A Friday visit to the database of intentions
Guest post by John
Battelle
Over the past few years I’ve made at least a dozen 90-minute treks
from my
forested perch at the north end of San Francisco Bay down to
the
Googleplex, which sits at the heart of Silicon Valley. The
reason? I was writing a book, and Google was a major part of the
story. I always enjoyed the drive, I’d go down to interview the
founders, early product managers, recent hires and advisors, and
I’d drive up with a full tape recorder and plenty to think about.
But last Friday I drove down for another reason. My book
Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our
Culture, has just come out, and much to my astonishment,
Google invited me down to give a talk. While Google staffers were
extremely generous with their time, the fact remained that the book
told the story as I heard it from many different sources, inside
and outside the company. And on my own
search and its implications, I've been known to call Google out
as often as I offer praise.
As I drove down, I fretted over any number of things. Who might
show up for the talk (what if no one did?!). What mistakes might be
pointed out - flaws in my reporting, my writing, or my conclusions?
What if the famously combative Google culture turned on me?
I needn’t have worried. My host Karen Wickre, whom I’ve known since
my days as a cub reporter at MacWeek, met me at the door, and
before I could make my way to the lecture hall, a clutch of
friendly folks had surrounded me. Once there I saw
Monier, founder of Alta Vista and the star of Chapter Three,
who had recently left eBay to join Google. And
of search quality, who helped me understand Google’s core search
service and even presented at my
conference last year. And many more, many of whom I had spoken
to, but most of whom I had never met.
I began by explaining how I came to write the book, a three-year
odyssey which started with a link, back in late 2001, to Google’s
first
Zeitgeist. I read how I came to the idea of the
Intentions, and I read some funny emails from webmasters who
had encountered the early
crawler. And because it was clear the audience wanted to ponder
the future of the company they had joined, I read from the chapter
entitled “Google Today, Google Tomorrow.”
The best part, by far, was the Q&A that followed. Googlers are
some of the most sincere questioners I've ever encountered. The
exchange felt very much like conversations I've had with
graduate students when I was teaching at Berkeley - no agendas,
just a desire to challenge and to learn. Afterward folks lined up
to have me sign their books. As the line dwindled, I looked behind
me and there was Eric Schmidt, who more than any other source went
out of his way to lend me his time and insights. He shook my hand
and thanked me for coming, and I have to say, I was honored by the
gesture. I did my best to be fair in the book, but it's never
easy to read about yourself, to be the subject of someone
else's conclusions. The same could be said of the entire Google
team who came to listen and to converse, and I'm truly grateful
for the experience.