The definitive, bestselling account of the company that changed the way we work and live, updated for the twentieth anniversary of Google’s founding with analysis of its most recent bold moves to redefine the world—and its even more ambitious plans for the future. Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, as they said, “change the world” through a powerful search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free.  The Google Story  takes you deep inside the company’s wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that today rakes in billions in profits. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and a culture of innovation enabled a search-engine giant to shake up Madison Avenue, clash with governments that accuse it of being a monopoly, deploy self-driving cars to forever change how we travel, and launch high-flying Internet balloons. Unafraid of controversy, Google is surging ahead with artificial intelligence that could cure diseases but also displace millions of people from their jobs, testing the founders’ guiding mantra: DON’T BE EVIL. Praise for  The Google Story “[The authors] do a fine job of recounting Google’s rapid rise and explaining its search business.” — The New York Times “An intriguing insider view of the Google culture.” — Harvard Business Review “An interesting read on a powerhouse company . . . If you haven’t read anything about one of today’s most influential companies, you should. If you don’t read  The Google Story,  you’re missing a few extra treats.” — USA Today “Fascinating . . . meticulous . . . never bogs down.” — Houston Chronicle “[The authors] do a fine job of recounting Google’s rapid rise and explaining its search business.” — The New York Times “An intriguing insider view of the Google culture.” — Harvard Business Review “An interesting read on a powerhouse company . . . If you haven’t read anything about one of today’s most influential companies, you should. If you don’t read  The Google Story,  you’re missing a few extra treats.” — USA Today “Fascinating . . . meticulous . . . never bogs down.” — Houston Chronicle David A. Vise , formerly a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The Washington Post, is a senior advisor at New Mountain Capital, a leading New York–based private equity firm. He also serves as executive director of Modern States Education Alliance. Vise is the author of three previous books, including the New York Time s bestseller The Bureau and The Mole . He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife and daughters. Mark Malseed , a former researcher for Bob Woodward, is a founder and research director at Synoptos, a global media intelligence firm. He has contributed to The Washington Post and other publications. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and two sons. Chapter One A Healthy Disregard for the Impossible Sergey Brin and Larry Page cruised onto the stage to the kind of roars and excitement that teenagers normally reserve for rock stars. They had entered the auditorium through a rear door, leaving behind photographers, sunglasses, a pair of hired cars with drivers, and an attractive young woman who was traveling with Sergey. Dressed casually, they sat down and cracked smiles, pleased at their heroes’ welcome. They were near the birthplace of civilization, thousands of miles and an ocean away from the place where their work together had begun. It seemed as good a place as any for a pair of young superstars, whose shared ambition revolved around changing the world, to talk about what they had done, how they had done it, and what their dreams were for the future. “Do you guys know the story of Google?” Page asked. “Do you want me to tell it?” “Yes!” the crowd shouted. It was September 2003, and the hundreds of students and faculty at this Israeli high school geared toward the brightest young minds in mathematics wanted to hear everything the youthful inventors had to say. Many of them identified with Brin because, like him, they had escaped with their families from Mother Russia in search of freedom. And they related to Page just as eagerly, since he was part of the duo that had created the most powerful and accessible information tool of their time–a tool sparking change that was already sweeping the world. Like kids playing basketball and dreaming of being the next Michael Jordan, the students wanted to be like Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “Google was started when Sergey and I were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in computer science,” Page began, “and we didn’t know exactly what we wanted to do. I got this crazy idea that I was going to download the entire Web onto my computer. I told my advisor that it would only take a week. After about a year or so, I had some portion of it.” The students laughed. “