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The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. It is a little unfair to think this problem exists only within Googl

The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. It is a little unfair to think this problem exists only within Google. Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. It is the system itself that does this, corporations evolve to survive and to thrive. That in of itself isn't a bad thing but you need checks and balances. Things like the Supreme Court saying that Corporations are people or all the money pouring into our political process those are things that have to change. Even the best of them will eventually become the worst of them. Google is now evil for sure, no doubt about that, but there have been and there will be many others.

kushti 9y ago
But others didn't start with "Do No Evil" motto (transformed now into "Do the Right Thing").
- notyourday 9y ago
  It really should say: "Lay with the dogs, wake up with the fleas"
  - KGIII 9y ago
    To be fair, it doesn't say for whom it is the right thing.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- bistro 9y ago
  Google's motto was never "do no evil". Previously, it was "don't be evil".
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    > Google's motto was never "do no evil". Previously, it was "don't be evil" They should probably use a motto that derives from Dungeons and Dragons' lawful/neutral/chaotic good/neutral/evil alignment system, just so we can be sure. Google would be lawful evil whereas Uber would be chaotic evil.
    - Raphmedia 9y ago
      "Don't be chaotic".
    - isoskeles 9y ago
      What's "evil" here?
      - waisbrot 9y ago
        In D&D's alignment system "evil" is close to "selfish". A lawful-good company would try to promote better security for all users. A chaotic-good company would tank the search-rankings of anyone who didn't implement better security. A lawful-evil company would track your every move and offer an opt-out system. A chaotic-evil company would have the opt-out form do nothing.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Soon to be "Just Do It" with "It" for unspecified moralities.
- pgodzin 9y ago
  Google's still is "Don't be evil", Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing"
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing" For the shareholders, of course. Does anyone else even matter?
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Isn't this, like, cynicism completely decoupled from reality? Google invests a lot of money and time in a myriad of projects with altruistic motivation. Google summer of code, $100 Million per year for non-profits, OSS releases such as tensorflow or Chrome, google.org and on and on. Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything right. Many of their regular products also straddle the border to altruism. Google Scholar doesn't seem to bring in much money, yet it's one of the most important tools for research. Electric, and self-drivings cars seem to be obvious wins for both the shareholder and humanity etc. etc. They've also created the model for the modern workplace: rooted first and foremost in trusting people to do the right thing, and letting follow their interest to a degree previously only seen at Bell Labs and similar institutions of a lost era. And where Bell Labs was possible because Bell was raking an incredible amount of money, Google has turned the causality around: their free-wheeling embrace of creativity is seem the world 'round as a reason for their success.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - kobeya 9y ago
        They're not going to invest in things that might disintermedate themselves.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - 9y ago
- gaius 9y ago
  That's a common misconception. It was really "do know evil".
  - quickben 9y ago
    At first I chuckled. Then I recalled few stories.
ktta 9y ago
The thing is, these sort of situations (creating dependence) are very hard to pick apart and point out who is at fault. Say an organization 'A' funds another organization 'B' (maybe non-profit, maybe not), and over time 'B' becomes very dependent on the donations they are getting from 'A'. Then say they start to have a conflict of interest, and 'A' drops funding(which probably kills 'B'). Who's the bad guy here? How should've 'B' known there might be a conflict of interest in the future if not immediately?
- gonmf 9y ago
  It's a simple issue, bar entities that should not have conflicts of interest from accepting gifts/investment/etc that could create a conflict of interest. It is appalling how US senators are allowed to receive gifts or be compensated in creative ways by companies.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    A second question then: how do you define a conflict of interest?
  - euyyn 9y ago
    But we're talking about a think tank, right? It's a private group of people that write about their opinions. Why shouldn't they have conflicts of interest?
  - foota 9y ago
    Afaik, us senators can't. Their campaigns can.
  - lbeltrame 9y ago
    Or you can limit the percentage of funds you can get from certain types of entities in order to reduce or prevent dependence. My current employer (a research no profit) has this limitation in its basic rules
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Those prohibitions are in place. I think you are confused...
throw2016 9y ago
Can anyone who needs to say 'don't be evil' really be trusted? It betrays a certain disingeniousness, an implicit assumption of unaccountable power and a conscious decision to adopt a strategy of placating the public with platitudes up front and maybe doing something altogether different behind the scenes. Power always concentrates itself and does strange things to people. Google, Facebook and a lot of the SV culture is beginning to look sinister, they don't seem grounded to human values and present a future vision that is cold, alienated, soulless and totalitarian in an techno-elitist way. You can't wish away people, and unemployed people create instability and an unviable system. Whether it is robotics or AI and keeping aside whether these are possible in any realistic way, for the people who accept this the only way to keep the system stable will involve evil.
fizixer 9y ago
Let me see, the title reads "Open Markets Applauds X" where X is a court verdict against those who're funding the think tank that produced the article. Regardless of the content of the article or the fairness of the court's decision, the title itself is inflammatory and nothing less than indicative of someone having a beef and thumbing their nose at Google. The lack of self-awareness on part of whoever came up with that title is astounding.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  I disagree that the title's author wasn't (self-)aware of Google being one of the think tank's sponsors; I think the author was indeed aware but somehow deluded themselves into thinking that the think tank could live up to the ideals of being truly independent while taking corporate funds. What title do you suggest could have been less inflammatory but still convey the same message?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - fizixer 9y ago
    > I disagree that the title's author wasn't (self-)aware of Google being one of the think tank's sponsors; I think the author was indeed aware but somehow deluded themselves into thinking that the think tank could live up to the ideals of being truly independent while taking corporate funds. Let me take it to an absurd extreme and suggest the following title: "Google Lost and Can Go Suck My D" Last I checked it still qualifies as "truly independent thinking". > What title do you suggest could have been less inflammatory but still convey the same message? Was something like "Open Markets and European Commission's Finding Regarding Google" too hard? edit: nitpick, but "Finding Against X" sounds incorrect. Finding is about something, not for or against. Verdict could be for or against. Given the title itself, I don't exactly have high expectations about the quality of the article which I haven't read yet.
    - unethical_ban 9y ago
      It's a think tank, not a newswire. It has policy positions and opinions. It's completely expected for them to write articles and titles applauding or "regretting" policy moves. Applauding and regretting and whatnot are both leagues more respectful than your outlandish example.
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
Google was never good. They only ever did what they thought fit their strategy at the time, to allow them to grow and make more money.
- blfr 9y ago
  Google was fantastic and contributed greatly to breaking the iron grip Microsoft had on the industry. They also completely changed the way we use the Internet, pushed network and security technologies forward and to the end user, and made sure iPhone/iOS have a worthy competition in the smartphone market. It is very sad that they went down the censorship path. Especially since the open web made Google Search a viable business in the first place.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    Anyone remember when they bought DoubleClick, one of the most reviled companies on the net?
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      One of their competitors?
  - quickben 9y ago
    Are you referring to http2? The binary standard they pushed to help them crawl better and make things less debugable for the rest of the network community that's mostly small entry developers?
  - josteink 9y ago
    > Google was fantastic and contributed greatly to breaking the iron grip Microsoft had on the industry. Now Google has the iron grip instead, and over the entire internet. Tell me again how this was an improvement.
- debacle 9y ago
  That's revisionist and silly.
derping69 9y ago
I've never seen anything like the censoring by Google and Youtube over the last few weeks. Ron Paul of all people got all his videos demonetized for being "controversial". The most disgusting thing to me is that they don't delete the videos because they don't actually break any policies but they instead remove them from search and remove the ability to comment or share the videos, stifling any potential discussion.
- adventured 9y ago
  I think the only reason people aren't yet as afraid of Google as they were Microsoft circa 1996-2000, is that Google has yet to fully flex its ability to abuse its monopoly (not to mention there are a few other equally powerful juggernaut companies roaming tech now). That appears to be starting to change. No question the anti-trust hearings come next, the DOJ will pursue them over the next five years. The supposedly business friendly Republicans now view them as a left-wing enemy, so a party shield (regarding anti-trust intervention) will not exist going forward. Obama kept them from DOJ interest during his time in office because of how close they all were, that's also not likely to be seen again in a future Democrat administration. Should be easy to carve them into pieces, with search + adsense + adwords on one side, and one or two other companies getting everything else. The new Search Co would then be put under a ten year government dictated operational agreement that would limit some of its abusive behavior.
mozumder 9y ago
This would matter if think-tanks were independent academic research organizations. They aren't. They're basically mini-PACs or mini-ad agencies. You pay them to publish research that supports your corporate positions. That's how they make money. Calling them "evil" is like calling a customer "evil".
CalChris 9y ago
This is Schmidt acting thru one of his private foundations. It is his money. This isn't Google.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  It's pretty disingenuous to consider Schmidt's personal conduct and wealth as separate of Google. As Alphabet's board chairman, he's the third in charge of the company, and is usually the one conveying Google's political position to the leadership of various countries. And a significant portion of his wealth is either cash from Google or stock that's still invested in Google. The primary difference in it being his personal action, is that there's a lot less regulation governing his use of it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rpedela 9y ago
  Didn't the article say Google, not Schmidt, gave $21 million to the think tank?
  - CalChris 9y ago
    I wasn't responding to the article. I was responding to fowlerpower's comment: > The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. And as for the article, it says: > The New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation since the think tank’s founding in 1999. So yes, Google did contribute. But so did Schmidt and his family foundation. I think this is mostly on Schmidt personally rather than Google as a corporation.
    - Jesus_Jones 9y ago
      I think they are indistinguishable here. Google and Schmidt both gave money, Schmidt is the executive chairman of google, so there's no distance between them.
otakucode 9y ago
Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. If every significant avenue of communication used by people is controlled and censored by a group, no matter who it is, there is no option for progress. Any attempt to change social values will inevitably run up against a wall of not being able to actually express proof that societies values have changed. Imagine if tomorrow every human being on Earth woke up realizing nudity is a strange thing to get worked up about. What would happen? The idea would die, isolated, because even if people said they thought nudity was fine, they could never prove it as the communications networks they use would censor out anything containing nudity, stultifying culture and freezing it to whatever was acceptable in the early 2000s.
- kylestlb 9y ago
  As to your first paragraph, many companies and founders would say the the same thing, no? "We want to change the world by doing X (through their business)". Also, what other metric for success is there in the current culture of the USA other than business success? Not that I'm saying that's bad or good...
  - mercer 9y ago
    I think you're correct, but the scary thing in this case is that Google/Alphabet might actually be able to do it, for better and worse.
- mercer 9y ago
  > Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. Which book, and could you perhaps share some excerpts, or a link with more information?
- xienze 9y ago
  > and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. Because they're pushing the progressive agenda, so who in the media, government, or academia is going to stand in their way? As far as those parties are concerned, Google is doing what corporations "should" do.
hgsigala 9y ago
If folks want to join the movement the staff is building, you can get involved here: https://citizensagainstmonopoly.org/ https://citizensagainstmonopoly.org/ If you want to do more than that, here is some more information on the staff, story and other action items: https://goo.gl/9a7KkC https://goo.gl/9a7KkC
- DrScump 9y ago
  Using URL shorteners here in general is inappropriate. Choosing to use Google's URL shortener in this context is beyond ironic.
  - epipping 9y ago
    The target of the link is actually something hosted on Google Docs as http://checkshorturl.com/expand.php?u=https://goo.gl/9a7KkC http://checkshorturl.com/expand.php?u=https://goo.gl/9a7KkC will tell you so in this particular case it does not make a difference.
khana 9y ago
Nailed it. Thank you.
chaostheory 9y ago
> The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. This is the price for being a public C-corp. There are very few people in history who can withstand the short term mob mentality of shareholders - in my mind only Jobs, Bezos, and Musk could do it... and survive. (imo Not even Bill Gates or Edison could do it) Maybe for other companies this can be mitigated by becoming a B-corp instead i.e public benefit company
- scott00 9y ago
  Larry and Sergey own super-voting shares and can outvote all other shareholders combined.
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    Sure, but is Google's motto still "don't be evil"? They may be able to potentially wield a big stick, but what's its use when they'll never use it and push back? they've been strong armed by Wall St to the point where they've kowtow enough to drastically change Google in not so great ways. In their defense, very few people can do better
    - scott00 9y ago
      Why do you think Wall Street strong armed them into dropping the motto? Isn't it more likely that the people in charge simply changed their minds about the best way to run the company? And, given the lack of formal control, what mechanism did Wall Street use?
      - chaostheory 9y ago
        Are most leaders of publicly traded companies immune from wall st analyst quarterly estimates and projections? Do they not greatly affect the company's share price?
        scott00 9y ago
matt4077 9y ago
What? Wait! I can't follow... The article doesn't even say that Schmidt called for the guy's head. It seems to have been the Foundation's decision. That's arguably a spineless move, but then again it's probably in their interest. And what, exactly, would be ethically wrong about stopping funding for an institution you no longer agree with? After all, every single donation to charity is based on the principle that those giving agree with the organisations' aims. If the ACLU started a large campaign arguing for the extinction of puppies, would I be ethically wrong to quit? If you want research isolated from such pressures, your best bet happens to be government, by the way. There are layers upon layers of isolation between the funding decision and actual scientists that, apart from the occasional right-wing propaganda misrepresenting individual projects, you're measured by the only yardstick that should count: how many papers you get into high impact journals.
- Jesus_Jones 9y ago
  Are you being oblivious on purpose? It strains credibility to think that Schmidt and Google didn't like a blog post by a think tank they funded generously to criticize them. I'm pretty confident they acted to get it taken down and wanted him gone. Suppose that wasn't the case, what conceivable reason would there before for kicking them out? The tank says: "it was a shared decision to kick them out". The other side: "they kicked us out because of this".
  - matt4077 9y ago
    I'm not actually disagreeing with you. I just consider it somewhat possible that Schmidt simply complained, and the administrators got cold feet and made that decision. The people being fired are unlikely to know what Schmidt may or may not have discussed with the administration. Anyway, that's not the point. The question is: why should someone not be allowed to change their funding decisions when the organisations they're funding go down a path they disagree with? Why should anybody be forced to continue to finance people after they've become the opposition. Note also that Schmidt used to be the Chairman at this think tank, meaning that he is not just providing funding, but part of the academic community in its orbit, with a legitimate stake to disagree on the merits of the science.
90s-socal-kid 9y ago
> Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. Because if they didn't, they would be replaced by organizations (or people within the organization) who will. (I want to say that's Stanslaw Lem's law of bureaucracy?)

kushti 9y ago

But others didn't start with "Do No Evil" motto (transformed now into "Do the Right Thing").

notyourday 9y ago
It really should say: "Lay with the dogs, wake up with the fleas"
- KGIII 9y ago
  To be fair, it doesn't say for whom it is the right thing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
bistro 9y ago
Google's motto was never "do no evil". Previously, it was "don't be evil".
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  > Google's motto was never "do no evil". Previously, it was "don't be evil" They should probably use a motto that derives from Dungeons and Dragons' lawful/neutral/chaotic good/neutral/evil alignment system, just so we can be sure. Google would be lawful evil whereas Uber would be chaotic evil.
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    "Don't be chaotic".
  - isoskeles 9y ago
    What's "evil" here?
    - waisbrot 9y ago
      In D&D's alignment system "evil" is close to "selfish". A lawful-good company would try to promote better security for all users. A chaotic-good company would tank the search-rankings of anyone who didn't implement better security. A lawful-evil company would track your every move and offer an opt-out system. A chaotic-evil company would have the opt-out form do nothing.
wavefunction 9y ago
Soon to be "Just Do It" with "It" for unspecified moralities.
pgodzin 9y ago
Google's still is "Don't be evil", Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing"
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing" For the shareholders, of course. Does anyone else even matter?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Isn't this, like, cynicism completely decoupled from reality? Google invests a lot of money and time in a myriad of projects with altruistic motivation. Google summer of code, $100 Million per year for non-profits, OSS releases such as tensorflow or Chrome, google.org and on and on. Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything right. Many of their regular products also straddle the border to altruism. Google Scholar doesn't seem to bring in much money, yet it's one of the most important tools for research. Electric, and self-drivings cars seem to be obvious wins for both the shareholder and humanity etc. etc. They've also created the model for the modern workplace: rooted first and foremost in trusting people to do the right thing, and letting follow their interest to a degree previously only seen at Bell Labs and similar institutions of a lost era. And where Bell Labs was possible because Bell was raking an incredible amount of money, Google has turned the causality around: their free-wheeling embrace of creativity is seem the world 'round as a reason for their success.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - kobeya 9y ago
      They're not going to invest in things that might disintermedate themselves.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - 9y ago
gaius 9y ago
That's a common misconception. It was really "do know evil".
- quickben 9y ago
  At first I chuckled. Then I recalled few stories.

ktta 9y ago

The thing is, these sort of situations (creating dependence) are very hard to pick apart and point out who is at fault. Say an organization 'A' funds another organization 'B' (maybe non-profit, maybe not), and over time 'B' becomes very dependent on the donations they are getting from 'A'. Then say they start to have a conflict of interest, and 'A' drops funding(which probably kills 'B'). Who's the bad guy here? How should've 'B' known there might be a conflict of interest in the future if not immediately?

gonmf 9y ago
It's a simple issue, bar entities that should not have conflicts of interest from accepting gifts/investment/etc that could create a conflict of interest. It is appalling how US senators are allowed to receive gifts or be compensated in creative ways by companies.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  A second question then: how do you define a conflict of interest?
- euyyn 9y ago
  But we're talking about a think tank, right? It's a private group of people that write about their opinions. Why shouldn't they have conflicts of interest?
- foota 9y ago
  Afaik, us senators can't. Their campaigns can.
- lbeltrame 9y ago
  Or you can limit the percentage of funds you can get from certain types of entities in order to reduce or prevent dependence. My current employer (a research no profit) has this limitation in its basic rules
- kobeya 9y ago
  Those prohibitions are in place. I think you are confused...

throw2016 9y ago

Can anyone who needs to say 'don't be evil' really be trusted? It betrays a certain disingeniousness, an implicit assumption of unaccountable power and a conscious decision to adopt a strategy of placating the public with platitudes up front and maybe doing something altogether different behind the scenes. Power always concentrates itself and does strange things to people. Google, Facebook and a lot of the SV culture is beginning to look sinister, they don't seem grounded to human values and present a future vision that is cold, alienated, soulless and totalitarian in an techno-elitist way. You can't wish away people, and unemployed people create instability and an unviable system. Whether it is robotics or AI and keeping aside whether these are possible in any realistic way, for the people who accept this the only way to keep the system stable will involve evil.

fizixer 9y ago

Let me see, the title reads "Open Markets Applauds X" where X is a court verdict against those who're funding the think tank that produced the article. Regardless of the content of the article or the fairness of the court's decision, the title itself is inflammatory and nothing less than indicative of someone having a beef and thumbing their nose at Google. The lack of self-awareness on part of whoever came up with that title is astounding.

sah2ed 9y ago
I disagree that the title's author wasn't (self-)aware of Google being one of the think tank's sponsors; I think the author was indeed aware but somehow deluded themselves into thinking that the think tank could live up to the ideals of being truly independent while taking corporate funds. What title do you suggest could have been less inflammatory but still convey the same message?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fizixer 9y ago
  > I disagree that the title's author wasn't (self-)aware of Google being one of the think tank's sponsors; I think the author was indeed aware but somehow deluded themselves into thinking that the think tank could live up to the ideals of being truly independent while taking corporate funds. Let me take it to an absurd extreme and suggest the following title: "Google Lost and Can Go Suck My D" Last I checked it still qualifies as "truly independent thinking". > What title do you suggest could have been less inflammatory but still convey the same message? Was something like "Open Markets and European Commission's Finding Regarding Google" too hard? edit: nitpick, but "Finding Against X" sounds incorrect. Finding is about something, not for or against. Verdict could be for or against. Given the title itself, I don't exactly have high expectations about the quality of the article which I haven't read yet.
  - unethical_ban 9y ago
    It's a think tank, not a newswire. It has policy positions and opinions. It's completely expected for them to write articles and titles applauding or "regretting" policy moves. Applauding and regretting and whatnot are both leagues more respectful than your outlandish example.

2muchcoffeeman 9y ago

Google was never good. They only ever did what they thought fit their strategy at the time, to allow them to grow and make more money.

blfr 9y ago
Google was fantastic and contributed greatly to breaking the iron grip Microsoft had on the industry. They also completely changed the way we use the Internet, pushed network and security technologies forward and to the end user, and made sure iPhone/iOS have a worthy competition in the smartphone market. It is very sad that they went down the censorship path. Especially since the open web made Google Search a viable business in the first place.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Anyone remember when they bought DoubleClick, one of the most reviled companies on the net?
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    One of their competitors?
- quickben 9y ago
  Are you referring to http2? The binary standard they pushed to help them crawl better and make things less debugable for the rest of the network community that's mostly small entry developers?
- josteink 9y ago
  > Google was fantastic and contributed greatly to breaking the iron grip Microsoft had on the industry. Now Google has the iron grip instead, and over the entire internet. Tell me again how this was an improvement.
debacle 9y ago
That's revisionist and silly.

derping69 9y ago

I've never seen anything like the censoring by Google and Youtube over the last few weeks. Ron Paul of all people got all his videos demonetized for being "controversial". The most disgusting thing to me is that they don't delete the videos because they don't actually break any policies but they instead remove them from search and remove the ability to comment or share the videos, stifling any potential discussion.

adventured 9y ago
I think the only reason people aren't yet as afraid of Google as they were Microsoft circa 1996-2000, is that Google has yet to fully flex its ability to abuse its monopoly (not to mention there are a few other equally powerful juggernaut companies roaming tech now). That appears to be starting to change. No question the anti-trust hearings come next, the DOJ will pursue them over the next five years. The supposedly business friendly Republicans now view them as a left-wing enemy, so a party shield (regarding anti-trust intervention) will not exist going forward. Obama kept them from DOJ interest during his time in office because of how close they all were, that's also not likely to be seen again in a future Democrat administration. Should be easy to carve them into pieces, with search + adsense + adwords on one side, and one or two other companies getting everything else. The new Search Co would then be put under a ten year government dictated operational agreement that would limit some of its abusive behavior.

mozumder 9y ago

This would matter if think-tanks were independent academic research organizations. They aren't. They're basically mini-PACs or mini-ad agencies. You pay them to publish research that supports your corporate positions. That's how they make money. Calling them "evil" is like calling a customer "evil".

CalChris 9y ago

This is Schmidt acting thru one of his private foundations. It is his money. This isn't Google.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
It's pretty disingenuous to consider Schmidt's personal conduct and wealth as separate of Google. As Alphabet's board chairman, he's the third in charge of the company, and is usually the one conveying Google's political position to the leadership of various countries. And a significant portion of his wealth is either cash from Google or stock that's still invested in Google. The primary difference in it being his personal action, is that there's a lot less regulation governing his use of it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rpedela 9y ago
Didn't the article say Google, not Schmidt, gave $21 million to the think tank?
- CalChris 9y ago
  I wasn't responding to the article. I was responding to fowlerpower's comment: > The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. And as for the article, it says: > The New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation since the think tank’s founding in 1999. So yes, Google did contribute. But so did Schmidt and his family foundation. I think this is mostly on Schmidt personally rather than Google as a corporation.
  - Jesus_Jones 9y ago
    I think they are indistinguishable here. Google and Schmidt both gave money, Schmidt is the executive chairman of google, so there's no distance between them.

otakucode 9y ago

Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. If every significant avenue of communication used by people is controlled and censored by a group, no matter who it is, there is no option for progress. Any attempt to change social values will inevitably run up against a wall of not being able to actually express proof that societies values have changed. Imagine if tomorrow every human being on Earth woke up realizing nudity is a strange thing to get worked up about. What would happen? The idea would die, isolated, because even if people said they thought nudity was fine, they could never prove it as the communications networks they use would censor out anything containing nudity, stultifying culture and freezing it to whatever was acceptable in the early 2000s.

kylestlb 9y ago
As to your first paragraph, many companies and founders would say the the same thing, no? "We want to change the world by doing X (through their business)". Also, what other metric for success is there in the current culture of the USA other than business success? Not that I'm saying that's bad or good...
- mercer 9y ago
  I think you're correct, but the scary thing in this case is that Google/Alphabet might actually be able to do it, for better and worse.
mercer 9y ago
> Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. Which book, and could you perhaps share some excerpts, or a link with more information?
xienze 9y ago
> and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. Because they're pushing the progressive agenda, so who in the media, government, or academia is going to stand in their way? As far as those parties are concerned, Google is doing what corporations "should" do.

hgsigala 9y ago

If folks want to join the movement the staff is building, you can get involved here: https://citizensagainstmonopoly.org/ https://citizensagainstmonopoly.org/ If you want to do more than that, here is some more information on the staff, story and other action items: https://goo.gl/9a7KkC https://goo.gl/9a7KkC

DrScump 9y ago
Using URL shorteners here in general is inappropriate. Choosing to use Google's URL shortener in this context is beyond ironic.
- epipping 9y ago
  The target of the link is actually something hosted on Google Docs as http://checkshorturl.com/expand.php?u=https://goo.gl/9a7KkC http://checkshorturl.com/expand.php?u=https://goo.gl/9a7KkC will tell you so in this particular case it does not make a difference.

khana 9y ago

Nailed it. Thank you.

chaostheory 9y ago

> The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. This is the price for being a public C-corp. There are very few people in history who can withstand the short term mob mentality of shareholders - in my mind only Jobs, Bezos, and Musk could do it... and survive. (imo Not even Bill Gates or Edison could do it) Maybe for other companies this can be mitigated by becoming a B-corp instead i.e public benefit company

scott00 9y ago
Larry and Sergey own super-voting shares and can outvote all other shareholders combined.
- chaostheory 9y ago
  Sure, but is Google's motto still "don't be evil"? They may be able to potentially wield a big stick, but what's its use when they'll never use it and push back? they've been strong armed by Wall St to the point where they've kowtow enough to drastically change Google in not so great ways. In their defense, very few people can do better
  - scott00 9y ago
    Why do you think Wall Street strong armed them into dropping the motto? Isn't it more likely that the people in charge simply changed their minds about the best way to run the company? And, given the lack of formal control, what mechanism did Wall Street use?
    - chaostheory 9y ago
      Are most leaders of publicly traded companies immune from wall st analyst quarterly estimates and projections? Do they not greatly affect the company's share price?
      - scott00 9y ago

matt4077 9y ago

What? Wait! I can't follow... The article doesn't even say that Schmidt called for the guy's head. It seems to have been the Foundation's decision. That's arguably a spineless move, but then again it's probably in their interest. And what, exactly, would be ethically wrong about stopping funding for an institution you no longer agree with? After all, every single donation to charity is based on the principle that those giving agree with the organisations' aims. If the ACLU started a large campaign arguing for the extinction of puppies, would I be ethically wrong to quit? If you want research isolated from such pressures, your best bet happens to be government, by the way. There are layers upon layers of isolation between the funding decision and actual scientists that, apart from the occasional right-wing propaganda misrepresenting individual projects, you're measured by the only yardstick that should count: how many papers you get into high impact journals.

Jesus_Jones 9y ago
Are you being oblivious on purpose? It strains credibility to think that Schmidt and Google didn't like a blog post by a think tank they funded generously to criticize them. I'm pretty confident they acted to get it taken down and wanted him gone. Suppose that wasn't the case, what conceivable reason would there before for kicking them out? The tank says: "it was a shared decision to kick them out". The other side: "they kicked us out because of this".
- matt4077 9y ago
  I'm not actually disagreeing with you. I just consider it somewhat possible that Schmidt simply complained, and the administrators got cold feet and made that decision. The people being fired are unlikely to know what Schmidt may or may not have discussed with the administration. Anyway, that's not the point. The question is: why should someone not be allowed to change their funding decisions when the organisations they're funding go down a path they disagree with? Why should anybody be forced to continue to finance people after they've become the opposition. Note also that Schmidt used to be the Chairman at this think tank, meaning that he is not just providing funding, but part of the academic community in its orbit, with a legitimate stake to disagree on the merits of the science.

90s-socal-kid 9y ago

> Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. Because if they didn't, they would be replaced by organizations (or people within the organization) who will. (I want to say that's Stanslaw Lem's law of bureaucracy?)