4 ms·
The author is not cynical enough. Do you going around telling people how virtuous you are? No, good people just try and be good. The slogan was a red flag rig
by 2muchcoffeeman 3mo ago
The author is not cynical enough.
Do you going around telling people how virtuous you are? No, good people just try and be good.
The slogan was a red flag right from the start.
- Cpoll 3mo agoThat sounds pithy, but a person doesn't need to remind themselves of their own values; a company of 200,000 people does. Which isn't to say cynicism for these sorts of company charters isn't warranted, just not for that reason.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3mo agoI agree. But the moto has always lacked any aspiration about how they should do good or make the world better. “Don’t be evil”. Who thinks they are being evil? No one.
- pmontra 3mo agoAt the beginning of Google it meant "we will not be like Microsoft" and it was good marketing.
- eMPee584 3mo agoThis is the relevant historical context to understand how this ever got into big G's mission statement, it was to distance themselves from the then well-known anti-competitive mal-practices of the Redmond giant.. which seemingly they've learned a lot from. Don't no-one worry too much, they only have less than half of the world population's messaging metadata, schedules, realtime location and private pictures.
- ryeats 3mo agoIt was purely self interest don't piss off people so that regulators break our monopoly. Once the monopoly was challenged it became less important.
- qpricjalcbeu 3mo agoThey aren't cynical, just disingenuous. Google was providing cloud computing to the DoD before 2017 - there's no real morale difference between providing lower level compute vs providing a higher level AI algo other than giving yourself an excuse by adding one layer of abstraction (obfuscating?). Very convenient to suddenly decide it's enough after collecting a massive paycheck for 10 years.