Via ABC/Fora.tv, a look inside the internet’s powerhouse, currently rolling out Google+, by Steven Levy:
Is it the five-star chefs, free laundry and on-site masseuses that are the secret to Google’s success? Perhaps its unique management style and innovative team? Either way, the revolutionary search engine has so deeply impacted our work and culture that we have turned the company name into a verb.
Despite being one of the most successful and celebrated companies in history, Google maintains an air of mystery, and cultural myths abound. How has Google stayed innovative and cutting edge while making the transition to tech giant? What exactly happens inside the elusive Google campus? Levy took a deep dive into Google management, its products and its company culture. Join us as he shares untold stories and unpacks the mythology behind Google.
Steven Levy is an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. Levy is a senior writer for Wired. Previously, he was chief technology writer and a senior editor for Newsweek. Levy has had articles published in Harper’s, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Premiere, and Rolling Stone. He is regarded (along with Walter Mossberg) as a prominent and respected critic of Apple Inc.
Levy has won several awards, including the “Computer Press Association Award” for a report he co-wrote in 1998 on the Year 2000 problem. In 1984, he wrote a book called Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, in which he described a “hacker ethic”, which became a guideline to understanding how computers have advanced into the machines that we know and use today. He identified this Hacker Ethic to consist of key points such as that all information is free, and that this information should be used to “change life for the better”.
Length: 62 minutes 46 seconds
A few more videos on YouTube of similar talks on the book (and Google): Authors@Google 1, Authors@Google 2, Computer History Museum, and The Churchill Club.
Update 20110729: How Google Dominates Us (James Gleick reviews four books on Google for The New York Review of Books)