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I think you've got it backwards. Pretty sure Larry and Sergei don't give a rat's ass about advertisement, they just want to do cool tech (cf investment in AI a

by Jyaif 9y ago

I think you've got it backwards. Pretty sure Larry and Sergei don't give a rat's ass about advertisement, they just want to do cool tech (cf investment in AI and self driving cars, among many many other things). Advertisement revenue is a mean to do all this stuff.

HillaryBriss 9y ago
Keep in mind that their CFO (a former Wall Street Banker) keeps a careful eye on costs and spending: "CFO Ruth Porat is pushing Google “creatives” to bring their costs under control." http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women/ http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women...
AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
The co-founders of an enormous company that makes all its revenue from ads... Don't give a rats ass about them? Come on, now. Be reasonable.
lovich 9y ago
If that were true then they wouldn't have made decisions that benefited advertising over tech or the product. Do you think they didn't give a rats ass about advertisement when they disabled the "+" operator on search for anything other than google+?
the-dude 9y ago
Google was not a business when they only had search. When they came up with the revenue-model(ads), they became a business.
ironjunkie 9y ago
That opinion is typical of the overoptimistic tech guy that drinks the Silicon Valley Koolaid. The ONLY incentive for Google is amount of revenue, and that means ads. They are very good to market themselves as a friendly company that cares about engineering more than advertising, but that's Branding and Marketing! And you fell for it.
- drusepth 9y ago
  The comment you're responding to is referring to Larry and Sergey's motivations, while you're referring to Google (as a company)'s motivations. You both could very well be right. It's (almost always) in a company's best interest to focus on profit. That profit, however, is very often used as a means for the people in charge of that company to march towards their personal motivations, which may not always align 100% with the company (but often overlap enough for a mutual benefit).
cmurf 9y ago
Ends justifies the means? The arguments against this are ethics 101, it leads to extremism.
- rubatuga 9y ago
  Sure, if you're part of the Kantian ethics group. But in terms of utilitarianism, I would strongly argue that Google has done more good than harm.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Yeah coal and cigarette industries said the same thing, with blinders on, when all claims of health related problems were poopoo'd. They said no one could have known or imagined or predicted, even though they were and they did but it was dismissed by the gatekeepers. I see pretty much total shit knowledge of history, ethics, and philosophy in the tech industry. It intentionally has blinders on, zero imagination for anything other than the good intentions rails it's wants to believe it's on. Oh no one could have known, no one could have predicted, you had no evidence that these bad outcomes were possible. It'll be the same excuses we've seen before, because no one wanted to confront the possibility and how to mitigate complex interactions, they just want the ends because that alone justifies everything. That of course will be convenient when claiming a lack of responsibility for the outcome, shifting the blame, because only good was intended. Now trust us. And the reason why I increasingly don't trust tech, is because the language the industry uses is consistently dismissive of basic concepts in ethics, merely accepting assertions of "good intentions" as sufficient evidence of ethical behavior.
coliveira 9y ago
You must be kidding. Maybe this could be true for the founders, maybe they would still be nowadays developing cool technology even if it didn't make any money. This is NOT TRUE for Google. This is a company that exists solely to extract money in form of online advertisement. The moment search stops being the best vehicle for this purpose, they will boot out search to continue on their ways.

by Jyaif 9y ago

HillaryBriss 9y ago

Keep in mind that their CFO (a former Wall Street Banker) keeps a careful eye on costs and spending: "CFO Ruth Porat is pushing Google “creatives” to bring their costs under control." http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women/ http://fortune.com/google-cfo-ruth-porat-most-powerful-women...

AndrewUnmuted 9y ago

The co-founders of an enormous company that makes all its revenue from ads... Don't give a rats ass about them? Come on, now. Be reasonable.

lovich 9y ago

If that were true then they wouldn't have made decisions that benefited advertising over tech or the product. Do you think they didn't give a rats ass about advertisement when they disabled the "+" operator on search for anything other than google+?

the-dude 9y ago

Google was not a business when they only had search. When they came up with the revenue-model(ads), they became a business.

ironjunkie 9y ago

That opinion is typical of the overoptimistic tech guy that drinks the Silicon Valley Koolaid. The ONLY incentive for Google is amount of revenue, and that means ads. They are very good to market themselves as a friendly company that cares about engineering more than advertising, but that's Branding and Marketing! And you fell for it.

drusepth 9y ago
The comment you're responding to is referring to Larry and Sergey's motivations, while you're referring to Google (as a company)'s motivations. You both could very well be right. It's (almost always) in a company's best interest to focus on profit. That profit, however, is very often used as a means for the people in charge of that company to march towards their personal motivations, which may not always align 100% with the company (but often overlap enough for a mutual benefit).

cmurf 9y ago

Ends justifies the means? The arguments against this are ethics 101, it leads to extremism.

rubatuga 9y ago
Sure, if you're part of the Kantian ethics group. But in terms of utilitarianism, I would strongly argue that Google has done more good than harm.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Yeah coal and cigarette industries said the same thing, with blinders on, when all claims of health related problems were poopoo'd. They said no one could have known or imagined or predicted, even though they were and they did but it was dismissed by the gatekeepers. I see pretty much total shit knowledge of history, ethics, and philosophy in the tech industry. It intentionally has blinders on, zero imagination for anything other than the good intentions rails it's wants to believe it's on. Oh no one could have known, no one could have predicted, you had no evidence that these bad outcomes were possible. It'll be the same excuses we've seen before, because no one wanted to confront the possibility and how to mitigate complex interactions, they just want the ends because that alone justifies everything. That of course will be convenient when claiming a lack of responsibility for the outcome, shifting the blame, because only good was intended. Now trust us. And the reason why I increasingly don't trust tech, is because the language the industry uses is consistently dismissive of basic concepts in ethics, merely accepting assertions of "good intentions" as sufficient evidence of ethical behavior.

coliveira 9y ago

You must be kidding. Maybe this could be true for the founders, maybe they would still be nowadays developing cool technology even if it didn't make any money. This is NOT TRUE for Google. This is a company that exists solely to extract money in form of online advertisement. The moment search stops being the best vehicle for this purpose, they will boot out search to continue on their ways.