6 ms·

If you can find another company Google's size with a similar cultural drive to be a force for good in the world, you'll probably find their employees also have

If you can find another company Google's size with a similar cultural drive to be a force for good in the world, you'll probably find their employees also have vigorous debates about what's right and wrong.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Very few people think they are doing evil, most people think they are doing good. Humans first and foremost justify their actions. Google's overriding value is money. That's what they care about. If it wasn't that way they would operate differently. What it appears like is Google operates in a way that prioritizes money and then later justifies it with this notion of "doing good", but that's vague enough to literally mean anything. You think I'm exaggerating, but look at any number of organizations that have done things which nobody considers good and then look at how their members justify it. It always happens. How easy it to justify making 300k a year while pumping out walled garden mediocrity? It's really easy. Chiming in feels like sour grapes, but this notion that a massive corporation gives a fuck about anything but it's own existence doesn't seem realistic.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Isn't that like saying that a person's overriding value is food because they spend so much time and money on it, eating repeatedly throughout the day? When instead that's more a necessity for doing anything else. I agree that Google cares about making money, because without it they wouldn't have a company. But isn't it strong to say their overriding value is money? Contrast them with, say, the pre-Google search companies. Google was able to kick their asses because Google ignored higher short-term revenue (e.g., display ads) and focused on generating much more search value. Look at GMail, which was a money-loser for years. Or all of their blue-sky projects, the canceling of which would immediately improve their profitability. This is not to say that they're all buttercups and moonbeams. But I think they could be much greedier, and much more awful.
  - hueving 9y ago
    >and focused on generating much more search value. That's just a competitive strategy any company takes to displace incumbents. Hardly a moral high ground.
    - wpietri 9y ago
      I partly disagree, and I think you've created a false dichotomy. We can look at any economic activity through two lenses: "serves others" and "fills my pockets". The more companies focus only on the latter, the more they are scammy, extractive, or exploitative. The more companies focus on the former, the more value they create for their customers. But these things aren't mutually exclusive. They're independent. Companies that focus only on creating value while ignoring profit usually fail, as they aren't sustainable. Companies that focus only on profit usually fail, as customers realize they are getting taken for a ride. Some companies can do both well. I think Google is in that category. They create massive value without worrying too much about extracting every penny of cash. Which means that their overriding value isn't really money.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    They have much more money than necessity. If we're talking about eating they are foodies that spend $200 at every meal and give the scraps to the homeless guy on the way out. It's not that they don't do good, but how do you quantify that even? The singular value that drives it (beyond the differing political values and the variety of tech they put out) is a desire to make money. What value does the organization have that is more central to that? If it was otherwise they wouldn't have hired a CFO who was in Wall Street at the height of its misbehavior. It's been nearly 20 years since Google was the little guy. They're a massive corporation and many people have come and gone. The only constant is the need to make stockholders happy. That might be cynical, but I just think it's realistic about how the modern world operates. They could be worse but they could also be much more and describing basic business behavior as "doing good" kind of dilutes the term and covers up what is really just a big corp being a big corp, the same way that MS's commercials with Common talking about "changing the world" is really just a way of selling stuff. It's a meaningless mantra.
qznc 9y ago
I'm not sure. Bosch does fit the bill imho. It is mostly owned by a foundation [0] which tries "to be a force for good in the world". This global company has strong values [1] and 400k employees. I only joined it three months ago, but I already witnessed one case, where we denied a customer (car company) request because of end user security. It escalated quite a few levels up the management. On the other hand, Bosch had to pay a few millions in fines [2] recently. So you can as well argue that they are evil. Anyways, I don't see "vigorous debates" about moral issues as described in the article. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_Stiftung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_Stiftung [1] http://wearebosch.com http://wearebosch.com [2] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-962_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-962_en.htm

aaron-lebo 9y ago

Very few people think they are doing evil, most people think they are doing good. Humans first and foremost justify their actions. Google's overriding value is money. That's what they care about. If it wasn't that way they would operate differently. What it appears like is Google operates in a way that prioritizes money and then later justifies it with this notion of "doing good", but that's vague enough to literally mean anything. You think I'm exaggerating, but look at any number of organizations that have done things which nobody considers good and then look at how their members justify it. It always happens. How easy it to justify making 300k a year while pumping out walled garden mediocrity? It's really easy. Chiming in feels like sour grapes, but this notion that a massive corporation gives a fuck about anything but it's own existence doesn't seem realistic.

wpietri 9y ago
Isn't that like saying that a person's overriding value is food because they spend so much time and money on it, eating repeatedly throughout the day? When instead that's more a necessity for doing anything else. I agree that Google cares about making money, because without it they wouldn't have a company. But isn't it strong to say their overriding value is money? Contrast them with, say, the pre-Google search companies. Google was able to kick their asses because Google ignored higher short-term revenue (e.g., display ads) and focused on generating much more search value. Look at GMail, which was a money-loser for years. Or all of their blue-sky projects, the canceling of which would immediately improve their profitability. This is not to say that they're all buttercups and moonbeams. But I think they could be much greedier, and much more awful.
- hueving 9y ago
  >and focused on generating much more search value. That's just a competitive strategy any company takes to displace incumbents. Hardly a moral high ground.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I partly disagree, and I think you've created a false dichotomy. We can look at any economic activity through two lenses: "serves others" and "fills my pockets". The more companies focus only on the latter, the more they are scammy, extractive, or exploitative. The more companies focus on the former, the more value they create for their customers. But these things aren't mutually exclusive. They're independent. Companies that focus only on creating value while ignoring profit usually fail, as they aren't sustainable. Companies that focus only on profit usually fail, as customers realize they are getting taken for a ride. Some companies can do both well. I think Google is in that category. They create massive value without worrying too much about extracting every penny of cash. Which means that their overriding value isn't really money.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  They have much more money than necessity. If we're talking about eating they are foodies that spend $200 at every meal and give the scraps to the homeless guy on the way out. It's not that they don't do good, but how do you quantify that even? The singular value that drives it (beyond the differing political values and the variety of tech they put out) is a desire to make money. What value does the organization have that is more central to that? If it was otherwise they wouldn't have hired a CFO who was in Wall Street at the height of its misbehavior. It's been nearly 20 years since Google was the little guy. They're a massive corporation and many people have come and gone. The only constant is the need to make stockholders happy. That might be cynical, but I just think it's realistic about how the modern world operates. They could be worse but they could also be much more and describing basic business behavior as "doing good" kind of dilutes the term and covers up what is really just a big corp being a big corp, the same way that MS's commercials with Common talking about "changing the world" is really just a way of selling stuff. It's a meaningless mantra.

qznc 9y ago

I'm not sure. Bosch does fit the bill imho. It is mostly owned by a foundation [0] which tries "to be a force for good in the world". This global company has strong values [1] and 400k employees. I only joined it three months ago, but I already witnessed one case, where we denied a customer (car company) request because of end user security. It escalated quite a few levels up the management. On the other hand, Bosch had to pay a few millions in fines [2] recently. So you can as well argue that they are evil. Anyways, I don't see "vigorous debates" about moral issues as described in the article. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_Stiftung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_Stiftung [1] http://wearebosch.com http://wearebosch.com [2] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-962_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-962_en.htm