In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. Author Steven Levy in Conversation with NPR's Laura Sydell

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and admired as Google, the startup that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to show how Google works.

The Computer History Museum is pleased to be the first stop on Levy's book tour, and to have Levy and Sydell - who have both been reporting on Google for over a decade - on our stage to examine Google from the inside out. Their conversation will be wide ranging - including a look at Google's many successful businesses - due in large part according to Levy to its engineering mindset, and adoption of Internet values like speed, openness, experimentation and risk-taking. They will also discuss whether Google has lost its innovative edge, its stumble in China, its newest initiative in social networking where it’s chasing a successful competitor for the first time…and much more.

This event is part of our 2011 lecture series celebrating Revolutionaries, featuring conversations with and about some of the most distinguished thinkers in the computing field. The Revolutionaries lecture series complements the launch of the Computer History Museum's permanent exhibition, Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.