3 ms·

Were those expectations based on real observations, or did Google just get lucky with PR from the jump?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vanusa 5y ago
A real Googler can perhaps comment better than I. But in my hazy recollection, there did seem to be a time, long before the Andy Rubin payout, when the "Don't be evil" slogan was not quite the perverse caricature that it has become today.
- dekhn 5y ago
  It felt good to work at google up until about the time of the social debacle (starting with the cancellation of GOogle reader and ending with Larry Page handing CEO over to Sundar because Page finally realized he was a terrible leader). But let's be honest, Google was an Ads company that happened to run a Search website to attract traffic since ~2000.
  - incomplete 5y ago
    during my time there, we had a saying: "what ads wants, ads gets". anyways, IMHO, the beginnings of the end were: * when google search first landed in china * the initial few mass hiring events (2005-2008) * when they cancelled "social TGIFs" (TGIFs that your non-google friends could attend). i think this was 2008? the whole social debacle was just evidence that google had already lost that fight years previously...
- gaganyaan 5y ago
  Can't speak to internally, but public perception used to be very friendly to google. Relevant xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/792/ https://xkcd.com/792/
reaperducer 5y ago
Contrary to the shoe-pounding HN rhetoric, there are good companies and bad companies. Which one is often a function of the people running it at the highest levels. Very often companies are founded by good people with good intents, who end up leaving for one reason or another, and are taken over by people with a different set of values. I don't know enough about the internal workings of Google to say that's the case here. But from what I've read on HN, it does appear that Google's morals changed dramatically when its founders lost control of and influence in the company.
- mupuff1234 5y ago
  The founders never lost control, they're still the majority stockholder, they just stopped caring.
- nix0n 5y ago
  > there are good companies and bad companies Are there any large companies, that stayed good?
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Are there any large companies, that stayed good? Yes. However, the complication is that different people have differing ideas of what constitutes "good." The billion-dollar healthcare company I work for does stupid things sometimes, but overall I still quantify it as "good" because I see that the number of good things it does outnumbers the number of "bad" things it does by about 10,000:1. But if you're that one person, then you might consider it a "bad" company because you don't see the other 10,000 people who ended up with good things happening.
- zhengyi13 5y ago
  I don't think they lost control so much as consciously gave it up and stepped away.
matthewdgreen 5y ago
During the early phases of organization building, Google needed to build a huge army of engineers in a competitive hiring environment. To do that they had to convince potential hires that it would be morally acceptable to build the most sophisticated tracking/surveillance system in human history. (I don't think this was entirely cynical: I also think it was also necessary for the founders to convince themselves that this was all going to be ok.) Perhaps there's more, but that's the basic story behind "don't be evil." But obviously organizations change. Much of Google's infrastructure now exists and nobody needs to be convinced to build it. Google/Alphabet also has new corporate leadership that is more beholden to the company's shareholders. Of course, one could point out that this was inevitable from the beginning: corporations can temporarily behave in "moral" ways, but (absent outside pressure) they won't necessarily stay that way.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  I think also their free products (search, and then email) where so so good and miles ahead of the alternative that people also wanted to be convinced themselves that it was a "not evil" company. Still to the day, where there's ok alternatives and search and mail are riddled with spam problems, being Google-less is not straightforward and takes actual work. The mental energy can just be diverted into convincing yourself Google is not that bad or that everything is fine because everyone else is using it and you'll probably be ok.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

A real Googler can perhaps comment better than I. But in my hazy recollection, there did seem to be a time, long before the Andy Rubin payout, when the "Don't be evil" slogan was not quite the perverse caricature that it has become today.

dekhn 5y ago
It felt good to work at google up until about the time of the social debacle (starting with the cancellation of GOogle reader and ending with Larry Page handing CEO over to Sundar because Page finally realized he was a terrible leader). But let's be honest, Google was an Ads company that happened to run a Search website to attract traffic since ~2000.
- incomplete 5y ago
  during my time there, we had a saying: "what ads wants, ads gets". anyways, IMHO, the beginnings of the end were: * when google search first landed in china * the initial few mass hiring events (2005-2008) * when they cancelled "social TGIFs" (TGIFs that your non-google friends could attend). i think this was 2008? the whole social debacle was just evidence that google had already lost that fight years previously...
gaganyaan 5y ago
Can't speak to internally, but public perception used to be very friendly to google. Relevant xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/792/ https://xkcd.com/792/

reaperducer 5y ago

Contrary to the shoe-pounding HN rhetoric, there are good companies and bad companies. Which one is often a function of the people running it at the highest levels. Very often companies are founded by good people with good intents, who end up leaving for one reason or another, and are taken over by people with a different set of values. I don't know enough about the internal workings of Google to say that's the case here. But from what I've read on HN, it does appear that Google's morals changed dramatically when its founders lost control of and influence in the company.

mupuff1234 5y ago
The founders never lost control, they're still the majority stockholder, they just stopped caring.
nix0n 5y ago
> there are good companies and bad companies Are there any large companies, that stayed good?
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Are there any large companies, that stayed good? Yes. However, the complication is that different people have differing ideas of what constitutes "good." The billion-dollar healthcare company I work for does stupid things sometimes, but overall I still quantify it as "good" because I see that the number of good things it does outnumbers the number of "bad" things it does by about 10,000:1. But if you're that one person, then you might consider it a "bad" company because you don't see the other 10,000 people who ended up with good things happening.
zhengyi13 5y ago
I don't think they lost control so much as consciously gave it up and stepped away.

matthewdgreen 5y ago

During the early phases of organization building, Google needed to build a huge army of engineers in a competitive hiring environment. To do that they had to convince potential hires that it would be morally acceptable to build the most sophisticated tracking/surveillance system in human history. (I don't think this was entirely cynical: I also think it was also necessary for the founders to convince themselves that this was all going to be ok.) Perhaps there's more, but that's the basic story behind "don't be evil." But obviously organizations change. Much of Google's infrastructure now exists and nobody needs to be convinced to build it. Google/Alphabet also has new corporate leadership that is more beholden to the company's shareholders. Of course, one could point out that this was inevitable from the beginning: corporations can temporarily behave in "moral" ways, but (absent outside pressure) they won't necessarily stay that way.

pvarangot 5y ago
I think also their free products (search, and then email) where so so good and miles ahead of the alternative that people also wanted to be convinced themselves that it was a "not evil" company. Still to the day, where there's ok alternatives and search and mail are riddled with spam problems, being Google-less is not straightforward and takes actual work. The mental energy can just be diverted into convincing yourself Google is not that bad or that everything is fine because everyone else is using it and you'll probably be ok.