This is the third book I've read that could be described simply as "The History of Google". That being said, I am no stranger to the material presented in this book. This is also the oldest book I have read about the company as well, thus it has the most distance from the end of the book and the current state of the world. It holds up just OK.

It tells the same story of Larry and Serge and how they founded and pushed the company to where it is today. It tells of how Google makes money, how Gmail was introduced, and why the Google cafe has been so highly noted for so many years.

The book falls short of predicting where the company is now, leaving an otherwise ignorant reader that gene mapping and book scanning were the companies future projects.

For a company history, I'd check out Ken Auletta's Googled. It is both more up to date and slightly more critically focused at the trio on the top. He focuses a bit more on what is really important in the company.

I would also check out Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do? for more thoughts on Google's strategies and ideals. Again, interesting stuff, but probably not as well written as this book.

Overall, this was another interesting read. If you have followed up with Google's history up till 2005, I'd skip this one. If you're still interested, like I said; check out Auletta's book.