The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove.
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Puzzled by the "mysterious" abandonment of Google's mantra?
Soon after Google's original owners sold the company, the new CEO was on the radio program "The Commonwealth Club of California". He stressed the enormous chores of turning a loosey-goosey humanistic company into a lean mean money-making machine.
"The company's value statement was 'Do No Evil'! We've got to fix that!" The audience roared with laughter. He was surprised.
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Not an exact quote, but very close.@oldclumsy_nowmad Fascinating! Was that Sundar Pichai after Alphabet took over Google?
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@dbattistella I don't believe that publicly traded for-profit companies are capable of this. I think the very fact that such a company is incentivized to perpetually extract wealth from workers and customers and give it to 3rd party share holders who contribute nothing to wealth generation beyond a one-time contribution of capital is what makes these companies grow into vile monsters over time. They are exploitative by design, and this is the dominant form of company in our economy.
It's possible to break this mold. Cooperatives are democratically controlled, and often the workers and/or customers are the shareholders, with equal shares. This changes the incentive structure from an exploitative one to, you guessed it, a cooperative one. If we could only make this the dominant form of company in our economy, we would live in a very different world where "don't be evil" was the natural order of things.
@hosford42 @dbattistella Word
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella Nothing like Google acknowledging that the Pentagon is evil.
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@oldclumsy_nowmad Fascinating! Was that Sundar Pichai after Alphabet took over Google?
Unfortunately, I don't remember if it was Sundar Pichai. At the time of the broadcast, it was a name I had never heard before, and I don't remember the name.
But I think the reorganization and transfer to Alphabet in 2015 is the right time frame, so Pichai seems a likely source.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella
Today’s motto is still
“Make money” -
The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
They could just have removed the 'don't'.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella Thank you for this sharing this story.
It seems to be a real moto for a moment, so we should not blaming ourself in adopting too much google/gmail, another future was really possible.
Now, we should retract from using all these companies. It's not impossible. -
@oldclumsy_nowmad Fascinating! Was that Sundar Pichai after Alphabet took over Google?
@dbattistella @oldclumsy_nowmad I would hazard to guess Schmidt
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
google was evil long before 2018
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella So much for "code of conduct."
"Don't be evil" mah bear ass.
They were kinda having fun with the version names on Android too back then. I remember that easter egg art on Gingerbread
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@dbattistella @oldclumsy_nowmad I would hazard to guess Schmidt
That could be right.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella I don’t invest in any US stock mutual funds specifically to avoid google and Facebook stock. Between that and the craziness of the present US administration, most of our retirement investments are now overseas.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella Well, Google confirmed it themselves: They are indeed evil.
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That could be right.
A quick search for 'eric schmidt commonwealth club' just brought up a photo of Schmidt dated 2013 June 04, titled "CA: Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt Speaks At San Francisco's Commonwealth Club".
Fits my (imprecise) recollection of the timing.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella "In the future, Google is still the best search engine, but it has enslaved about half of the world."
So the Simpsons were wrong 20 years ago. Google is not the best search engine and it has enslaved more than half of the world... -
The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
It wasn't too hard to remove the "Don't".
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella Google can have a little evil... as a treat!
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella I think we can learn from this that once a corporation grows large enough, it will inevitably do evil.
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The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove. Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001.
Then in early 2018, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract to build AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.
The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.
Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface.
@dbattistella ...well makes sense they've done plenty of not so swell things even before that. Just updating the code of conduct based off their past experiences.
