4 ms·

I feel bad for people like you. I fee bad that you can't believe that some people or company with money just wants to make the world a better place. You said

by dannyr 13y ago

I feel bad for people like you. I fee bad that you can't believe that some people or company with money just wants to make the world a better place. You said it yourself. Google probably won't make money. Maybe, just maybe, they just want to do something good.

mh- 13y ago
without addressing the remainder of your comment.. > I feel bad that you can't believe [..] the same could be said for naiveté.
- Sven7 13y ago
  Contrast their behavior, with other companies sitting on mountains of cash. They don't need to do this. Yet they do. That's good enough for me. Though opening up their index and creating a search marketplace might seal the deal.
  - goldfeld 13y ago
    Whoa, they'd rather do a thousand as many baloons as whatever amount they're doing now, than that last part of your post. That's, you know, core business.
    - Sven7 13y ago
      :) But think about it...right now they have a random bunch of 10 or so tabs (flights, recipes, patents etc) above the search box. Is that it? To expand search to its full potential that list has to expand. What better way to do it than create a marketplace? It would be a good experiment to run a pilot in some small country or city and see what happens. Unlimited API access to google search...any app built on top of that platform that gets X number of hits becomes another tab above your search bar...for a price...or advertisers could make it free cause domain based search can get them better targeting.
- munificent 13y ago
  There's cynicism on one end and naivety on the other, but there's a whole spread in between. Despite what the cynic thinks, reality is almost always somewhere in the middle there.
robryan 13y ago
Why can't they do both? Make the world a better place and make a nice profit while doing so?
- piyush_soni 13y ago
  Exactly. That is exactly why I like Google's business model. It allows them to earn money, lots of it, while still being good, at least in theory.
  - chii 13y ago
    except that anything they do in good faith, could be easily and mechanically turned into more profit by doing something a bit more evil. The pressure to make profit is the driving force, and so the stable norm for any profit making entity is to "turn evil".
alexjeffrey 13y ago
being a public company, Google can't really justify altruistic endeavours to its shareholders unless they will also benefit from the project.
- kragen 13y ago
  With Google's share class structure, they don't have to justify anything to their shareholders, only to their employees.
  - nnq 13y ago
    Whoa?! Care to elaborate on that or at least point to a relevant link? You really made me curious...
    - Resident_Geek 13y ago
      Between them, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt hold a majority of Google shareholders' voting power (about 2/3 is what I usually hear). I won't link anything because I don't really know the authoritative source for this sort of information, but Googling [Google stock structure] turns up plenty of secondary sources.
    - jholman 13y ago
      He's slightly exaggerating, IIRC, but it's conceptually correct. Regarding the share structure, Google has two classes of shares, or maybe three by now. Class C shares don't get to vote, and I can't remember if they exist yet (IIRC they were voted into existence a year ago, but only pending various hurdles that I think might not have yet been cleared). Class B shares are worth 10x as much as Class A shares, for voting purposes. Guess who owns most (all?) of the Class B shares. Anyway, the various share classes are all a bit beside-the-point. The real point is that when you add up all the votes, Larry and Sergey control a lot of them. And then there's Eric. And then there are a few CxOs/SVPs with meaningful shares. So basically a small group of people, who have led Google to its current state, are in control. Other shareholders are just along for the ride. On top of all that, Google has always warned potential buyers that they don't give a shit about quarterly earnings, and they care about long plays and such, from the IPO forward. If minority shareholders were to sue the company for lack of fiduciary care, I think this would go poorly for them. You could look up modern SEC filings to have a more-detailed breakdown, but here's a years-out-of-date summary I found with a few minutes use of... you guessed it. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html

by dannyr 13y ago

mh- 13y ago

without addressing the remainder of your comment.. > I feel bad that you can't believe [..] the same could be said for naiveté.

Sven7 13y ago
Contrast their behavior, with other companies sitting on mountains of cash. They don't need to do this. Yet they do. That's good enough for me. Though opening up their index and creating a search marketplace might seal the deal.
- goldfeld 13y ago
  Whoa, they'd rather do a thousand as many baloons as whatever amount they're doing now, than that last part of your post. That's, you know, core business.
  - Sven7 13y ago
    :) But think about it...right now they have a random bunch of 10 or so tabs (flights, recipes, patents etc) above the search box. Is that it? To expand search to its full potential that list has to expand. What better way to do it than create a marketplace? It would be a good experiment to run a pilot in some small country or city and see what happens. Unlimited API access to google search...any app built on top of that platform that gets X number of hits becomes another tab above your search bar...for a price...or advertisers could make it free cause domain based search can get them better targeting.
munificent 13y ago
There's cynicism on one end and naivety on the other, but there's a whole spread in between. Despite what the cynic thinks, reality is almost always somewhere in the middle there.

robryan 13y ago

Why can't they do both? Make the world a better place and make a nice profit while doing so?

piyush_soni 13y ago
Exactly. That is exactly why I like Google's business model. It allows them to earn money, lots of it, while still being good, at least in theory.
- chii 13y ago
  except that anything they do in good faith, could be easily and mechanically turned into more profit by doing something a bit more evil. The pressure to make profit is the driving force, and so the stable norm for any profit making entity is to "turn evil".

alexjeffrey 13y ago

being a public company, Google can't really justify altruistic endeavours to its shareholders unless they will also benefit from the project.

kragen 13y ago
With Google's share class structure, they don't have to justify anything to their shareholders, only to their employees.
- nnq 13y ago
  Whoa?! Care to elaborate on that or at least point to a relevant link? You really made me curious...
  - Resident_Geek 13y ago
    Between them, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt hold a majority of Google shareholders' voting power (about 2/3 is what I usually hear). I won't link anything because I don't really know the authoritative source for this sort of information, but Googling [Google stock structure] turns up plenty of secondary sources.
  - jholman 13y ago
    He's slightly exaggerating, IIRC, but it's conceptually correct. Regarding the share structure, Google has two classes of shares, or maybe three by now. Class C shares don't get to vote, and I can't remember if they exist yet (IIRC they were voted into existence a year ago, but only pending various hurdles that I think might not have yet been cleared). Class B shares are worth 10x as much as Class A shares, for voting purposes. Guess who owns most (all?) of the Class B shares. Anyway, the various share classes are all a bit beside-the-point. The real point is that when you add up all the votes, Larry and Sergey control a lot of them. And then there's Eric. And then there are a few CxOs/SVPs with meaningful shares. So basically a small group of people, who have led Google to its current state, are in control. Other shareholders are just along for the ride. On top of all that, Google has always warned potential buyers that they don't give a shit about quarterly earnings, and they care about long plays and such, from the IPO forward. If minority shareholders were to sue the company for lack of fiduciary care, I think this would go poorly for them. You could look up modern SEC filings to have a more-detailed breakdown, but here's a years-out-of-date summary I found with a few minutes use of... you guessed it. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10440005-265.html