One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream? Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing trade-off. Or is the leadership looking to other potential benefits, like increased leverage for lobbying?
It's like this: Google has to keep growing to justify it's stock price. In order to do that it has to expand beyond search and ads. Google's technical infrastructure is the best in the world in many aspects, so they decided to open it up to other companies. However, other companies don't just come by themselves. That is why Google hired a bunch of sales people. Now these sales people do what they were hired for, they sell including to the government.
Tech companies tends to not just take over an existing market. But to grow it, by opening opportunities that didn't exist before. Like how smartphones created a market for apps, inventing a need that wasn't there before.
I don't see how that's likely to happen with military contracts. What beneficial need are they going to invent?
Google wants in so more senators lobby for them. Anytime you talk about cutting military budgets a whole load of people get on the news and talk about how you're hurting Americans with jobs. Google just wants in on the political action and guaranteed income.
That isn't enough. Due to the frankly idiotic way corporate investors think 'any company that isn't growing must be dying'. Google will need to continue to demonstrate growth forever despite that being impossible. Growing in the ad market is hard because they're already the biggest player, so Google are looking at new things to do. This is just one of them.
> That isn't enough. Due to the frankly idiotic way corporate investors think 'any company that isn't growing must be dying'.
I despise it when I see large companies make business moves purely to "grow". The big ones are roughly the size of the first world, excuse them for not growing a full 20% like they did last year.
Investors are in a bubble of "bigger is better". Who cares if you have a monetization strategy or how good your product is, how big are you? Who cares about the quality of interaction, how much did you get?
You see the social media giants like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc, make UX moves that their dedicated userbase displakes purely because they're trying to tap into the long tail of users. Sometimes it feels like they would prefer 3x the userbase at 1/5 the average interaction quality because moar unique active accounts/month!!111
I would bet this ridiculous obsession with QonQ growth is responsible for half the irritating garbage UX we experience. It tests better for engaging the long tail so it ships. It's why your timelines/feeds refuse to sort chronologically, the casual masses only do drive-bys and need to be hooked/engaged every micro-chance that presents itself. It's why they want to curate your feeds, because most people are turned off by a raw firehose and the best content needs to be front and center when they do glance past it.
It's why Twitter literally runs ads literally telling people how to choose a username[0], because if you have a phone then please create an account, like seriously omgplzcreateanaccountwehavetogrowlikethisquarter!!!
Yes, it seems that the traditional "stocks and shares" approach to funding is only suitable for a particular phase of the development of a business.
Past a certain point it's actually bad for the business, employees and customers. I wonder why businesses don't just seek a more stable funding model once they get there.
Pardon my ignorance but this sounds like just the kind of thing that "Bonds" are for. Long term, slow steady growth. It also sounds like specifically the kind of investment opportunity Warren Buffet seeks out, so there must be some logic to it.
That’s not true. Google is trying to grow because it thinks it still can, and thus investors expect it to. Companies like GE or Maersk have already saturated their market positions, and are now considered value stocks that return dividends, rather than increasing investors stock holding value.
They have businesses in very broad areas, including areas of high growth and innovation. Lack of imagination, poor management, poor judgement, poor execution... That's what is happening. Both are run by greedy people with a dinosaur mentality.
> One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream?
Why bother with any new products when search and ads are extremely profitable?
I think it makes sense to look at this from the perspective of Google Cloud since I imagine that's where the contracts are. Google Cloud isn't a leader in this space. In cloud, having more customers is a competitive advantage both because of marketing and also because of technology/cost.
With more users, you can share costs more and have better forecasting since any given customer's specific usage will should not affect your total usage assuming customers are fairly similar in size (not true in reality..). Then hopefully you can run closer to capacity, lower prices, and then gain even more customers.
> Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing trade-off.
I don't agree with this to be honest. At least, I certainly wouldn't consider it "obvious". I'm a rank and file employee and I was surprised at the outrage. I still don't really see anything wrong with supporting the government or military but I can understand how this makes some people uncomfortable, especially if they are not US citizens.
> still don't really see anything wrong with supporting the government or military
As a non-American(but citizen of an allied nation), the fact that the US is currently involved in something like 12 regional conflicts(that we know of), some of which could be considered illegal wars of aggression if the US wasn't on the UN security council, in places who's combined wealth is a fraction of just one US state is very worrying to me, and the fact that few, if any Americans share that concern is certainly very disappointing. I had thought Americans better than that in my younger years, apparently not.
> the fact that few, if any Americans share that concern is certainly very disappointing. I had thought Americans better than that in my younger years, apparently not.
I would not be surprised to know that this is correct, but the only thing I can do is speak to my own opinion.
That I see nothing inherently wrong with supporting the government or military does not mean I agree with everything they do.
Perhaps my beliefs are mistaken, but as far as I know the military does not act on its own accord but from orders of elected officials. This being the case, the correct action to me doesn't appear to be weakening the military but to elect people who you think will act in ways you agree with.
Developing military strength is a long term effort, and given the people I vote for likely will not win every time, I don't think going back and forth between supporting or not supporting the military makes sense.
Perhaps this is very naive of me, but I also think that it's entirely possible I don't have the context to know better than those who make these decisions, or I could frankly just be wrong. This being the case I trust that others are still working to the common good even if they do it through means different than I.
To be completely honest, I do not understand why we keep fighting wars or why we want to behave like we are the world police. Nevertheless this behavior seems to continue no matter which party is in office, so I can only assume there's a good reason for it.
Most americans don't know or don't care. I don't know if you've seen the news in our country but it is horrifying. They are more focused on what Trump tweeted or what Melania is wearing than actual geopolitics.
It can be not to leave all of that cake to its main competitors: if Google takes a slice from Amazon and Microsoft, they will grow a little less faster. This applies to every sector, not only government and military.
If you ever played boardgames (especially German style) maybe you'll remember some games when only one player developed some resource unchecked by the other ones. This usually leads to an easy win for that player. Not easy to notice it in the earlier turns but then the differential in income (whatever it is in that game) is so obvious that everybody understands the game is over well before the end.
This makes absolute sense actually. But in one sense it's a game, and in another sense we mostly accept that war is a travesty, and generally very bad news for a civilian population. Analog to this is society, customers, employess etc. why are we tolerating an approach to business that is destructive for all but a few?
This comment taken along with the parent makes it so much more clear to me why everything has to be a competition between world powers... especially in far, far away lands.
Google isn’t “Google”. It is a series of siloed business units. One of those units is encentivised to win government/doj contracts. Google as a whole is wildly profitable. It’s ad platform ensures that. But the unit that is required to win multi-million dollar contracts from the government is less profitable. And that unit needs to justify its overhead just like any business does.
I worked for a company who lost money on their government contracts or at the most broke even. The CEO said that no matter what happened, they'd keep the Government business side moving because large companies need the Government of their city/state/country to look favorably on them. So Google might not make any money on the contract, but it is a pretty great lobbying tool the next time say some radio spectrum comes up for sale by the government. Way back in 2007, Google was bidding $4.6 billion for 22MHz block in the 700MHz range. I can't imagine what 22MHz of bandwidth is going for these days.
Amazon and Microsoft are certainly pursuing the defense market for their computing products. Defense is a half trillion dollar market. It's surprising that anyone is confused why a company would want to be in it.
The air gap itself is so that the military can use Google cloud to run computations that require a higher level of clearance. Those high clearance level computations are more likely to be directly related to combat and AI for drones. Air gap itself is no biggie, but the only reason they're building it is to enable the use of Google cloud for drone AI.
Those high clearance level computations are more likely to be directly related to combat and AI for drones.
No. The closer you are to a bullet the further you are from JWICS.
Aside from the most compartmentalized of special operations, which typically will fall within the purview of an IC member, the majority of the military works either in the open or at the "Secret" level.
There's nothing wrong with Google wanting as many people as possible to use their cloud offering. I suspect the engineers would be happy for most government agencies to use their offering and it makes sense for Google to pursue government contracts. Governments are the ideal cloud consumers, needing to operate at scale and happy with generic solutions as they're not so interested in squeezing out some competitive advantage. Clouds can save governments a lot of money and this is indisputably a good thing. (Even in those case where they might not be happy with a particular agency using the offering they may at least know that they're not implicated as the cloud offering is a general solution that likely does more good than harm.)
Where the balance tips and they become complicit is when they offer customized and specialized solutions that further a particular mission. Here I think good engineers will draw the line as a matter of conscience.
Just a guess, but perhaps being extremely rich and extremely powerful gives you a relatively small social circle, considering the grand scheme of humanity at almost 7.5 billion people. Consider also the allegations of Google being a de facto branch of the state department in When Google Met Wikileaks (2011).
It may be the case these people are all friends or acquaintances and enjoy the opportunity to work with each other.
I still get a bit tense when I remember reading The New Digital Age. (Written, not coincidentally, by Schmidt and Jared Cohen - ex State Department staffer, current Google visionary.)
It is, to an impressive degree, a love letter to the US government. It shows absolute faith in the ability of technology experts to help remake the world, spreading information worldwide for the benefit of all - but only the right information. As Assange put it in a cutting review: "...this isn’t a book designed to be read. It is a major declaration designed to foster alliances."
I don't think it's particularly hard to understand Google's high-level engagement with the US government; it represents a chance to diversify revenue while supporting ideological positions Schmidt has openly embraced for years. Nor is it surprising that government-aligned leadership is facing dissent in a professional that's historically been somewhere between suspicious of and allergic to government and surveillance.
Jared Cohen is the driver behind YouTube censorship and making Google/Internet an arm of the US government's propaganda effort. Schmidt has been trying to push his way into world politics as an unelected guru for about a decade.
I want them to have these contracts because I want the smartest people on the planet working to defend our country. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.
Maybe "many people here" feel that what our military does has little to nothing to do with defending our country, and often puts us at more risk and/or makes the world a worse place.
This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.
The one time our country was attacked in recent memory was on 9/11/2001 and despite our ridiculously large "defense" we couldn't even get a F-16 or two scrambled to protect our biggest and richest city after the first plane hit? It was like 45 minutes later, and <<crickets>> .... Our military is simply not lined up around the border defending our country one bit, it is much too busy building and defending an empire around the world that, honestly, doesn't do that much for Main Street, USA.
And I suppose you think that our invading soveriegn nations and causing civilian deaths in the 6-figures doesn't piss off the next generation and lead to more terrorists? Oh, and we have a bad habit of losing weaponry in countries all over the world too...what happens to all that, whose hands does it fall into? I could go on. and on. and on. and on.
Why would a defense force put you more at risk? The world is not a gentle place and it takes less than 30 seconds of browsing international headlines to see that. The chaos is kept in check through violence and the military has a direct impact on the peace and freedoms enjoyed by the populace.
Two major nations are rapidly growing powerful tyrants with Putin and Xinping. Do you think these situations just magically go away? Military action has already been brewing in recent years and you either have an answer when it comes to blows or prepare for a lot of misery.
I've come to find that most people (in the US anyway) who think that the military only does harm have never really witnessed or experienced any violence or unrest to see how bad things can be, which is good for them and proof that it works, but it does lead to a strange disconnection as evidenced by the comments and votes.
I don’t entirely disagree with you, but to play devil’s advocate: do you think invading Afghanistan and Iraq, destabilising the Middle East, and declaring “war on terror” has really made the world safer for Americans? I think the ideal you appeal to has been corrupted by commercial interests overriding security concerns.
Yes, I do think we have problems with certain commercial interests overriding public welfare, in pretty much all industries. Bad actors exist everywhere and unfortunately can cause much chaos in such a powerful force as the modern military.
That being said, yes, the world is safer than ever before. There have been many mishaps and sadly some of them are because of pulling back on military action prematurely, leading to a lack of control and a power vacuum that fills the void with much more turbulence than before. Proper leadership and direction still matters, but when it counts the US military is still capable and willing to keep its citizens and many others out of trouble anywhere on the planet, and there is a lot to be said for that.
Is our military capable? We've failed horrendously at two wars in Iraq and one war in Afghanistan. We like to claim that we defeated ISIS, but let's be real, we defeated ISIS in about the same way we defeated Germany, we let everybody else fight for us, then took the credit.
ISIS? PKK & YPG defeated ISIS, and as a thank you we're about to throw them under the bus to stay in the good graces of the Turkish dictator.
We hear a lot about the great might of the US military, and yes I will concede that we do manage to destroy a lot of countries, but we don't seem to win wars.
You cannot be serious?! PKK & YPG would have gotten absolutely crushed without american airpower. Nevermind that USSOF is on the ground, if I remember correctly there are Rangers and some USMC artillery in Syria as well. There were hundreds of airstrikes in the Siege of Kobane alone. You seem to completely misinformed.
The might of the US military is still beyond any other nation, even though that advantage is being threatened recently.
ISIS was very much defeated, and it was actually the lack of military followthrough that let it grow back, although it is still severely diminished. The citizens of those countries that were ravaged are incredibly thankful for US military assistance, and I advise you actually talk to some of them if you haven't before you pass judgement on what war you think was lost.
The US military is mighty, but not terribly effective. I mean, we're 17 years into the second gulf war. 17 years and we still can't pull-out because we screwed up the first one so royally.
I'm writing this from a refugee community center here in Istanbul, the Ad'Dar Center, where I volunteer a couple of hours every day helping helping kids with their lessons, especially in English and Math, cooking, making music, talking, and listening. (To a lesser extent I help people with paperwork and UN refugee processes, but I don't really have the patience for bureaucracy, so I leave that to the experts).
I'm not a political or military expert, but over the past five years 25% of my life was spent backpacking around the middle-east / balkans / black sea / eastern block regions studying languages and music, while the other 75% has been spent living / studying / working in Istanbul. I say this so that you know my perspective is not that of a SJW sipping $10 lattes while pigging out on $20 avocado toasts in SOMA. I haven't been in a war, but I've been through a coup, bribed my way through checkpoints, volunteered at refugee camps in Bulgaria, Greece & Albania, and have spoken to many hundreds of people who have been privvy 1st-hand to direct and indirect American "wars". Back stateside, I grew up in Michigan and 1/2 of our family friends were Afghani & Iraqi engineers who had fled to the US in the 1980s (the other 1/2 were white-trash patriotic biker gangs. Michigan is a weird place).
As you would expect, the feelings and views about America here are quite varied and diverse, but the two constants that come up in every conversation:
- America should stop policing the middle-east, we do more harm than good.
- Supporting Israel and Saudi Arabia makes us the real financiers of terrorism
- America is using the Kurds, our best allies in the war against terror, and will be stabbing them in the back at the first opportunity for political favor
ISIS isn't defeated, by the way, they've just re-branded.
Your comment history seems to show a made-up version of events where you also claim the US did nothing in WW2. I'm not sure what narrative you're trying to push but your personal history seems suspect on this basis, and the anonymous username doesn't help.
You're also conflating foreign policy with military strength. They are not the same and I'm talking about the latter. How that power is used and whether it's always the best idea can definitely be argued, but the fact that the power is necessary and that having it keeps the peace is most definitely not debatable.
When it comes down to it, there is no other military power willing and able to defend its own and others to such an extent, and that alone set it apart. Trying to weaken that stature will only result in greater harm for both US and foreign citizens.
Ignoring your first two comments because they're boring. The third one, can you give me a good argument as to why it is not possible to be "too mighty"? Does this state not just create a heightened sense of fear amongst those countries who see us for the warmongers we are?
By all means, have a strong national defense, but at some point the rest of the world will decide it's time to join together to destroy the 'murikkkan empire? The rest of the world would be a lot happier without having our freedom forced upon them through violence.
The whole thing is great, but your comment particularly reminded me of 4:
“To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.”
30 seconds of glancing at the international news is enough to see that the world is a much more peaceful place than it was in the early 20th century, say.
It is definitely necessary to have a military, even if only as a deterrent, but it can also be counter-productive to depend on the military too much. Those aren’t contradictory statements.
Police != military. Those principles don't really apply here as they are different forces both in duty and power.
A military can only act as a deterrent if it has the capability to actually pull off what it claims, otherwise it very quickly loses standing. It's far better to have the ability to defend and never need it then to be wishing you had it when something goes wrong.
There is no such world where you don't depend on the military. The world is literally controlled through violence. Everything comes down to either direct action or the threat of it (backed by the capabilities as mentioned). Sure you can avoid a lot through diplomatic means, and we should always look for peaceful solutions, but reducing military power is only done at your peril.
The US is (or was) often referred to as the world’s policeman. I think it’s a fairly useful analogy.
Police certainly can (and often do) control the populace through violence and intimidation. It’s also possible to reduce crime via cooperation and consent.
On the world stage, you can regard nations as individual actors and think about what those actors can do to coexist peacefully. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a brutal “survival of the fittest” struggle. The same strategies used by individuals could work at the nation state level too. And they do! Look at the role of treaties, trade deals, mutual migration, art and literature, economic interdependence, etc in maintaining the peace.
I am definitely not saying we don’t need a military. We sometimes need armed police too. But not every police officer needs to carry a gun around.
I don't see how it's useful because it assumes the world is 1 country and we're only policing internally. Everything changes when you take away international borders and the idea of separate nations.
Regardless, I'm not sure where you disagree with the rest of my comment because I do say that diplomacy should come first, but it would be denying reality to suggest that the underlying foundation is not built upon military might and the threat of world-ending firepower. That is the real force keeping things civil and any upset to that balance can cause chaos real quick.
Peace never lasts forever, so you either have a strong military and hopefully never have to use it, or you're just counting down the days until pain and suffering are at your doorstep.
A military can only act as a deterrent if it has the capability to actually pull off what it claims
Consider that the US military has lost every war since it was one of the victors of WW2 along with the UK and Russia. And it didn’t make any difference. All those wars were entirely optional and the consequences of losing them were nonexistent. So what’s it all for, really?
I'm not sure what answer you're looking for. The world isn't static so of course there were consequences.
I'm not saying the military is perfect or that everything it does is right (and much of that is due to the whims of leadership), but that having a strong military is an option that most wish they had because they see first-hand what it's like without. There is no substitute for that power and it's easy to overlook in the several decades and generations of relative peace that has endured so far.
When America was defeated in Vietnam, the next thing that happened was not the NVA burning down the White House. In fact there was never any possibility of that happening nor a threat to the US mainland.
So every other country is some tiny 3rd world nation? You do realize there are major superpowers that are currently kept at bay through the promise of force? Or do you think they’re just being nice?
Nuclear arsenals are part of the military, and what campaigns do you think the US is losing? What materially have we actually lost?
Let's not conflate foreign policy and politics with military might. Things can go wrong from bad leadership regardless of what powers are at command, but those powers at the same time guarantee a certain level of safety and capability on behalf of the nation's interests. I don't see how you can deny that with any sense of reality.
what campaigns do you think the US is losing? What materially have we actually lost?
There's no sign of a stable liberal secular democracy emerging anytime soon in Afghanistan or Iraq is there? At the cost of trillions upon trillions of dollars if you only want to focus on material things. But you can point at an American campaign, Somalia, Vietnam as I've mentioned, any adventures in Latin America... And then there's Ukraine, whose territorial integrity America guaranteed in return for giving up its own nuclear weapons, and yet the Russians waltzed in an annexed the Crimea without any trouble at all.
America does all these things when it is in no danger itself, and millions upon millions of innocent people die because of it, and that is why people have misgivings about working on drone targeting.
I'm talking about having the biggest gun to make sure we can defend ourselves against any threat. You're talking about who uses that gun and for what. That's a fine debate to have, but it's not the same topic.
I agree foreign policy needs work, and there is harm caused, but that has nothing to do with military strength. Perhaps this conflation is the real issue with these threads as people can't seem to separate power and capabilities from its application.
I'm talking about having the biggest gun to make sure we can defend ourselves against any threat
Yes that's fine. If America were facing an existential threat. Defence of one's home/property is the fundamental human right that is the basis of all rights. No question from me there.
You're talking about who uses that gun and for what. That's a fine debate to have, but it's not the same topic.
I believe they are inextricably linked. I would wager many of those reluctant to work on dronetech right now, in the present circumstances of its use, would be perfectly willing to do so if the enemy really were at the gates.
That's the thing, a strong defense keeps the enemy from ever getting to the gates in the first place. If you wait until they're already there, it's too late. In the age of AI delivering exponential advancements, time is only more important.
Kidding aside:
It has already been shown that every century is less violent than the preceding one. This has nothing to do with military per se, but a lot to do with improvement in social norms helped by technologies. Steven Pinker is a good debater on that topic.
Evidence of what? The American people are safe and sound and the interests of America are still protected, and very few countries even think about threatening us here, thanks to a strong military force.
Those ares you mentioned would be better off if they had a strong military to keep order and protect their citizens.
Strange. I've come to find that most who think the modern military is primarily a "defense force" are wholly deluded about what the history actually does and its history.
Sure, it acts in the interests of the state, and as a citizen of that state, it acts in my interests, one of which is my defense. It's a complex definition but I'm interested in what you think is so deluded?
To be fair, America didn't really win WW2, we hardly even fought, mostly we just supplied Hitler with arms, and when that wasn't fashionable anymore, we supplied the allies with arms.. Then we swooped in at the end to take all the credit and the fat construction contracts.
In the 20s and the early 30s (that is to say, before Hitler rose to power), the US brokered efforts to reduce the burden of WWI reparations, as well as inject loans into Germany to help its moribund economy. FDR was opposed to Hitler, and would have brought the US into the war earlier, but US public opinion was firmly isolationist. Even then, the US was neutral really in name only, as it devised conditions for selling weapons that amounted to "only the UK can buy them." Yes, the US logistical support to the Allies was crucial both to keeping them collapsing and actually decisively winning the war, but the US military did prove superior to both Axis and other Allies in several regards, most notably artillery, amphibious assaults, and carrier operations.
It's a little sad when you have to divert your best and brightest away from advancing the state of civilization, to merely defending what you already have.
Obviously that will still advance the state of the art in some areas.
But there are also people outside of your country. Google is a global company, and I am also their customer... It doesn't feel right to support a company, which in turn supports military of another country than mine.
I'm sure if you dug down a little, you would see that you have supported companies that are involved in building weapons for the US...some of those conglomerates have tentacles in everything, all over the world.
Sure. But if they weren’t doing that they wouldn’t be curing cancer, they’d be working on more adtech, etc. The people making a big moral stand here were all perfectly OK with mass surveillance for commercial interests remember.
This is a very tricky issue. I’m certainly no anti-government Libertarian or Tea Partier. But I think there’s a lot of value in keeping institutions separate, so they can act as checks and balances on each other. Just as the different branches of government are separate, and news organizations are independent, corporations should be independent (including from each other -- competition, not cosy cartels).
Google already does a fantastic job protecting their users from hackers, including those from nation states like China and Russia. Rather than cosying up to the US government, they should keep a wary eye on whether to protect their users from US government hackers too.
Also, I’m pretty sure there are already plenty of exceptionally smart people working at the NSA.
I’ll freely admit I’m not totally consistent on this, as I strongly support some big government-run organizations like the NHS (I’m from the UK).
I am only vaguely familiar with these groups, but it seems they exist to bring influential political and business people together to discuss current issues. This doesn't seem so bad, so why whenever they're brought up is it always suggested it should be shameful?
It's a very weird criticism - the membership list for these things is extensive, and it would honestly have surprised me if Schmidt wasn't a member of some of them. The Bilderberg conspiracies are especially funny, because so many of them amount to whispering darkly about stuff that's
literally posted on the Bilderberg Meeting website. It's an off-the-record meeting of the rich and power to talk about the issues of the day, you say? Well yes, that's the stated intention!
On a related note, the parent comment would be way better off looking at Schmidt's co-author on The New Digital Age. Jared Cohen came out of the Department of State, headed up Google Ideas, and is now looking at technical issues around censorship and "countering extremism". It's hard for me to understand how a vague reference to the Bilderbergs could possibly be more meaningful than the very open "hiring State Department staffers" connection.
Why aren't any representatives from the 99.9% of humanity invited to these meetings? Many (most?) would prefer a more democratic sort of world leadership.
