There is a footnote on Page 3 of the new book by Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and its former vice president of products, Jonathan Rosenberg, that should set readers’ expectations suitably low. The authors are describing Schmidt’s first years as C.E.O., when the board of directors was consumed with worry about its most formidable competitor, Microsoft. Back then Google employees, the authors write, referred to their archrival by a secret code name: “Finland.” It seems like a fresh if somewhat inexplicable detail, until the eye wanders down to the bottom of the page and this disclaimer: “In fact, ‘Finland’ is a code name for the code name we actually used. If we used the actual code name in this book, it wouldn’t be much of a code name, would it?”
