| ▲ | steve1977 7 hours ago |
| Did Google ever have a real Don't be Evil era? |
|
| ▲ | sowbug 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The original expression came out of an internal company discussion that someone summarized (paraphrased) as "when there's a tough choice to make, one is usually less evil. Make that choice." In the early days of Google in the public consciousness, this turned into "you can make money without being evil." (From the 2004 S-1.) Over time, it got shortened to "don't be evil." But this phrase became an obligatory catchphrase for anyone's gripes against Google The Megacorp. Hey, Google, how come there's no dark mode on this page? Whatever happened to "don't be evil"? It didn't serve its purpose anymore, so it was dropped. Answering your question really depends on your priors. I could see someone honestly believing Google was never in that era, or that it has always been from the start. I strongly believe that the original (and today admittedly stale) sentiment has never changed. |
| |
| ▲ | ux266478 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Making a loud affair out its retirement rather than quietly letting it collect dust and be forgotten over time was most definitely not a good idea. The public already demonstrated that they adopted, misused and weaponized the maxim. Its retirement just sharpened the edge of that weapon. Now instead of "What happened to don't be evil?" it's become "Of course Google is being evil." and everything exists in that lens. | | |
| ▲ | sowbug 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A similar dynamic is playing out with Anthropic, whose founders left OpenAI in part over a philosophical split that could be described, if you'll grant a little literary license appropriate to this thread, as Anthropic choosing the "don't be evil" path. No surprise that we now see HN commentary skewering Anthropic for not living up to it. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | neilv 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They had to at least nominally have it, early on, to be able to hire the best Internet-savvy people. Tech industry culture today is pretty much finance bro culture, plus a couple decades of domain-specific conditioning for abuse. But at the time Google started, even the newly-arrived gold rush people didn't think like that. And the more experienced people often had been brought up in altruistic Internet culture: they wanted to bring the goodness to everyone, and were aware of some abuse threats by extrapolating from non-Internet society. |
|
| ▲ | Minor49er 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If you need to sloganize a reminder to yourself to not be evil, that's not a promising sign |
| |
| ▲ | neilv 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Early in Google's history, I took that sentiment as saying that they were one of us (Internet people), and weren't going to act like Microsoft (at the time, regarded by Internet people as an underhanded and ignorant company). Even though Google had a very nice IR function and general cluefulness, and seemed destined to be big and powerful. And if it were the altruistic Internet people they hired, the slogan/mantra could be seen as a reminder to check your ego/ambition/enthusiasm, as well as a shorthand for communicating when you were doing that, and that would be respected by everyone because it had been blessed from the top as a Prime Directive. Today, if a tech company says they aspire not to be evil: (1) they almost certainly don't mean it, in the current culture and investment environment, or they wouldn't have gotten money from VCs (who invest in people motivated like themselves); (2) most of their hires won't believe it, except perhaps new grads who probably haven't thought much about it; and (3) nobody will follow through on it (e.g., witness how almost all OpenAI employees literally signed to enable the big-money finance-bro coup of supposedly a public interest non-profit). | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I took it to mean, prioritize long-term growth over short-term income. But the slogan was silly even back then, like obviously an evil company would claim to not be evil. | | |
| ▲ | neilv 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | If it was silly, a lot of altruistic people nevertheless fell for it. For example, my impression at the time was that people thought that Google would be a responsible steward of Usenet archives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Spencer#Preserving_Usene... FWIW, it absolutely was believable to me at the time that another Internet person would do a company consistent with what I saw as the dominant (pre-gold-rush) Internet culture. For example of a personality familiar to more people on HN, one might have trusted that Aaron Swartz was being genuine, if he said he wanted to do a company that wouldn't be evil. (I had actually proposed a similar corporate rule to a prospective co-founder, at a time when Google might've still been hosted at Stanford. Though the co-founder was new to Internet, and didn't have the same thinking.) |
| |
| ▲ | 1718627440 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In other words the company made a bet on peoples naivety and it worked. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | fragmede 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| '99 to 2004. You had to have been there, maaaan... |
| |
