5 ms·

Was discussed already. Google is trying to do damage control and entertains that "do no evil" was not a bad idea but thats a thing of the past.

jkaplowitz 8y ago
Google's "Don't be evil" motto never vanished - it's still in their code of conduct. It got deemphasized from a wordy mention at the top, but its new right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read the whole document (as employees should) or who skip to the end. Their motto was never "do no evil" - that's a far harder standard given that undesired side effects happen for most actions.
- wu-ikkyu 8y ago
  >Their motto was never "do no evil" - that's a far harder standard given that undesired side effects happen for most actions. One's capacity for evil indeed grows greatly when one is given too much power. Likewise, as Google's power has grown inordinately, their public emphasis on "doing no evil" has diminished
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    Yup. Though I still don't think it needs a change in intention - i.e. more evil can still result from more power, more "machine learning with more data to assist and suggest to delight users", without any specific evil intent. They definitely aren't better than most companies in certain corporate matters related to the employee experience (especially for those who are in one or more marginalized demographics), or in their willingness to be a defense contractor at all (back on topic for this news item). They also make plenty of product and PR mistakes. Still, many tech companies are notably worse on many important issues: more willing to directly facilitate military weaponry and intelligence for lethal purposes, less top-notch at security, fewer and weaker privacy promises, bad at rigorously implementing and adhering to the privacy promises they do make, more in the habit of voluntarily sharing direct access to your personally identifiable data with third parties, less willing to tolerate employees complaining about privacy/security/harassment/workplace issues, etc. Overall I think Google needs to be watched closely, forced to do the right thing by some mixture of internal external pressure, possibly split into 2-4 smaller companies, and needs to fix certain culture problems .... but I still think it's among the better of the large trendy US tech companies, alongside Microsoft. And GCP is awesome. Disclosure: I used to work at Google, including the GCP team; my mention of Microsoft is based on second-hand information from people I know who do or did work there.
- Scea91 8y ago
  > its new right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read the whole document (as employees should) or who skip to the end. I really wonder what is the percentage of employees that read their company's code of conducts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 5 %.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    Yeah. They need to make it a youtube video.
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    Overall? You may very well be right. At Google? Based on my memories of the culture there, definitely higher than that. Certainly not 100% though, agreed.
- amelius 8y ago
  It's a stupid motto. Imagine that Disney used that motto, would you still send your children to DisneyLand? Or a restaurant saying "don't poison the guests", would you still eat there?
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    It's a motto meant as internal guidance, as befits something a code of conduct. Not something meant for marketing purposes. And yes, I'd like a restaurant to encourage its workers to take steps to ensure the food is safe.
    - amelius 8y ago
      > And yes, I'd like a restaurant to encourage its workers to take steps to ensure the food is safe. By telling them to not poison the guests? Do I really have to explain what's wrong here?
      - jkaplowitz 8y ago
        "Don't poison the guests" would be analogous to "don't do [a specific evil thing]." "Don't be evil" is more analogus to "don't get sloppy with hygiene." The second message is a good one for a restaurant to give its workers.
        amelius 8y ago
        The problem with Google's motto is that it's about intentional harm, whereas your example (being sloppy) is about unintentional harm.
bertil 8y ago
“Don’t be evil” was, from the second it was suggested by (I believe Paul Buchheit) a acknowledgement of failure. The story goes that the, then very young, company was trying to define their values and every suggestion, no matter how broad, was being shot down by a counter-example. Even “be good” was not enough because too vague, or not neutral enough. A young engineer tried to summarise that failure by a double-negative, which left all the moral undefined. I still think that this problem isn’t resolved: is the problem the existence of violence, its legitimate monopoly by a democratically elected temporary dictator, or that violence is being misused by jingoistic non-sense, and that the US armed forced are controlled by corporate interests? Is evading that question the most moral stance? I feel like it’s mainly an easier one to defend, rather than the better one.

jkaplowitz 8y ago

Google's "Don't be evil" motto never vanished - it's still in their code of conduct. It got deemphasized from a wordy mention at the top, but its new right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read the whole document (as employees should) or who skip to the end. Their motto was never "do no evil" - that's a far harder standard given that undesired side effects happen for most actions.

wu-ikkyu 8y ago
>Their motto was never "do no evil" - that's a far harder standard given that undesired side effects happen for most actions. One's capacity for evil indeed grows greatly when one is given too much power. Likewise, as Google's power has grown inordinately, their public emphasis on "doing no evil" has diminished
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  Yup. Though I still don't think it needs a change in intention - i.e. more evil can still result from more power, more "machine learning with more data to assist and suggest to delight users", without any specific evil intent. They definitely aren't better than most companies in certain corporate matters related to the employee experience (especially for those who are in one or more marginalized demographics), or in their willingness to be a defense contractor at all (back on topic for this news item). They also make plenty of product and PR mistakes. Still, many tech companies are notably worse on many important issues: more willing to directly facilitate military weaponry and intelligence for lethal purposes, less top-notch at security, fewer and weaker privacy promises, bad at rigorously implementing and adhering to the privacy promises they do make, more in the habit of voluntarily sharing direct access to your personally identifiable data with third parties, less willing to tolerate employees complaining about privacy/security/harassment/workplace issues, etc. Overall I think Google needs to be watched closely, forced to do the right thing by some mixture of internal external pressure, possibly split into 2-4 smaller companies, and needs to fix certain culture problems .... but I still think it's among the better of the large trendy US tech companies, alongside Microsoft. And GCP is awesome. Disclosure: I used to work at Google, including the GCP team; my mention of Microsoft is based on second-hand information from people I know who do or did work there.
Scea91 8y ago
> its new right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read the whole document (as employees should) or who skip to the end. I really wonder what is the percentage of employees that read their company's code of conducts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 5 %.
- dhimes 8y ago
  Yeah. They need to make it a youtube video.
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  Overall? You may very well be right. At Google? Based on my memories of the culture there, definitely higher than that. Certainly not 100% though, agreed.
amelius 8y ago
It's a stupid motto. Imagine that Disney used that motto, would you still send your children to DisneyLand? Or a restaurant saying "don't poison the guests", would you still eat there?
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  It's a motto meant as internal guidance, as befits something a code of conduct. Not something meant for marketing purposes. And yes, I'd like a restaurant to encourage its workers to take steps to ensure the food is safe.
  - amelius 8y ago
    > And yes, I'd like a restaurant to encourage its workers to take steps to ensure the food is safe. By telling them to not poison the guests? Do I really have to explain what's wrong here?
    - jkaplowitz 8y ago
      "Don't poison the guests" would be analogous to "don't do [a specific evil thing]." "Don't be evil" is more analogus to "don't get sloppy with hygiene." The second message is a good one for a restaurant to give its workers.
      - amelius 8y ago
        The problem with Google's motto is that it's about intentional harm, whereas your example (being sloppy) is about unintentional harm.

bertil 8y ago

“Don’t be evil” was, from the second it was suggested by (I believe Paul Buchheit) a acknowledgement of failure. The story goes that the, then very young, company was trying to define their values and every suggestion, no matter how broad, was being shot down by a counter-example. Even “be good” was not enough because too vague, or not neutral enough. A young engineer tried to summarise that failure by a double-negative, which left all the moral undefined. I still think that this problem isn’t resolved: is the problem the existence of violence, its legitimate monopoly by a democratically elected temporary dictator, or that violence is being misused by jingoistic non-sense, and that the US armed forced are controlled by corporate interests? Is evading that question the most moral stance? I feel like it’s mainly an easier one to defend, rather than the better one.