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Don't be evil, is not an anti-value. It's negatively-stated-yet-positive value. The article says people should state values as a tradeoff. So for google it sho
by d--b 5y ago
Don't be evil, is not an anti-value. It's negatively-stated-yet-positive value.
The article says people should state values as a tradeoff. So for google it should have been something like:
Favor not being evil over making more money.
- hammock 5y ago"Don't be evil [at all costs]" A truly uncompromising value, if that was the intent of Google's motto, sits at the pinnacle of the hierarchy and the tradeoff is literally everything else.
- drewcoo 5y agoYou could add "at all costs" to any value. That would likely make it less true instead of more bold.
- hammock 5y agoYou could only add it to values that are truly uncompromising, as I mentioned. Any value not at the tippy top of the hierarchy would bend to some other cost in some scenario.
- xiaq 5y agoI think "favor not being evil over making more money" is exactly how the "don't be evil" motto is commonly interpreted.
- p1esk 5y agoI’d think it’s commonly interpreted as “don’t be evil” where the cost of not being evil isn’t specified.
- Edman274 5y agoAs a shareholder, I think that not making as much money as possible is the real evil here. I always interpreted "don't be evil" as "don't waste money building an aquarium for sharks with lasers on their heads". I never in my darkest nightmares thought it meant "shut down profitable centers of corporate growth just because some bleeding hearts say that it's bad to pollute developing countries with planned obsolescent e-waste."
- rjbwork 5y agoPoe's law right here. I really had no idea if this was genuine or satire the first 3 times I read it. I'm pretty sure it's satire.
- Edman274 5y agoYeah, the ambiguity was intentional, and you're right.
- lupire 5y agoYour problem is that you are "as a shareholder" where the values are the business proposition to the customers. Also your problem is that you favor evil ways of making money, but don't call it evil, instead of owning the evil.
- projectazorian 5y agoIn American capitalism the investors are the real customers, not the consumers.
- blululu 5y agoOf all the massive cash fires at Google (Cloud) you’re concerned about the shark photonics lab? That one might actually pay off some day with meaningful improvements in marine fiber optic cables. Given how important deep sea optics are for Google’s core business it is a negligible cost with a huge upside.
- karaterobot 5y agoI always felt it was meant to imply something more like: "show the world that not being evil is a better business strategy".
- dkersten 5y agoI guess it didn't work for them so they just abandoned it.
- bjohnson225 5y ago“Don’t be evil” is a slightly edgier version of the typical corporate value of “Do the right thing” which I’ve seen in many companies. Sounds good, but vague enough to be meaningless.