Schmidt, October 9, 2007.

17 likens Google to… Andy Kaufman: author interview with Marc Andreessen, May 5, 2007.

17 “I sometimes feel”: author interview with Eric Schmidt, March 2, 2007.

17 seventy million dollars: Adam Lashinsky, “Where Does Google Go Next?” Fortune, May 26, 2008, and confirmed by Google.

18 conveys a sense of freedom: author interview with Krishna Bharat, September 12, 2007.

18 Burning Man’s ten stated principles: Burning Man Web site.

18 “Google is a cross”: author interview with Peter Norvig, August 21, 2007.