Isn't his just weird repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 ?
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Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
181–190 of 290 posts
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
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BIT of a broad brush there but we can take the critique. While we vote for our leaders we don’t exactly get a say or have awareness of what sort of covert bullshit some over eager Yale graduate is doing as a top secret operation.
> While we vote for our leaders we don’t exactly get a say or have awareness of what sort of covert bullshit some over eager Yale graduate is doing as a top secret operation.
I obviously don't know who you voted for, but anyone who voted for someone who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq is somewhat complicit (Clinton, Biden, etc).
And I'm not speaking just about those running for presidency, but all the Congressmen who got re-elected over and over again.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author of this article disagrees: > “Don’t Be Evil” wasn’t just a slogan of often-referenced Googliness—it was a north star for teams making hard calls. It definitely counts for something that at least one senior leader felt the slogan was relevant for decision making.
The author is not cynical enough. Do you going around telling people how virtuous you are? No, good people just try and be good. The slogan was a red flag right from the start.
It was purely self interest don't piss off people so that regulators break our monopoly. Once the monopoly was challenged it became less important.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not gonna like it when you find out where, exactly, America learned those values from.
Luckily, we've gone through that phase around ninety years ago in Europe. We've been trying to avoid it happening again ever since, though right now is a dangerous time here as well. But hey, at least Europe hasn't fallen yet.
Morally fallen? Sure, Europe hasn't fallen yet.
Systemically and structurally? Already on its way there.
Excessive moral policing results in strangling regulations, which is exactly what Europe is facing right now. The opposite of innovation.
Good luck in your endeavors.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
What behavior was fine, exactly?
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The criticism of Google and their abandoning of their "Don't Be Evil" motto has been a constant here since before Trump's first term. There's no correlation with Dems being in government.
If anything, what Google (and Meta, etc) show during Trump is how hypocritical their "values" were at their core. When it paid them to pursue carbon neutral policies, and being seen as "inclusive" or whatever, being seen as against violence, they did so. Now that those in power are against all of that, it pays to quietly or not so quietly abandon those policies. They can do this because they were never their core values, they were just convenient for business at the time.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#186Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could see some of that in 2011 (I started before the ipo), but it was almost all from ads. People in other parts of the company had a very different experience.
Oh absolutely, I transferred out of ads as soon as I could and of course it all seemed different. The reality is that ads was 95% of the company revenue though, so it was all fantasy.
For many years infra was delightfully oblivious, just finding interesting things to build. :)
Working on promo committee I could see how different ads was
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#188Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine many Google people are interested, and they get voted up. You don’t have to read and engage with everything on the front page. And you certainly don’t have to come make snarky criticisms of others.
I don’t feel like I was being “snarky.” I also have no problem with the articles being upvoted. I don’t think it’s very fair to tell people who want to constructively criticize articles to just not engage with them. That feels like a deflection of my points rather than addressing the merit of what I actually said. Instead of saying “here’s what was wrong with your idea” you said “you’re not supposed to be here.” I ge…
I think it’s fair to say that if you are not interested to just move on, and not criticize having a discussion on that topic
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#190> Google was a different company 9 years ago. No it wasn’t.
16 years ago it was
Jup! From day 2, the moment when they discover that customer data (yours, mine, everyone's) is more valuable than gold.
Also the interaction with government and defense and intelligence is well documented: from google docs to maps and clouds.
I wish people will read "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet" by Yasha Levine and stop feigning ignorance. I even expect that minimal level of awareness about the real business culture and inherent nature of these internet mega-corps for people in top positions.
"Don't Be Evil" is a psychological machination for people working at google to ease their life in work related cognitive dissonance and marketing speak to the rest of us.
If I were an angel (actual, not fallen yet) I will not tell my self: "Don’t Be Evil". My motto will be "keep being holy" or "be holier" or something that keep me in my angelic state or better.
So even the “Don’t Be Evil” motto by itself already spill the beans!