

Google Doesn't Do Evil, But It Is Creepy - asimjalis
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/google-doesnt-do-evil-but-it-is-creepy/

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frederickcook
"Visiting Google felt similar to being approached by kids from the Hillsong
church, who ask you to come along to just “an event” with other young people .
. . until you turn up with them and realise that, not only is it church, but a
bloody well organised and extremely rich church."

This is a great quote, and brings up the issue of groupthink. I saw a talk by
Ed Catmull of Pixar a couple weeks ago where he talked about how once an idea
can be reduced to a slogan, you don't need the idea anymore, just the slogan.
His example was architects saying they are designing buildings "from the
inside-out," and how it was a good idea for a few years, until he was working
with an architect who designed a shitty building and used the phrase "designed
from the inside-out" to dismiss criticism.

For Google, if employees get to the point where "do no evil" is a just a
slogan that helps them get to sleep at night and they stop constantly
questioning their actions, it doesn't mean anything anymore. In fact, it's
worse than had it never existed at all, because it's used as a justification
for things of questionable evil-ness. "Google stores everything they can about
what you do online without asking your permission, but it doesn't matter,
because they would never do anything evil with all that information." They can
tell themselves that, but it doesn't mean it isn't evil.

~~~
tung
Just a correction: Google's slogan is not "do no evil", but "don't be evil".
The first evaluates only the actions of the company, but the second evaluates
the company itself.

~~~
canoebuilder
Bonus Question

For one to not _be_ evil, does that entail the exclusion of all actions that
can be construed as evil, even if it is perceived that doing so is for a
greater good?

I'm going to say yes that not _being_ evil means at no time _doing_ evil, no
matter what the expected outcome.

~~~
zach
No, it means that Google maintains a non-evil identity. As a corporation they
may do evil things with good intentions, as you mentioned, or even
unknowingly, accidentally, out of ignorance or within other human limitations.

The point is that it's an existential judgment -- that they would seek to have
the question "Is Google evil?" answered negatively in consideration of all
things, not that they need to avoid any blame or transgression.

I think the "DBE" topic has been rehashed about 10^6 times more than
necessary, so I think I'll just leave it at that.

~~~
frederickcook
I absolutely disagree that the topic has been rehashed more than necessary. In
fact, I think for it to remain relevant and more than just a PR slogan, the
topic should be discussed and challenged continuously.

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peregrine
Journalists and a good number of non-programmer types always seem to focus
purely on the surface perks of Google and always miss the real reason it is a
good place to work.

The culture, the people, and the company are focused completely on providing
an environment where brains and hard work pay off. Smart people always want to
be around people smarter then them, to me that is a hallmark of intelligence.
Working at Google you are guaranteed to be working with or around several of
the smartest people in the industry. Furthermore the practices of engineering
and product development do not work like a standard corporate software shop. I
mean just reading this article from Steve [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html) is likely to get your
mouth watering if you are a Software Guy, especially if you are into the sort
of startup scene.

The point is if all the food went away, the naps, the pools, the perks and all
that was left was the engineering structure I would still want to work there
if only to be around the smart people and to avoid(they are everywhere) the
politics of corporate software development.*

*Several parallels to startups here.

~~~
derefr
> The point is if all the food went away, the naps, the pools, the perks ...

But, of course, that engineering culture would inherently earn obscene amounts
of money and re-invest that money in its talent, thus re-introducing the
perks. They're just an emergent behavior of Google-like companies.

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epochwolf
_it’s worth remembering that “do no evil” is not a particularly high hurdle to
set yourself._

For a company it's amazingly hard to actually carry this out.

~~~
TotlolRon
I fail to understand why someting that is totally reasonable to expect from
any indevisual suddenly becomes "amazingly hard" when the indeviduals are
grouped together.

~~~
mark_h
Watch "The Corporation" if you get the chance (although it's 4 hours long).
Essentially, corporations have the legal rights of a person, but none of the
incentives to "be good". Their sole imperative is to maximise value for
shareholders, leading to behaviour -- as characterised in the documentary --
that would be classified as sociopathic in an actual person.

~~~
adrianwaj
I wonder if there were more and better fair trade organizations, then
investors and customers would be more picky as to who to associate, and
corporations comply as a result. Who'd bear the cost of compliance? How
successful has corporate social responsibility actually been? Will it ever
reach China?

~~~
shrughes
If large numbers of investors made decisions based on reasons other than
profitability, other investors would buy more so-called "evil" companies'
stock until the prices are back to what they would have been.

~~~
nostrademons
That's not necessarily true. Investor psychology shifts the demand curve for
the company's stock - if large numbers of investors made decisions based on
reasons other than profitability, then they'd demand more shares of "good"
companies and fewer shares of "evil" companies. Some of that price difference
would get arbitraged away by amoral opportunists just looking to make a buck,
but the equilibrium price is less than the "evil" companies would get
otherwise.

We see some of this effect in actual stock market data, today, where "sinful"
companies like Altria or defense contractors tend to trade at lower P/E ratios
than "good" companies like Google or Merck. Of course, this means that sinful
companies tend to pay higher dividend yields, and evil investors end up with
more money in their pocket. This is the price of not being evil.

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adrianwaj
This article is a journalist painting the glass that is 3/4 full at Google as
3/4 empty. There's nothing creepy about Google except that they try and make
the lives of their employees easier. It's not an isolated cult with barbed
wire fences.

They have a dinosaur as a leftover of the previous tenant. So what. They won't
talk about China on the record because they're just on a tour. Expect anything
different?

I would have preferred the journalist ask some interesting questions to the
Google staff and then give those answers to the reader.

~~~
nostrademons
I think that Eric Schmidt bought the dinosaur, actually.

~~~
adrianwaj
Well, you work Google, right? Thought of writing a book about what's really
going on?

~~~
nostrademons
I'd like to continue working for Google, so there's not much I could write
that hasn't already been written. ;-)

~~~
khafra
Will you at least let us know when they acquire a giant penny to go alongside
the dinosaur?

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duck
After reading this I can't get the imagine of the Google campus being just
like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory out of my head... with Sergey being
more like the Johnny Depp Wonka and Schmidt the Gene Wilder version.

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adharmad
So Google has a slightly reticient and secretive culture.. They also cannot
get anyone to comment on serious international matters in which the company is
the accusar. And the journalist does not like it........big deal!

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fauigerzigerk
I always wondered how journalists and publishers could complain about the
short extracts that Google News shows us (linking to the original article
anyway). How can that be stealing I asked myself. I'm beginning to understand.
It's that 99% of the "content" journalists produce is just like this article.
It can easily be replaced by a one liner without any loss of information.

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SpoonMeiser
The correct term is "crawl", not "creep"

