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You would think that Google wouldn't be Like That with "Don't be Evil" as their motto, yet

535188B17C93743 5y ago
Didn't they explicitly (but quietly) get rid of it several years ago? Edit: I think this [1] is what I was thinking about. [1] https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
notacoward 5y ago
But what is evil, really? When financial success is equated with virtue, as is far too often the case nowadays (especially in the US), then "don't be evil" means "don't be poor" and they certainly try to abide by that.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Definitely not. When Google was small and growing like crazy the engineers had enough leverage that Eric Schmidt realized that giving them freedom and power to keep them was the best way to grow the company. As growth moved more into just showing more ads and making them more similar to search results, power moved away from engineers.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Not sure why you say "definitely not" here when it's not clear we're disagreeing. How does the purported power shift you mention even relate to a rationalization that Google decision makers could have used at any time to convince themselves that they're still living the motto? Are you suggesting that "don't be evil" was only for engineers, not management? I can kinda-sorta see how your comment makes sense in that context, but it's still a bit orthogonal.
    - lanstin 5y ago
      Isn’t it a truism that exposure to reality, beauty and elegance as an engineer prejudices you towards good, while MBA types are trained in evil? (Tongue in cheek)
    - xiphias2 5y ago
      I'm saying definately not for "don't be evil" means "don't be poor". Tim Ferriss asked Eric Schmidt about it when he interviewed Eric, and Eric said that one concrete example was adding location sharing in Google Maps. Engineers wanted a way for people to set up a fake location to hide their real location for their own privacy, because not giving basic privacy rights to people is evil. First Eric thought that it's just a feature with too much extra work, but later the lawyers at Google realized that it also makes the legal part of data handling and protecting data from governments much simpler, because it makes that location not personally identifiable information. So yes, it may be profitable for small companies not to be evil, but for engineers who said them over and over, it doesn't mean don't be poor, it has nothing to do with money for them.
- pwython 5y ago
  > "But what is evil, really?" - Tax avoidance - Regional censorship (eg. China) - Antitrust - Less privacy - Copyright issues - Labor practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google All of these documented concerns relate to making more profit, not improving a product for the consumer.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Copyright is evil? Seems more like a preference thing…
    - pwython 5y ago
      Per my link above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Copyright_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Copyright_...

Didn't they explicitly (but quietly) get rid of it several years ago? Edit: I think this [1] is what I was thinking about. [1] https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

notacoward 5y ago

But what is evil, really? When financial success is equated with virtue, as is far too often the case nowadays (especially in the US), then "don't be evil" means "don't be poor" and they certainly try to abide by that.

xiphias2 5y ago
Definitely not. When Google was small and growing like crazy the engineers had enough leverage that Eric Schmidt realized that giving them freedom and power to keep them was the best way to grow the company. As growth moved more into just showing more ads and making them more similar to search results, power moved away from engineers.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Not sure why you say "definitely not" here when it's not clear we're disagreeing. How does the purported power shift you mention even relate to a rationalization that Google decision makers could have used at any time to convince themselves that they're still living the motto? Are you suggesting that "don't be evil" was only for engineers, not management? I can kinda-sorta see how your comment makes sense in that context, but it's still a bit orthogonal.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    Isn’t it a truism that exposure to reality, beauty and elegance as an engineer prejudices you towards good, while MBA types are trained in evil? (Tongue in cheek)
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    I'm saying definately not for "don't be evil" means "don't be poor". Tim Ferriss asked Eric Schmidt about it when he interviewed Eric, and Eric said that one concrete example was adding location sharing in Google Maps. Engineers wanted a way for people to set up a fake location to hide their real location for their own privacy, because not giving basic privacy rights to people is evil. First Eric thought that it's just a feature with too much extra work, but later the lawyers at Google realized that it also makes the legal part of data handling and protecting data from governments much simpler, because it makes that location not personally identifiable information. So yes, it may be profitable for small companies not to be evil, but for engineers who said them over and over, it doesn't mean don't be poor, it has nothing to do with money for them.
pwython 5y ago
> "But what is evil, really?" - Tax avoidance - Regional censorship (eg. China) - Antitrust - Less privacy - Copyright issues - Labor practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google All of these documented concerns relate to making more profit, not improving a product for the consumer.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Copyright is evil? Seems more like a preference thing…
  - pwython 5y ago
    Per my link above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Copyright_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Copyright_...