
Googling for Sociopaths - mattyb
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googled
======
ryanwaggoner
_Google gets a lot of criticism (often deserved), but it’s worth taking a
moment to think of all the things they haven’t done. If Microsoft had Google’s
market share in search, is there any doubt that they’d be systematically
demoting or even banning their competitors in the search results? Demoting
someone in Google is a virtual death sentence, and yet not only has Google
ever been accused of using this vast power, the idea itself is almost
unimaginable._

Oh _please_. This is so weak that it's laughable. First, Google hasn't always
had this much market share in search and the other big search providers (to my
knowledge) didn't ban their competitors. Microsoft didn't ban other office
suite products from working on Windows. They didn't ban other browsers. Yeah,
IE might have been more tightly integrated, but please explain how this is
different from the incestuous pile of Google products that promote Google
search at every turn?

Instead of glossing over how Google gets some criticism and then beating your
anti-Microsoft strawman, maybe we should take a look at some of the
questionable things Google has done (China).

It'd be nice if I was wrong, but in my opinion, Google isn't some special orgy
of love and kindness towards humankind. It's a multi-billion dollar company
with millions of shareholders and it'll do whatever it thinks is best for
turning a profit. If that happens to be stuff that isn't "evil", so much the
better. If not (China), so be it.

Let's revisit when Google is as old as Microsoft or Disney or News Corp. is
now and see how it all turned out. I'm betting the only difference is that now
articles like this will make Google out to be the big bad corporation filled
with sociopaths trying to destroy the world.

EDIT: added a closing thought

~~~
aaronsw
> Microsoft didn't ban other office suite products from working on Windows.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code>

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Interesting, for two reasons:

1\. It states that it was only in a beta release of Windows 3.1 and was
removed for the final product. Is this really the basis of your argument here?

2\. They clearly went about it in a deceptive way, but is what they were doing
at the core wrong? Was Windows 3.1 considered an upgrade from MS-DOS? If so, I
don't see how requiring users to have the base package is wrong, any more than
Apple is unwilling to allow you to upgrade from Windows 95 to Snow Leopard.
Maybe I'm not understanding the situation?

~~~
sriramk
Larry Osterman has a good post on the AARD code here
[http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2004/08/12/21368...](http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2004/08/12/213681.aspx)

------
aristus
The implicit claim is that the people running Google are not sociopaths, yet
he presents no evidence to support this claim. He attributes these upheavals
to the "march of technology" and expects the reader to swallow this without
objection.

What exactly makes Eisner a "sociopath" and Brin & Page "normal decent
people"? It's apparently that Google makes things people want and Disney does
not. I'm not sure this holds up. Disney doesn't make desirable things?

~~~
drats
"The thing that’s hard for the sociopaths to get their head around is that
this isn’t because one of their rivals has outsmarted them — it’s just the
march of technology. "

I don't get this quote. It's quite clear Brin and Page _did_ outsmart them.
Murdoch's latest rantings clearly show he doesn't understand we live in a
world of algorithms now and just having a team of content producers has
nothing on having a team of programmers, a host of servers and the capacity to
find people the content they need in the vast expanse of the Internet/long
tail.

Newspapers are second best at almost everything now, world news (vs. the top
blogs or state-funded like BBC), local news (vs. long tail of blogs), dating
(vs. numerous sites, craigslist), classifieds (vs. ebay, craigslist), book
reviews/sales (vs. amazon), reviews (vs. tons of sites), advertising (vs.
algorithmically placed ads). A bundle of second bests, the newspaper, _was_
the best when it was the only thing you could buy. It was a very effective
delivery mechanism that far exceeded trying to subscribe to multiple
newsletters/pamphlets/zines to cover each base. But tabbed browsing (or even
sequential browsing untabbed) just slaughters that delivery mechanism in
specialization/choice, cost and cost of delivery, time of delivery and place
of delivery.

Murdoch will be able to charge for some financial news, perhaps even some
political news for a while, he will be able to put some sports he gets the
exclusive rights to on mobile pay-per-view (banning twittering sportsmen/women
and banning video/enforcing "IP rights" at sports events). But in the end he
can't beat the fact that a newspaper or a TV station is just a bundle of
second bests and isn't customized. He probably knows this deep down and is
just looking to "hide the decline" until he retires (which has to be in the
next 10 years given how old he is) so that his legacy is intact. But my will
he be biting his fingernails in retirement.

And frankly, this is how it should be in any somewhat capitalist system. I
don't want to hear a journalist expound on economic matters when they don't
have a degree in economics, only in journalism (or no degree at all). I can
just go onto one of the many economic blogs, quite a few run by professors of
economics. Ditto political news. Ditto tech news on reddit, HN or slashdot
where there are multiple commentators who often have graduate degrees in the
subject matter and certainly many links posted to peer reviewed articles or at
least Wikipedia. So often tech journalism is just the recycling of press
releases, or science journalism pops up with, _yet again_ , a
correlation/causation fallacy with all of the interesting details cropped out
for a mass audience. I am glad journalism is dying, the bailouts were insane
enough, but there was actually a stage where some journalists tried to float
the idea of bailouts for all the big newspapers and media groups. Absolutely
disgusting. Hopefully they will never get any more "IP" rules passed or
sabotage net neutrality and the world of information plenty that we happy few
live in can be expanded to the rest of the population on the planet (half of
whom have yet to make a phonecall, which is humbling when you see the
resources at our fingertips).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_I don't want to hear a journalist expound on economic matters when they don't
have a degree in economics, only in journalism (or no degree at all). I can
just go onto one of the many economic blogs, quite a few run by professors of
economics. Ditto political news. Ditto tech news on reddit, HN or slashdot
where there are multiple commentators who often have graduate degrees in the
subject matter and certainly many links posted to peer reviewed articles or at
least Wikipedia. So often tech journalism is just the recycling of press
releases, or science journalism pops up with, yet again, a
correlation/causation fallacy with all of the interesting details cropped out
for a mass audience. I am glad journalism is dying..._

The thing is, journalism as you paint it isn't dying. The medium is changing,
but the landscape is still dominated by _journalists_ , meaning people who
write stories on subjects they don't deeply understand, for a mass audience
who doesn't know any better. And I'm really not sure that the quality is
improving at all. Look at the top 10 tech blogs, or political news sites, or
whatever, and tell me I'm wrong. The fact of human nature is that we're
predisposed to believe people who sound like they know what they're talking
about, and who can write in a persuasive manner. And our info economy has
driven us to a shallower understanding of the world, I think, so we're
satisfied with getting Twitter-sized updates every 10 seconds on a thousand
different topics. The places like Aol and Demand Media who build content farms
get this, and that's why they're going for volume and scale instead of deep
quality. HN and places like it will never be mainstream, because people don't
like to spend this much time thinking about stuff.

~~~
mistermann
<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com>

I'm interested if you can name one mainstream economist or economic
commentator, __especially __a famous one, who comes even close to being as
factual and prescient as Mish.

This is just one site...the blogosphere was all over the impending economic
collapse for years, while the mainstream economic journalists, many with
economics degrees, had it exactly backwards. And if your retort is that it
wasn't a big deal, all is well now, I recommend you do more reading and decide
for yourself if that is true.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Nope, my retort is that people _do not care_.

On HN, we (usually) seek out the best information and data by using
rationality and logic and having a high standard for what constitutes
intellectual discussion. We hold subject matter experts in high regard and we
seek to sidestep fallacies and gratuitous displays of emotion.

 _Most people are not this way._

Witness the rise of 24/7 cable news that blathers endlessly about whatever is
the big story of the minute, or conservative talk radio, designed to whip
people into an emotional frenzy. Or Twitter! I'm pretty sure that if Mish was
restricted to 140 characters, he'd be a lot less insightful.

The medium is changing, but human nature hasn't changed. And the result of
making everyone a content producer is that there are many orders of magnitude
of content out there, which means you have to get attention by being intensely
targeted (HN), or by pure volume (Demand Media). My point is that human nature
seems to be driving more people to the latter.

~~~
mistermann
Ahhh....agreed.

------
potatolicious
Alarmist and self-congratulatory tripe to the max. And without much backup to
boot.

Alarmist: Big corporations are run by sociopaths! What this means is never
really defined (are we using the lay or clinical definition of sociopathy? If
lay, then what definition?), but more tossed about as a straw man for why big
companies are Bad(tm).

Self-congratulatory: Big companies are Bad(tm), but us feisty startups are so
awesome. We're a force of _good_ in this world! Us technical folk sure are
more moral and just plain _better_ than them durned "sociopaths"!

I find the constant overuse (and lack of definition or apparent understanding)
of the word "sociopath" to be particularly stomach-churning, and it reads of
alarmist hate-scribe not much unlike the racist, sexist, and other
reprehensible things extremists tend to write about "them" (where "them" is a
convenient, sometimes made up, demographic to blame). The consistent attempt
to dehumanize these "sociopaths" (again, never defined) is really kind of
sickening.

------
pg
A lot of these comments are pretty harsh, but there is truth in what he says.
There is a difference between Google and most preceding big companies. Google
wins more by doing good work and less by deals and scheming that most big
companies have in the past. When they crush competitors, they usually don't do
it by deliberately trying to crush them, but by doing very good work, and
crushing them as a matter of course.

Google wins the way better scientists do.

I don't think they're simply benevolent. I think what they've discovered is
that focusing on doing good work actually makes you more dangerous.

------
mattmaroon
Ah good old fashioned tech-industry elitism. Our guys are brilliant engineers
changing the world for the better. Everyone in every other industry is a mere
sociopath exploiting customers for their own selfish gains.

~~~
camccann
Well, technically, "brilliant engineer changing the world for the better" and
"sociopath exploiting customers" aren't actually mutually exclusive
categories...

------
sdrinf
A referral upsale channel for Amazon's affiliate sales program -let's count
them tricks of trade: misleading title (checked), inflammatory content
(checked) targeted at a controversial topic (traditional pattern-matching
makes people want to see google as the enemy by now); claims without proof, or
evidence to back it up (checked), with a small hint of techno-superiority,
that makes the target audience feel good (increased clickthrough&checkout of
the book: checked). Deterministic geek-buzzing about content (triggering the
network-reading effect): checked.

Oh, yes, someone's going to have a marry christmas.

------
crucini
I'm afraid Aaronsw has gone too far. But there is an element of truth here.

The men who created the media empires were incredibly aggressive. Many of
their business practices were rooted in organized crime.

For instance, Lew Wasserman, creator of MCA and Universal. He inspired terror
throughout Los Angeles. No, he was not going to have you killed (despite one
minor flirtation with the real mafia) but he could kill your career or your
company.

Wasserman was every bit a latter-day Genghis Khan. And I think it's true that
capitalism directed his energies into making movies rather than building a
mountain of skulls.

There is an undeniable style difference between MCA/Wasserman and
Google/Schmidt.

------
gojomo
_Demoting someone in Google is a virtual death sentence, and yet not only has
Google ever been accused of using this vast power, the idea itself is almost
unimaginable._

A total ban of an obvious competitor would clearly raise so much controversy
that it is "almost unimaginable", I agree.

But Google's smaller-scale bans and reorderings, always for ostensibly
legitimate purposes, have sometimes caused accusations about Google's real
goals by the webmasters affected. That's not to say their paranoia is correct
-- but "[n]ever been accused" and "unimaginable" is a bit strong given the
real history.

And they are 'demoting' other content incrementally all the time -- whenever
they promote their own content in the first few vertical positions. Tried any
health-related search on Google recently? As of a couple months ago, 'Google
Health', with an image, is almost always the top hit.

Do non-YouTube videos get as prominent placement as YouTube videos?

~~~
SwellJoe
I've never once seen a website owner complaining about Google that wasn't
operating an obvious (to me) spam, or otherwise nefarious, site of some sort.
I've even seen a few HN users commenting on such Google evils, and when I
looked at the "innocent" site they were talking about, it was inarguably blog
spam, content spam, used black hat SEO techniques, or some other nasty type of
thing that provided no or negative value for users, and was carefully
engineered to maximize ad or referral revenue at the expense of all else. I'm
sure somewhere, sometime, some actually innocent website has moved downward in
the search rankings, but I've never once seen a complaint about it that was
legitimate (it's probably just lost in the noise of all the black hats that
complain loudest, since I've never looked for innocent site owners with
stories to tell...I just come upon the assholes who scream loudest).

~~~
tptacek
Patrick McKenzie complains about Google here with some regularity, and it's
not all just about customer service (lack of transparency another one).

------
tonystubblebine
Also, I've always enjoyed this GapingVoid cartoon on sociopaths and the
corporate hierarchy:

<http://gapingvoid.com/2004/06/27/company-hierarchy/>

~~~
theorique
If you like that, you might also like
[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

------
neilk
I think Aaron misses the point about sociopaths. Individual behavior has
nothing to do with corporate behavior. Larry and Sergey's personal niceness or
lack thereof is irrelevant.

Most people who work for giant tech corporations aren't sociopaths -- far from
it. The top American tech firms are filled with people that are almost
painfully conscientious, in an upper-middle-class way. Don't even think about
cancelling the recycling program or face a general uprising at the next
assembly. This is true whether you work for Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple,
Oracle, or whatever. I don't know the telecom or media industry, but I bet
it's about the same there.

The sociopath angle makes sense to describe the behavior of the corporation
itself. (viz. "The Corporation" film). Even if there's an opportunity you have
qualms about (subprime mortgages, expanding into China), the shareholders will
insist you get into that market as long as competitors are making money.

Google's corporate behavior is pretty "evil". To their competitors. And
sometimes even their partners. Consider how they are bootstrapping off
TeleAtlas' mapping data product to basically make that entire industry
obsolete, once people are carrying around iPhones that constantly map
everything.

But as long as they are "evil" to competitors in the service of making a
better product, they are "good" for everyone else.

The traditional media monopolies stopped really competing a generation ago,
and after the consolidation of the 80s and 90s it's all been about denying
entry to competitors, and controlling access to markets. That's what makes
them "evil".

Google isn't in any position where they can do that yet, except maybe online
advertising (sort of). So for the most part Google is focused on breaking open
markets. That might change if they ever start "owning" a consumer, like say
with a Chrome-powered netbook. Just you wait.

------
tarkin2
This is a little too sycophantic. Both Google and other firms want their
products to succeed, which means an increase in market share, or an "Alexander
the great" share of the market, if you will.

Both Google and other firms believe they are bringing value to the market.
It's hard to believe Rupert Murdoch, for example, believes his companies bring
nothing of value. You may not like what he produces, but it's hard to accept
he doesn't in some way, and his customers certainly do.

It's pleasing to believe Google is full of salt o' the earth types out to make
the world a better place, and Newscorp, for example, and its like is full of
evil men and women--but this is a picture far too black and white to be taken
seriously.

Essentially assuming two giant companies are so different to the extent that
one wishes to make people lives happier, and has the success of the business
as a second priority, and the other is inversed seems very fantastical, and
without evidence.

------
ckuehne
The first paragraph says it all: capitalism is a good system for handling
sociopaths.

After all we know, it is probably the best. In every other system known to
mankind psychopath cause incredibly more damage. Think Soviet Russia, North
Korea, the Roman Empire, Nazy Germany, Cold War Romania, ...

The irony: Aaron Swartz probably had some idealistic system in mind when he
wrote it (correct me if I'm wrong or if I am erecting a straw man), that would
handle everything better if only the "right" people were in charge. The
available data speaks otherwise.

"Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at
thirty is proof of want of head." Georges Clemencea

------
tonystubblebine
I've been having a thought recently that Google is Microsoft done right. Sure,
they have massive influence. But I never find myself switching to a new Google
product because I have to--I switch because they're better products.

~~~
sfk
I don't agree. Nowadays I'm practically forced to communicate with people
using Gmail accounts, which means that _my_ mail is scanned at Google against
my will. This is not much different from being forced to communicate with
people using Word documents.

~~~
slig
It's very different: you don't have to own a gmail account to send an email to
a persons gmail account.

~~~
jff
You're right. His complaint, on the other hand, is that although you can use
whatever "word processor" you want, you know that at the other end Microsoft
will have full access when your colleague reads the document in Word.

Substitute "word processor", Microsoft, and Word with email client, Google,
and Gmail as appropriate.

------
njharman
The view of "major executives" (and Alexander for that matter) in the first
paragraph is so ludicrously naive and shallow that I'm forced to believe
anything else author has to say is utter waste of my time.

------
defen
Wherein Aaron Swartz further confirms his status as a petty intellectual
tyrant, pathologically obsessed with setting up nonexistent us-vs-them, good-
vs-evil dichotomies.

~~~
ajju
Uh..I don't agree fully with what he is saying here but 'tyrant'? When did
Aaron acquire dictatorial powers?

------
jdale27
I've been reading aaronsw's blog for years, and it surprises me how uniformly
antagonistic the comments are -- both on the blog itself, and on HN and reddit
-- compared to other blogs. He's either an incredibly skilled troll, or he's
really on to something.

------
cpr
I missed the point in the script where Aaron went from Google-paranoid
(witness his online novella) to Google-booster.

Very odd.

------
ericb
I was hoping this article would be a list of keywords search terms, like
people use to find webcams.

------
pwnstigator
Technically speaking, most corporate leaders are _psychopaths_ , not
sociopaths.

A sociopath has conscience, empathy, and ethics but his differ radically from
those of mainstream society. For example, a gang member who'll kill someone in
a rival gang-- breaking the law in most societies-- but would take a bullet to
save his mother, is a sociopath-- not a psychopath.

Psychopaths are selfish and devoid of any conscience or empathy. However,
they're very manipulative and often skilled at playing within society's rules,
which sociopaths rarely do (because they have so much contempt for society).
Dr. House might be considered a very mild sociopath, but he's not a
psychopath: he's never cruel, and he has very strong ethics, but absolutely no
regard for the ethical principles society expects him to hold.

The difference is that sociopaths reject society's superego and conscience but
still have their own. Psychopaths have none. So the corporate barons and media
moguls are correctly typed as psychopaths, _not_ sociopaths.

Otherwise, good article.

~~~
hnhg
Doesn't this depend on where your definition is taken from? I remember reading
in something reputable (or it might have been a BBC Radio documentary) that at
one time they were synonyms for the same thing, but that one was used in the
USA and other was used elsewhere. This has to be taken with a pinch of salt as
my memory appears to be very vague on this. I'm sure though that historically
they have been used to describe the same condition and that differences in
their usage have only appeared recently.

~~~
dasil003
According to this:

[http://www.mental-health-
matters.com/index.php?option=com_co...](http://www.mental-health-
matters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94)

Psychopath is not a technical term.

~~~
warfangle
Addendum: <http://allpsych.com/disorders/personality/antisocial.html> (Actual
DSM-IV reference)

------
xinsight
A nice summary of why Google is different. How refreshing for a company to ask
themselves, "How can we create more value?" instead of scheming how to extract
more value from the existing market.

