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Google Inc. in 2014
by Benjamin Edelman Thomas R. EisenmannThe case 'Google Inc. in 2014' describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to selected competitors. Asks what Google should do next.
Google+ Marketing For Dummies
by Jesse StayOrganize customers, craft targeted messages, or host Hangouts with Google?s social networkGoogle+ is Google's social network that has the social media world abuzz with excitement. With Google tools like YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, and Picnik being integrated with Google+, marketers will find Google+ is the best way to reach the long-time users of Google?s other tools. Google+ expert Jesse Stay shows you how to create and maximize your Google+ presence to connect with your customers.Explains how to sign up for your account and set up your brand profileShows you how to use Circles, craft targeted messages for the Stream, and add multimedia features to your postsHelps you discover content and the value of the +1 buttonShows you how to be mindful of SEO, so that your Google+ brand page can be foundAddresses using Google+ to launch a product or promote an eventConfidently enter the exciting new Google+ social neighborhood with Google+ Marketing For Dummies.
The Google Model
by Annika SteiberThis book shows how companies like Google have reinvented the common practice in management in order to continuously innovate in fast changing industries. With the ever-increasing pace of change, reinventing existing management principles could become a necessity and prove crucial in the long-term competitiveness of many companies. The book presents a unique synthesis of findings from leading research on long-term competitiveness in fast changing industries. The core of the study comprises an exclusive 1-year in-depth research study on the drivers of innovation at Google and includes examples on how Google has translated the reinvented management principles into practice. The book also offers key action-points to help practitioners in reinventing their own management models for continuous innovation.
The Google Resume
by Gayle Laakmann McdowellThe Google Resume is the only book available on how to win a coveted spot at Google, Microsoft, Apple, or other top tech firms. Gayle Laakmann McDowell worked in Google Engineering for three years, where she served on the hiring committee and interviewed over 120 candidates. She interned for Microsoft and Apple, and interviewed with and received offers from ten tech firms. If you're a student, you'll learn what to study and how to prepare while in school, as well as what career paths to consider. If you're a job seeker, you'll get an edge on your competition by learning about hiring procedures and making yourself stand out from other candidates. Covers key concerns like what to major in, which extra-curriculars and other experiences look good, how to apply, how to design and tailor your resume, how to prepare for and excel in the interview, and much more Author was on Google's hiring committee; interned at Microsoft and Apple; has received job offers from more than 10 tech firms; and runs CareerCup.com, a site devoted to tech jobs Get the only comprehensive guide to working at some of America's most dynamic, innovative, and well-paying tech companies with The Google Resume.
Google SketchUp Cookbook: Practical Recipes and Essential Techniques
by Bonnie RoskesAs the first book for intermediate and advanced users of Google SketchUp, this Cookbook goes beyond the basics to explore the complex features and tools that design professionals use. You'll get numerous step-by-step tutorials for solving common (and not so common) design problems, with detailed color graphics to guide your way, and discussions that explain additional ways to complete a task. Google SketchUp Cookbook will help you: Use SketchUp more efficiently by taking advantage of components and groups Learn new techniques for using Follow Me, Intersect, and constraints Go beyond simple textures with tools such as texture positioning and Photo Match Create animations and walkthroughs, and explore design scenarios by using layers and scenes Learn how to use styles to customize your presentations Combine SketchUp with the 3D Warehouse and Google Earth Google SketchUp Cookbook is ideal for architects, engineers, interior designers, product designers, woodworkers, and other professionals and hobbyists who want to work more efficiently and achieve true mastery of this amazing tool.
Google Speaks: Secrets of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page
by Janet LowePraise for Google Speaks "It's not hard to see that Google is a phenomenal company. . . . At Geico, we pay these guys a whole lot of money for this and that key word. " -Warren Buffett "Google rocks. It raised my perceived IQ by about 20 points. " -Wes Boyd, President of Moveon. Org "Google is my rapid response research assistant. It's the Swiss Army knife of information retrieval. " -Lloyd Grove, columnist, Portfolio. com "Who's afraid of Google? Everyone. " -Wired magazine "Writers of the past had absinthe, whiskey or heroin. I have Google. " -Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time
by David A. Vise Mark MalseedThe definitive, bestselling account of the company that changed the way we work and live.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 Google Story
by David A. Vise Mark Malseed"Here is the story behind one of the most remarkable Internet successes of our time. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, the book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company whose name is a favorite brand and a standard verb recognized around the world. Its stock is worth more than General Motors' and Ford's combined, its staff eats for free in a dining room that used to be run by the Grateful Dead's former chef, and its employees traverse the firm's colorful Silicon Valley campus on scooters and inline skates. The Google Story is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world's most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere. In 1998, Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, change the world through a search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free. While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google's quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database. Readers will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft's dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders' mantra: DO NO EVIL."
Google to Alphabet: Two Job Opportunities
by Annelena Lobb Robert L. SimonsThis product can be used with the free Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT), available at: hbsp.harvard.edu/jdot
Google to Alphabet: Ten Things We Know to Be True
by Robert L. Simons Annelena LobbGoogle's founders wrote "10 Things We Know To be True," a document detailing founding principles and values, early in the company's life. As the company expanded, added business units, and changed its name to Alphabet, were these principles and values still valid and relevant? If not, how should they be changed? This product can be used with the free Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT), available at: hbsp.harvard.edu/jdot
Google to Alphabet: Ten Things We Know to Be True
by Robert L. Simons Annelena LobbGoogle's founders wrote "10 Things We Know To be True," a document detailing founding principles and values, early in the company's life. As the company expanded, added business units, and changed its name to Alphabet, were these principles and values still valid and relevant? If not, how should they be changed? This product can be used with the free Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT), available at: hbsp.harvard.edu/jdot
Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?
by Carl Kreitzberg William R. KerrIn late 2018, evidence emerged that many of Google's temporary help agency workers, vendors, and independent contractors ("TVCs") were unhappy with the company. TVCs, who reportedly made up 49.95% of Google's 170,000 person global workforce, had raised concerns of mistreatment, citing instances of pay inequity, social exclusion, and physical endangerment. "Flexible" workers, such as TVCs, were often seen as a key cog for Silicon Valley's IT companies: they made workforces scalable, they helped firms get access to specialized knowledge for temporary projects, and they boosted innovation by creating "knowledge spillovers" between firms. But, at the same time, many onlookers worried that flexible work arrangements were aggravating social inequality and making more jobs precarious. Google employees, major media outlets, and politicians demanded that the company change its policies on TVCs. One suggestion was that Google convert all of its TVCs to full-time status by early 2020. As tensions reportedly escalated between Google's workforce and its management team, some began to wonder if Google was still an employer of choice.
The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management As We Know It
by Bernard GirardShortly after World War I, Ford and GM created the large modern corporation, with its financial and statistical controls, mass production, and assembly lines. In the 1980s, Toyota stood out for combining quality with continuous refinement. Today, Google is reinventing business yet again—the way we work, how organizations are controlled, and how employees are managed.Management consultant Bernard Girard has been analyzing Google since its founding in 1998, and now in The Google Way, he explores Google's innovations in depth—many of which are far removed from the best practices taught at the top business schools.As you read, you'll see how much of Google's success is due to its focus on users and automation. You'll also learn how eCommerce has profoundly changed the relationship between businesses and their customers, for the first time giving customers an important role to play in a major corporation's growth. Finally, Girard speculates about the limits of Google's business model and discusses the challenges it will face as it continues to grow.Google's culture is one of innovation. Why not make that spirit of innovation your own?
Google Workspace User Guide: A practical guide to using Google Workspace apps efficiently while integrating them with your data
by Balaji Iyer Abhi JeevaganambiExplore the suite of apps that enhance productivity and promote efficient collaboration in your businessKey FeaturesSet up your own project in Google Workspace and improve your ability to interact with different servicesUnderstand how a combination of options can help businesses audit their data to be highly secureDeploy Google Workspace, configure users, and migrate data using Google WorkspaceBook DescriptionGoogle Workspace has evolved from individual Google services to a suite of apps that improve productivity and promote efficient collaboration in an enterprise organization.This book takes you through the evolution of Google Workspace, features included in each Workspace edition, and various core services, such as Cloud Identity, Gmail, and Calendar. You'll explore the functionality of each configuration, which will help you make informed decisions for your organization. Later chapters will show you how to implement security configurations that are available at different layers of Workspace and also how Workspace meets essential enterprise compliance needs. You'll gain a high-level overview of the core services available in Google Workspace, including Google Apps Script, AppSheet, and Google Cloud Platform. Finally, you'll explore the different tools Google offers when you're adopting Google Cloud and migrating your data from legacy mail servers or on-premises applications over to cloud servers.By the end of this Google Workspace book, you'll be able to successfully deploy Google Workspace, configure users, and migrate data, thereby helping with cloud adoption.What you will learnManage and configure users in your organization's Workspace accountProtect email messages from phishing attacksExplore how to restrict or allow certain Marketplace apps for your usersManage all endpoints connecting to Google WorkspaceUnderstand the differences between Marketplace apps and add-ons that access Drive dataManage devices to keep your organization's data secureMigrate to Google Workspace from existing enterprise collaboration toolsWho this book is forThis book is for admins as well as home users, business users, and power users looking to improve their efficiency while using Google Workspace. Basic knowledge of using Google Workspace services is assumed.
Googled
by Ken AulettaA revealing, forward-looking examination of the outsize influence Google has had on the changing media Landscape. There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. As only he can, bestselling author Ken Auletta takes readers for a ride on the Google wave, telling the story of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses?from newspapers to books, to television, to movies, to telephones, to advertising, to Microsoft. With unprecedented access to Google?s founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined. Using Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution, Auletta takes readers inside Google?s closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google?s notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with?and against?them. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account ever told of Google?s rise, shares the ?secret sauce? of Google?s success, and shows why the worlds of ?new? and ?old? media often communicate as if residents of different planets. Google engineers start from an assumption that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient, an approach that has yielded remarkable results? Google will generate about $20 billion in advertising revenues this year, or more than the combined prime-time ad revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. And with its ownership of YouTube and its mobile phone and other initiatives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Auletta his company is poised to become the world?s first $100 billion media company. Yet there are many obstacles that threaten Google?s future, and opposition from media companies and government regulators may be the least of these. Google faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. In coming years, Google?s faith in mathematical formulas and in slide rule logic will be tested, just as it has been on Wall Street. Distilling the knowledge accrued from a career of covering the media, Auletta will offer insights into what we know, and don?t know, about what the future holds for the imperiled industry.
Googled
by Ken AulettaThere are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. This is a ride on the Google wave, and the fullest account of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses. With unprecedented access to Google's founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Ken Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined. Auletta goes inside Google's closed-door meetings, introducing Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with - and against - them. In Googled, the reader discovers the 'secret sauce' of the company's success and why the worlds of 'new' and 'old' media often communicate as if residents of different planets. It may send chills down traditionalists' spines, but it's a crucial roadmap to the future of media business: the Google story may well be the canary in the coal mine. Googled is candid, objective and authoritative. Crucially, it's not just a history or reportage: it's ahead of the curve and unlike any other Google books, which tend to have been near-histories, somewhat starstruck, now out of date or which fail to look at the full synthesis of business and technology.
Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?
by David A. Garvin Alison Berkley Wagonfeld Liz KindGoogle's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes, designed to help Google employees become better managers. By November 2012, the program had been in place for several years, and the company could point to statistically significant improvements in managerial effectiveness and performance. Now executives were wondering: how could Google build on the success of this project, extending it to senior leaders, teams, and other constituencies while striving to create truly amazing managers?
GoPro: Becoming a Subscription Hero
by Elie Ofek Marco Bertini Nicole Tempest KellerIn 2021, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, was reviewing the company's subscription offering, considering whether to extend it beyond benefits that were directly related to the company's iconic camera. Founded in 2002, GoPro had gained renown for its innovative action camera. The brand became synonymous with living an active lifestyle and attracted a strong following on social media. GoPro was a Wall Street favorite when it went public in 2014 at $24 per share, rising to over $90 per share later that year. But just four years later the stock price had slid to $6 per share due to stagnating demand, inventory management issues, bloated expenses, and problems with new product launches. During the COVID-related retail slowdown in 2020, GoPro increased its direct-to-consumer footprint and aggressively marketed a new subscription. The stock price rebounded, in part due to investors placing a higher multiple on the predictable, recurring revenue generated by subscriptions. By 2021, however, subscription benefits were still largely tied to camera ownership. Woodman was considering whether GoPro could leverage its position as an active lifestyle brand to extend the subscription to benefits beyond the camera, similar to the way Amazon packed a host of benefits into Amazon Prime. Woodman saw enormous potential for GoPro's subscription and believed that, someday, it could even become the company's new flagship "product." But how much license did the brand have to grow beyond digital cameras and image capture? What pricing options could the company explore for a bigger, better subscription? In concert with these decisions, should GoPro look to shift even more of its business away from retailers to direct sales?
Gorbachev: On My Country and the World
by Mikhail GorbachevHere is the whole sweep of the Soviet experiment and experience as told by its last steward. Drawing on his own experience, rich archival material, and a keen sense of history and politics, Mikhail Gorbachev speaks his mind on a range of subjects concerning Russia's past, present, and future place in the world. Here is Gorbachev on the October Revolution, Gorbachev on the Cold War, and Gorbachev on key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin. The book begins with a look back at 1917. While noting that tsarist Russia was not as backward as it is often portrayed, Gorbachev argues that the Bolshevik Revolution was inevitable and that it did much to modernize Russia. He strongly argues that the Soviet Union had a positive influence on social policy in the West, while maintaining that the development of socialism was cut short by Stalinist totalitarianism. In the next section, Gorbachev considers the fall of the USSR. What were the goals of perestroika? How did such a vast superpower disintegrate so quickly? From the awakening of ethnic tensions, to the inability of democrats to unite, to his own attempts to reform but preserve the union, Gorbachev retraces those fateful days and explains the origins of Russia's present crisis. But Gorbachev does not just train his critical eye on the past. He lays out a blueprint for where Russia needs to go in the next century, suggesting ways to strengthen the federation and achieve meaningful economic and political reforms. In the final section of the book, Gorbachev examines the "new thinking" in foreign policy that helped to end the Cold War and shows how such approaches could help resolve a range of current crises, including NATO expansion, the role of the UN, the fate of nuclear weapons, and environmental problems.Gorbachev: On My Country and the World reveals the unique vision of a man who was a powerful actor on the world stage and remains a keen observer of Russia's experience in the twentieth century.
Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines
by Nitin Nohria Mark Benson Anthony J. MayoA $385 million loss for the final months of fiscal year 1994 signaled Continental might go bankrupt. Could new CEO Gordon Bethune turn Continental around? Continental was in dire straits because the deregulation of the commercial airline industry in 1978 ushered in a new era focused on mergers and acquisitions and bitter employee-management relations. Venerable airline brands with a commitment to quality, like Continental, were prime takeover targets. After Texas Air Chairman Frank Lorenzo (HBS 1963) secured Continental in his hostile takeover bid, tensions escalated between Lorenzo and the old guard--especially when Lorenzo declared Continental bankrupt in the fall of 1983 and then fired and replaced half his staff with cheaper nonunion labor. In October 1994, five months after Continental exited its second bankruptcy, Bethune was elevated to CEO and created a Go Forward Plan to return Continental to profitability. Two years after unveiling the Go Forward Plan, Continental was at the top of the industry in a number of important performance metrics.
Gordon Brothers: Collateralizing Corporate Loans by Brands
by Paul M. Healy Maria LoumiotiThe case explores the collateralization of intellectual property in a loan agreement between a highly leveraged apparel company and a large US bank. Leveraging intangibles in the credit market is a new practice that has significantly grown over the past few years. However, estimating their liquidation value is not directly intuitive, since intangibles are highly illiquid assets and have uncertain future cash flows. Can banks reliably secure corporate loans by intellectual property, and how can they alleviate the challenges in estimating a loan-to-value ratio for this collateral?
The Gordon File: A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Years of FBI Surveillance
by Bernard GordonFor twenty-six years, the FBI devoted countless hours of staff time and thousands of U. S. taxpayer dollars to the surveillance of an American citizen named Bernard Gordon. Given the lavish use of resources, one might assume this man was a threat to national security or perhaps a kingpin of organized crime-not a Hollywood screenwriter whose most subversive act was joining the Communist Party during the 1940s when we were allied with the USSR in a war against Germany. For this honest act of political dissent, Gordon came to be investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, blacklisted by the Hollywood film industry, and tailed by the FBI for over two decades. In The Gordon File, Bernard Gordon tells the compelling, cautionary story of his life under Bureau surveillance. Drawing on his FBI file of over 300 pages, which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he traces how the Bureau followed him from Hollywood to Mexico, Paris, London, Rome, and even aboard a Dutch freighter as he created an unusually successful, albeit uncredited, career as a screenwriter and producer during the blacklist years. Comparing his actual activities during that time to records in the file, he pointedly and often humorously underscores how often the FBI got it wrong, from the smallest details of his life to the main fact of his not being a threat to national security. Most important, Gordon links his personal experience to the headlines of today, when the FBI is again assuming broad powers to monitor political dissidents it deems a threat to the nation. "Is it possible," he asks, "that books like this will help to move our investigative agencies from the job of blackmailing those who are critical of our imperfect democracy to arresting those who are truly out to destroy us?"
The Gorilla Game: Picking Winners in High Technology
by Paul Johnson Geoffrey A. Moore Tom KippolaThe Possibilities Are Staggering: Had you invested $10,000 in Cisco Systems back in early 1990, your investment would now be worth $3,650,000. Similarly, a $10,000 investment made in Microsoft in 1986 would be valued at more than $4,721,000 today. $10,000 invested in Yahoo! in 1996 would today be worth $317,000. How do you get in on those deals--especially if you're not a Silicon Valley insider? How do you buy the high-tech winners and avoid the losers? How do you find the Yahoo!s, Microsofts, and Ciscos of tomorrow? The answers are here, in this edition of the national bestseller The Gorilla Game. The book reveals the dynamics driving the market for high-tech stocks and out-lines the forces that catapult a select number of companies to "gorilla" status--dominating the markets they serve in the way that Yahoo! dominates internet portals, Microsoft dominates software operating systems, and Cisco dominates hardware for data networks. Follow the rules of The Gorilla Game and you will learn how to identify and invest in the "gorilla candidates" early on--while they are still fighting for dominance, and while their stocks are still cheap. When the dust clears and one company clearly attains leadership in its market, you'll reap the enormous returns that foresighted investors in high-tech companies deserve.
The Gorilla Gameition: Picking Winners in High Technology
by Geoffrey A. MooreThe Possibilities Are Staggering: Had you invested $10,000 in Cisco Systems back in early 1990, your investment would now be worth $3,650,000 Similarly, a $10,000 investment made in Microsoft in 1986 would be valued at more than $4,721,000 today $10,000 invested in Yahoo! in 1996 would today be worth $317,000 How do you get in on those deals-especially if you're not a Silicon Valley insider? How do you buy the high-tech win-ners and avoid the losers? How do you find the Yahoo!s, Microsofts, and Ciscos of tomorrow? The answers are here, in this newly revised edition of the national bestseller The Gorilla Game. The book reveals the dynamics driving the market for high-tech stocks and out-lines the forces that catapult a select number of compa-nies to "gorilla" status-dominating the markets they serve in the way that Yahoo! dominates internet portals, Microsoft dominates software operating systems, and Cisco dominates hardware for data networks. Follow the rules of The Gorilla Game and you will learn how to identify and invest in the "gorilla candidates" early on-while they are still fighting for dominance, and while their stocks are still cheap. When the dust clears and one company clearly attains leadership in its market, you'll reap the enormous returns that foresighted investors in high-tech companies deserve. This new edition of The Gorilla Game has been updated and revised throughout, with new focus and new insights into choosing the internet gorillas-the companies that are destined to dominate internet commerce. Bestselling author Geoffrey A. Moore is one of the world's leading consultants in high-tech marketing strategy. Here you'll find his groundbreaking ideas about tech-nology markets that made his previous books bestsellers, combined with the work of Paul Johnson, a top Wall Street technology analyst, and Tom Kippola, a high-tech consul-tant and highly successful private investor. Together they have discovered and played the gorilla game and now give readers the real rules for winning in the world of high-tech investing. Step by step you'll learn how to spot a high-tech market that is about to undergo rapid growth and development, how to identify and spread investments across the potential gorillas within the market, and how to narrow your investments to the single, emerging leader-the gorilla-as the market matures. High-tech investing can be extremely risky, but investors who learn to play the gorilla game can avoid many of the traps and pitfalls and instead start capitalizing on untold profits. Personal wealth is only a gorilla game away.
The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography)
by Randy FertelThe Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak is the story of two larger-than-life characters and the son whom their lives helped to shape. Ruth Fertel was a petite, smart, tough-as-nails blonde with a weakness for rogues, who founded the Ruth's Chris Steak House empire almost by accident. Rodney Fertel was a gold-plated, one-of-a-kind personality, a railbird-heir to wealth from a pawnshop of dubious repute just around the corner from where the teenage Louis Armstrong and his trumpet were discovered. When Fertel ran for mayor of New Orleans on a single campaign promise-buying a pair of gorillas for the zoo-he garnered a paltry 308 votes. Then he purchased the gorillas anyway! These colorful figures yoked together two worlds not often connected-lazy rice farms in the bayous and swinging urban streets where ethnicities jazzily collided. A trip downriver to the hamlet of Happy Jack focuses on its French-Alsatian roots, bountiful tables, and self-reliant lifestyle that inspired a restaurant legend. The story also offers a close-up of life in the Old Jewish Quarter on Rampart Street-and how it intersected with the denizens of “Back a' Town,” just a few blocks away, who brought jazz from New Orleans to the world. The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak is a New Orleans story, featuring the distinctive characters, color, food, and history of that city-before Hurricane Katrina and after. But it also is the universal story of family and the full magnitude of outsize follies leavened with equal measures of humor, rage, and rue.