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Does anyone think that ‘don’t be evil’ is enough? Evil is basically the worst someone can be. You can be bad, wrong, repugnant, reprehensible, vicious, and mali

Does anyone think that ‘don’t be evil’ is enough? Evil is basically the worst someone can be. You can be bad, wrong, repugnant, reprehensible, vicious, and malignant and still not be evil. Honestly, why is there so much credit given to a company for saying ‘don’t be as bad as you can possibly imagine’ which is a pretty reasonable translation of ‘don’t be evil’.

alexryan 8y ago
Agreed. I like the idea of cultivating "the resolve to resolve" conflicts by transforming them into positive sum games wherein the tribe commits to finding a way to meet everyone's needs and unifying behind of mission of contribution rather than allowing conflicts to devolve into zero sum games which suck the soul out of a once great company and pave the way for its corruption.
vatueil 8y ago
Isn't that why Alphabet adopted "do the right thing" instead? Though that simply led to a lot of headlines about Google dropping "don't be evil" (with articles explaining that they actually didn't, if you read that far).
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Imagine if it had said "Don't be immoral." Think of the discussion there, whose morals? Googles? The employees? The country where the employee lives? In my mind, it is largely aspirational because it takes a back seat to 'make Google money.' Or perhaps making money is by definition not evil, so if you're making money by what you are doing it is transitively not evil. When I worked at Google, management explained it to be "Would you be embarrassed to be a Googler if what you were doing showed up on an article on the New York Times? If so then chances are its evil, don't do that." But then came Project Maven, a sort of real world test, and well that is still going on now isn't it?
- gowld 8y ago
  Is it obvious that fighting a war of defense is evil?
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    Is it obvious that is is not evil?
hedora 8y ago
The old joke that “it’s a command to the users, not the employees!” still applies, and I guess fits their increasing meddling with people’s behavior. Alternatively, “Do the right thing” could easily mean “correct” thing, as in the sentence, “If Dr. No did things the right way, he would have immediately killed Bond when he had the chance” They really can’t win either way.

alexryan 8y ago

Agreed. I like the idea of cultivating "the resolve to resolve" conflicts by transforming them into positive sum games wherein the tribe commits to finding a way to meet everyone's needs and unifying behind of mission of contribution rather than allowing conflicts to devolve into zero sum games which suck the soul out of a once great company and pave the way for its corruption.

vatueil 8y ago

Isn't that why Alphabet adopted "do the right thing" instead? Though that simply led to a lot of headlines about Google dropping "don't be evil" (with articles explaining that they actually didn't, if you read that far).

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Imagine if it had said "Don't be immoral." Think of the discussion there, whose morals? Googles? The employees? The country where the employee lives? In my mind, it is largely aspirational because it takes a back seat to 'make Google money.' Or perhaps making money is by definition not evil, so if you're making money by what you are doing it is transitively not evil. When I worked at Google, management explained it to be "Would you be embarrassed to be a Googler if what you were doing showed up on an article on the New York Times? If so then chances are its evil, don't do that." But then came Project Maven, a sort of real world test, and well that is still going on now isn't it?

gowld 8y ago
Is it obvious that fighting a war of defense is evil?
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  Is it obvious that is is not evil?

hedora 8y ago

The old joke that “it’s a command to the users, not the employees!” still applies, and I guess fits their increasing meddling with people’s behavior. Alternatively, “Do the right thing” could easily mean “correct” thing, as in the sentence, “If Dr. No did things the right way, he would have immediately killed Bond when he had the chance” They really can’t win either way.