“When the spaceship lands in your backyard and the door opens, you just get in.” —or so says Mark Brandt, Director of Google’s Creative Labs division.

Well, it’s just not that simple, as Ken Auletta illustrates in this magnificently insightful look inside one of the world’s most remarkable business success stories. Auletta artfully navigates the questions that populate the quote from Brandt:

1. Who are these people?

2. Where did they come from?

3. How many of them are there “out there?”

4. What do they say?

5. Will they harm us?

6. Can we trust them?

7. How are they displacing established industries?

8. How have they made life more efficient for us?

9. What are the implications for their technological prowess in the future?

10. Where might these folks take us?

All these questions (and many more) are asked, answered, pondered and prodded. With the precision of a literary surgeon, Auletta explores every crook and cranny of this company, the people who inhabit it, lead it, are impacted by “them” — and the reality of living in a “Googled universe.” Auletta slices and dices this resident alien and then shares the results with those who inhabited this planet before their arrival, in prose that most all can comprehend.

Essential Reading For Every Earthling. A fabulous journey up the ramp and inside the good ship Google, and the minds, motives and machinery of those who are now deeply entrenched among us.

The phrase “The End of the World As We Know It” is always a precursor to “The Beginning of a Brave New World.”

To be informed is indispensible to being brave.

Like I said, Essential Reading For Every Earthling.