The in-depth history of Google, product by product, was fascinating. Their product development process is something I've been interested in for a long time -- how do they decide what to do next? When do they abandon an effort and move on to something else? (turns out that these days they rarely do the latter).

The book did seem a little heavy on the pro-Google "don't be evil" mantra. Not that I don't respect Google's goals of world peace, saving the whales, etc, etc, but they are a multi-billion dollar multinational business with a lot of investors -- that mantra only goes as far as the profit they can turn.

As a cartographer / mapping guy I would've liked to hear a little more deep dive on Google Maps and their other geo products... Time for someone to write the story of those!