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I came to Google via acquisition end of 2011 and left end of 2021. Google bought my employer so it could further cement its display ads monopoly. They never had

I came to Google via acquisition end of 2011 and left end of 2021. Google bought my employer so it could further cement its display ads monopoly. They never had a moral compass, they just wore one in a costume so that nobody would dig too closely into their business practices. We got to wave pitchforks and ask tough questions at TGIF for a while, and march in pride parades under a Google banner, and get fed nice treats and the like but under it all was still just an old fashioned railway monopoly. A huge fire hose of cash that let it play in all sorts of domains and espouse some vaguely California Ideology liberal/libertarian ideals while doing it. But the moment that monopoly came under threat and the moment they felt they no longer needed the costume, it came off. Google never had a moral compass. Anybody who thought it did was naive. It's not possible for a corporate entity to have one.

lokar 4mo ago
I could see some of that in 2011 (I started before the ipo), but it was almost all from ads. People in other parts of the company had a very different experience.
- cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
  Oh absolutely, I transferred out of ads as soon as I could and of course it all seemed different. The reality is that ads was 95% of the company revenue though, so it was all fantasy.
  - lokar 4mo ago
    For many years infra was delightfully oblivious, just finding interesting things to build. :) Working on promo committee I could see how different ads was
    - cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
      Yeah I transferred through Access / Home / Hardware / Nest, with a foray through Fiber... it was a different world certainly. But there's also something about a PA being disconnected from its revenue sources to create a sense of unreality and distorted incentives.
      - dare944 4mo ago
        Ex-googler here as well. I'm not sure the distortion was worse outside of the core business. In the peripheral businesses (if one can call them businesses), I think you had more of an opportunity to ponder the larger implications of your actions. As an early Nester I argued vociferously for designs that would specifically dis-empower Google as a central service, in deference to the end user and as barrier to future misuse. Of course many of these ideas were not accepted. But my sense was, had I been part of the core Ad business, many of these ideas would have been third-rail topics, subject to immediate shutdown. Whereas within the Nest org I was able to foster discussions on the topics at multiple levels. Indeed, my impression was that people within the core Ad business were more adept at maintaining an air of integrity while doing substantively the opposite for the goal of optimizing revenue. I suspect that the closer you got to Google's "center of gravity" the more distorted your reality and motivations became.
gniv 4mo ago
> It's not possible for a corporate entity to have one. Is it really not possible? Lots of corps are controlled by one or two people. They can decide what the company espouses, no?
- cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
  If you want profits, the market tells you what to do.
  - ryandrake 4mo ago
    Surely, there is a spectrum between "founders doing whatever they want with the company" and "the market entirely dictating the company's every action."

lokar 4mo ago

I could see some of that in 2011 (I started before the ipo), but it was almost all from ads. People in other parts of the company had a very different experience.

cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
Oh absolutely, I transferred out of ads as soon as I could and of course it all seemed different. The reality is that ads was 95% of the company revenue though, so it was all fantasy.
- lokar 4mo ago
  For many years infra was delightfully oblivious, just finding interesting things to build. :) Working on promo committee I could see how different ads was
  - cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
    Yeah I transferred through Access / Home / Hardware / Nest, with a foray through Fiber... it was a different world certainly. But there's also something about a PA being disconnected from its revenue sources to create a sense of unreality and distorted incentives.
    - dare944 4mo ago
      Ex-googler here as well. I'm not sure the distortion was worse outside of the core business. In the peripheral businesses (if one can call them businesses), I think you had more of an opportunity to ponder the larger implications of your actions. As an early Nester I argued vociferously for designs that would specifically dis-empower Google as a central service, in deference to the end user and as barrier to future misuse. Of course many of these ideas were not accepted. But my sense was, had I been part of the core Ad business, many of these ideas would have been third-rail topics, subject to immediate shutdown. Whereas within the Nest org I was able to foster discussions on the topics at multiple levels. Indeed, my impression was that people within the core Ad business were more adept at maintaining an air of integrity while doing substantively the opposite for the goal of optimizing revenue. I suspect that the closer you got to Google's "center of gravity" the more distorted your reality and motivations became.

gniv 4mo ago

> It's not possible for a corporate entity to have one. Is it really not possible? Lots of corps are controlled by one or two people. They can decide what the company espouses, no?

cmrdporcupine 4mo ago
If you want profits, the market tells you what to do.
- ryandrake 4mo ago
  Surely, there is a spectrum between "founders doing whatever they want with the company" and "the market entirely dictating the company's every action."