Ken Auletta’s new book is a journalist’s take on the Google phenomenon. He conducted interviews with some 150 current and former Google employees as well as the CEO Eric Schmidt and the normally media-shy founders Larry and Sergey.

Read the transcript from the Charlie Rose interview. And the addendum of 25 media maxims to create a consequential media empire in the digital age. Full download after the jump…

25 Media Maxims

1. Passion wins
2. Focus is required
3. Vision is required
4. A team culture is vital
5. Treat engineers as kings
6. Treat customers like kings
7. Brand often means trust
8. Every company should strive to take the risks out of capitalism
9. Every company is a frenemy
10. The speed of change accelerates
     

In 2008, many of our national billionaires gave much of their fortunes away, involuntarily. From Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas and Macau casino billionaire who lost $24 billion ($24B) to Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and the Google guys, last year was a very difficult year to amass. Now who’s to say that losing “a few personal billion” when you still have “a few” is an innovation problem - it matters when these entrepreneurs pull back on progress and humanitarian giving to stem private losses.

Per Forbes, Warren Buffet lost $16.5B, Gates was down $12.3B and Google’s Larry Page lost more than half of his g-trove: $11.9B.