I just finished the book by Douglas Edwards. I Feel Lucky The Confessions of Google’s Employee Number 59. The Lesson for me that stood out in Doug’s book is that you need to pay attention to quality and opportunity. It is both an irreverant and thoughtful look at the early days of Google up until it went public. Doug worked in marketing at Google and was one of the few non-engineers back when Google was a start-up until it became public. His book accounts how oftentimes he was swimming upstream against the tide of Google (really Larry Page) and then Marissa Mayer. Granted you only get to hear his side of the story and not that it is unflattering of other Googlers, it just seems that they were so smart and driven to create the best product and were the most ambitious that nothing really could stop them. Doug recounts that with admiration. Also you get the real feeling that it is Larry Page that was the visionary behind Google (without taking anything away from Sergei Brin.) Those in the SEO space will get an interesting behind the scenes look at Matt Cutts and some of his adventures in search quality. It’s a great read and there was a great quote that really sums up the secret to Google. “If we can’t win on quality we don’t deserve to win at all.” – Larry Page