7 ms·

At least to some extent, this is a "Hegelian pendulum." In the beginning there where black suited corporate drones. They coded black and white "calculation sol

by netcan 8y ago

At least to some extent, this is a "Hegelian pendulum." In the beginning there where black suited corporate drones. They coded black and white "calculation solutions" for the enterprising enterprise. Then came colour. Gates wanted cheap computers on every desk. Jobs wanted colour computers for every artist. Mission. Meaning. This worked better, especially if you needed employees to invent things. Can't invent the iPhone wearing a suit writing business requiremnt compendiums. Startups hired world changers and made a customer and emloyee happiness index. Google wrote "Don't be evil" on a chalkboard. Gmail was better than outlook. All was good. Then some tension surfaced. Advertisers thought they would be happier tracking users. Users thought this was creepy. Making generals happy did not make employees happy. Someone erased "don't be evil" from the blackboard. Back to square one. Google (and "SV") have spent 2 decades telling everyone about their open and selfless ideologies. People bought it. They went to work for Google instead of a bank. Now, they use euphemisms and secrecy to avoid saying stuff that sounds bad. Btw... It's interesting how iconic "don't be evil" was as a slogan. They couldn't live up to it, but that doesn't mean it didn't impact.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bitL 8y ago
In the past one could escape "evil" environment in private life; now with overreaching/intrusive tech on a global scale and companies losing their initial (even if only public) philosophies under the pressure of making more profit after reaching market saturation that possibility is going to be vastly reduced, and only then we will see what they are really capable of (with warning signs already popping up).
bilbo0s 8y ago
>Google (and "SV") have spent 2 decades telling everyone about their open and selfless ideologies. People bought it. They went to work for Google instead of a bank... Let's inject a little honesty into this discussion. People didn't flock to google et al in droves because of google's selfless ideology. That was coincidental. People flocked to google because they wanted to get rich. Especially in the early days when google touted their "don't be evil" philosophy. For the techies going to work for google, it was never about not being evil. It was about getting rich. We, as technologists, certainly knew and understood the dangers of companies like Facebook and Google from early on. (Again, if we're being honest, that understanding of the danger is one reason many of us don't even have a facebook.) But we compartmentalize. What we would put on our own home systems rarely reflects what we would put on work systems if someone is paying us enough money. What we would develop in hobby time is, again, very different than what we would develop if someone is paying us a lot of money. I get it. We have to feed our families. I'm not faulting anyone. I'm just saying that it's a bit revisionist to put forth the "google/facebook/whoever tricked us into working for them" narrative. Most of us understood what google and facebook were going in.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  good try but.. the Google'rs originally wanted to "index the worlds information" .. very, very smart engineers are motivated by that alone. They were competitive and highly-achieving coders from Berkeley-Stanford-MIT-CalTech-thatOtherOneIForget in an elite team environment.. There were ten other well-funded companies trying to be search engines with lots of publicity.. Google outperformed them.. In hindsight, after the money with so many zeroes, it is tempting to rewrite history, but this short "it was the money" doesnt tell the story
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    That techies were motivated by riches is not hindsight. Google, pre-ipo, sucked in so much intellectual capital that other startups, my own included, were having trouble getting access to the elite techies at prices we could afford. Their salaries were well above market, and their options were clearly going to be worth more than everyone else' at the time. And don't even get me started on Facebook. That one of facebook's early investors was the VC wing of the CIA was an open secret. Yet techies still flocked to them for the big paychecks and the options. And good for those guys. For the vast majority of them, it worked out REALLY well. I don't fault them for any of it. I just think that you're putting on rose colored glasses here. It was clear long before Google IPO'd, that there was a lot of money to be made. (That much was even clear before keyword auctions as a matter of fact.) And everyone wanted to be in on it. Everyone still wants to get in on the hot startups. Whether those startups are profitable or not. That's just the nature of this business. Now again, I'm not complaining. That's just how the tech startup industry works. I get that. My issue is with everyone trying to turn it all around and act like a giant gold rush never blinded everyone. As if all those techies flocked to SV because it was all just about making the world a better place. That's just not true.
    - netcan 8y ago
      This isn't an all-in-one or all-out thing. Of course money was a consideration. But, Google (and sv 2.0 generally) did both present and to an extent, live up to a certain ethic. Not perfectly, not without some hypocrisy but they did have an ethic. The sold it to their employees (and others). Today, they have trouble living up to it. People got disillusioned or upset. That is what we're talking about it. I agree that these people joined a company, not a monestary. But, 10 years ago working at Google was easier to be proud of, on an ethical/esthetic level.
slimshady94 8y ago
Well expressed. I look forward to the next world-changing movement/technology/culture that'll make google/facebook look like the IBM/Microsoft of old. Hope it'll be soon, so that I'm still young enough to enjoy the next counter-culture.
honr 8y ago
Perhaps a correction, if we are talking about the phrase "don't be evil", literally, I can see it on: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Perhaps "erased" is not quite accurate.

by netcan 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bitL 8y ago

In the past one could escape "evil" environment in private life; now with overreaching/intrusive tech on a global scale and companies losing their initial (even if only public) philosophies under the pressure of making more profit after reaching market saturation that possibility is going to be vastly reduced, and only then we will see what they are really capable of (with warning signs already popping up).

bilbo0s 8y ago

>Google (and "SV") have spent 2 decades telling everyone about their open and selfless ideologies. People bought it. They went to work for Google instead of a bank... Let's inject a little honesty into this discussion. People didn't flock to google et al in droves because of google's selfless ideology. That was coincidental. People flocked to google because they wanted to get rich. Especially in the early days when google touted their "don't be evil" philosophy. For the techies going to work for google, it was never about not being evil. It was about getting rich. We, as technologists, certainly knew and understood the dangers of companies like Facebook and Google from early on. (Again, if we're being honest, that understanding of the danger is one reason many of us don't even have a facebook.) But we compartmentalize. What we would put on our own home systems rarely reflects what we would put on work systems if someone is paying us enough money. What we would develop in hobby time is, again, very different than what we would develop if someone is paying us a lot of money. I get it. We have to feed our families. I'm not faulting anyone. I'm just saying that it's a bit revisionist to put forth the "google/facebook/whoever tricked us into working for them" narrative. Most of us understood what google and facebook were going in.

mistrial9 8y ago
good try but.. the Google'rs originally wanted to "index the worlds information" .. very, very smart engineers are motivated by that alone. They were competitive and highly-achieving coders from Berkeley-Stanford-MIT-CalTech-thatOtherOneIForget in an elite team environment.. There were ten other well-funded companies trying to be search engines with lots of publicity.. Google outperformed them.. In hindsight, after the money with so many zeroes, it is tempting to rewrite history, but this short "it was the money" doesnt tell the story
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  That techies were motivated by riches is not hindsight. Google, pre-ipo, sucked in so much intellectual capital that other startups, my own included, were having trouble getting access to the elite techies at prices we could afford. Their salaries were well above market, and their options were clearly going to be worth more than everyone else' at the time. And don't even get me started on Facebook. That one of facebook's early investors was the VC wing of the CIA was an open secret. Yet techies still flocked to them for the big paychecks and the options. And good for those guys. For the vast majority of them, it worked out REALLY well. I don't fault them for any of it. I just think that you're putting on rose colored glasses here. It was clear long before Google IPO'd, that there was a lot of money to be made. (That much was even clear before keyword auctions as a matter of fact.) And everyone wanted to be in on it. Everyone still wants to get in on the hot startups. Whether those startups are profitable or not. That's just the nature of this business. Now again, I'm not complaining. That's just how the tech startup industry works. I get that. My issue is with everyone trying to turn it all around and act like a giant gold rush never blinded everyone. As if all those techies flocked to SV because it was all just about making the world a better place. That's just not true.
  - netcan 8y ago
    This isn't an all-in-one or all-out thing. Of course money was a consideration. But, Google (and sv 2.0 generally) did both present and to an extent, live up to a certain ethic. Not perfectly, not without some hypocrisy but they did have an ethic. The sold it to their employees (and others). Today, they have trouble living up to it. People got disillusioned or upset. That is what we're talking about it. I agree that these people joined a company, not a monestary. But, 10 years ago working at Google was easier to be proud of, on an ethical/esthetic level.

slimshady94 8y ago

Well expressed. I look forward to the next world-changing movement/technology/culture that'll make google/facebook look like the IBM/Microsoft of old. Hope it'll be soon, so that I'm still young enough to enjoy the next counter-culture.

honr 8y ago

Perhaps a correction, if we are talking about the phrase "don't be evil", literally, I can see it on: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Perhaps "erased" is not quite accurate.