I can't speak for anyone but myself of course but living the 'don't be evil' motto would result in Google sometimes leaving money on the table if taking it would involve betraying some trust. When this comes up it is inevitably a privacy violation that people are concerned about, but sometimes its a bait-and-switch type situation like the new pricing for AppEngine.
I don't think anyone believes them to be a charity or a non-profit, but if you could show how a billion dollars in the quarter was not collected (reducing their free cash flow from 2.8B$ to 1.8B$ for the quarter) because to do so would have required sharing 'too much' information about their user's browing habits, or what they stored, how they used AppEngine. They would get tremendous kudos and support from the community and Wall Street would mercillessly pummel them. I mean really, who wouldn't pick a billion dollars up off the floor?
That sort of wall street punishment would depress their stock price, and that would hurt the employees who feel 'better' when their stock options are worth something than when they are worthless. It is a vicious circle.
Remember the discussion in City Slickers [1] when Bruno Kirby's character tries to get Billy Crystal's character to admit he would cheat on his wife if the situation was 'right.' (and by right he generally meant there were going to be no consequences, no one would find out, etc etc.) And at the end Billy Crystal says "God would know." That was a wonderfully crisp treatise on integrity, and it illustrated, the difference between externally applied values versus internally upheld values.
It seems few people in life have the level of integrity that Billy Crystal's character shows, and so the process seems to boil down to keeping enough consequences in place so that employees won't violate a company value, and having the will to fire people who step over the line, even if the company benefitted from their action.
'Don't be evil' is, as many have pointed out, really too squishy to be actionable. But something like 'if you have to choose profit over privacy, choose privacy.' would be. Certainly not as catchy though.
It's hard enough to figure out how much money a product will make when you're building, but you want companies to come out with SEC-acceptable projections for how much they would have made on projects they chose not to build?
It's very hard to figure out how much individual feature elements in a huge product or service earn or lose. It's similarly hard to put numbers on the damage to brand done by a privacy violation or breach of trust costs a company. Attempting to guide company ethics via financial metrics just leads to people finding loopholes in the math.
"It's hard enough to figure out how much money a product will make when you're building, but you want companies to come out with SEC-acceptable projections for how much they would have made on projects they chose not to build?"
Historically this is precisely why Google has declined to provide any guidance at all. At the time Google starts being able to provide SEC-acceptable guidance on their income I would expect the creative people there will have left.
As WOPR would say, "The only way to win is to not play the game."
I don't think anyone believes them to be a charity or a non-profit, but if you could show how a billion dollars in the quarter was not collected (reducing their free cash flow from 2.8B$ to 1.8B$ for the quarter) because to do so would have required sharing 'too much' information about their user's browing habits, or what they stored, how they used AppEngine. They would get tremendous kudos and support from the community and Wall Street would mercillessly pummel them. I mean really, who wouldn't pick a billion dollars up off the floor?
That sort of wall street punishment would depress their stock price, and that would hurt the employees who feel 'better' when their stock options are worth something than when they are worthless. It is a vicious circle.
Remember the discussion in City Slickers [1] when Bruno Kirby's character tries to get Billy Crystal's character to admit he would cheat on his wife if the situation was 'right.' (and by right he generally meant there were going to be no consequences, no one would find out, etc etc.) And at the end Billy Crystal says "God would know." That was a wonderfully crisp treatise on integrity, and it illustrated, the difference between externally applied values versus internally upheld values.
It seems few people in life have the level of integrity that Billy Crystal's character shows, and so the process seems to boil down to keeping enough consequences in place so that employees won't violate a company value, and having the will to fire people who step over the line, even if the company benefitted from their action.
'Don't be evil' is, as many have pointed out, really too squishy to be actionable. But something like 'if you have to choose profit over privacy, choose privacy.' would be. Certainly not as catchy though.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101587/