September 8th, 2008 // 13 Comments
Filed: Tech
Britain’s Independent takes a swing here. Short version: Google has become the kind of uber-power it used to rebel against. “Don’t be evil” is bullshit. Street View lets people see inside your house. Be afraid!
Funny thing is that the problem with Google has been apparent all along, or at least since its stock offering, which was set up so that insiders got special super-duper shares which let them control the company even after selling shares to the public. In other words, Give us your money and shut the hell up. We’re not making this rule because we’re evil. We’re making this rule because we’re so much smarter than you, and you’ll just screw things up if you start trying to tell us what to do, and it’s actually in your own best interest to let us use your money without answering to you. Seriously. It is.
That alone was enough for me. Not because I thought they were lying — because I thought they were sincere. Oh, and there’s also the “Don’t be evil” thing. Are there really people whose little internal alarms don’t go off when they hear something like that?
it’s that liberal elite again, telling you what is best for you…
Do you prefer that companies be run solely by profit-seeking shareholders?
Google is starting to scare me a bit and I’ve never been worried about all the gmail privacy nonsense and other supposed scares.
However, as a licensed equities trader, I have to disagree with you about the stock offering. The dutch auction process actually shut OUT many Wall Street insiders that wanted to do the same old manipulation that gave the entire tech industry a black eye.
Yes, it helped the people that built the company retain a larger controlling share…would you rather it were the investment bankers?
The “little” guy was never going to play a part, no way, no how. As it was they gave wall street the stiff arm and continued to do things as they have always done which, while not perfect, is a hell of a lot better than what happens when most innovative companies go public.
I don’t understand that kind of reasoning… you ridicule the “don’t be evil” thing and at the same time suggest shareholders should have more say? What do you fantasize would happen then?
As long as success proves them right they can be as arrogant to there shareholders as they want as far as I’m concerned (not a shareholder^^) btw the same applies for apple …putting money on the table doesn’t make you an expert in anything, if you don’t like their relationship to shareholders don’t buy their stock and stop the bitching!
I didn’t believe that line when Isaac Tigrett used it for The Hard Rock Cafe.
“Don’t be boring” – that would be a good motto for someone.
BTW, “Don’t be evil” usually translates to something like the road to ruin is paved with good intentions. So who’s road is it anyway? Sorry these drugs I’m being prescribed are goofying me up more than usual.
Yes, a company should be focused solely on profits. When those profits are distributed, to shareholders and employees, then those people can make the decision to invest, do “good works”, etc.
I don’t think a company should spend one dime of my money doing nice things. Those are distractions and irrelevant to the task of killing their competitors. I don’t care about charities, feel good crap, donations, etc. At best all of it is marketing to make you believe the company cares. At worst it is a major defocus and creates potentially massive inefficiences.
Btw, killing competitors is in fact what companies are supposed to do. The companies that pursue that objective are the companies that I want to put my money into. Leaving competitors wounded and angry is a very stupid thing to do.
re: profits?
Well, I do think with “great power comes great responsibility” – and I think it is a nice feat to keep big shareholders at bay, for two reasons: I think those who know best should make decisions, rather than some detached and possibly un(der)educated greedy morons; often, those ‘institutional investors’ want to maximize profit only, that’s it. Again, often this is unethical (killing off natural and human resources along the way) and stupid and backwards, instead of helping mankind as a whole to advance by stimulating invention: this is – what I think – what Google’s hidden agenda is: stir up the market with some cool stuff (Gmail, Gdocs, Android, …), democratize information (Gmaps, GEarth, GBooks, …) and technology (AppEngine) and force the whole industry to move along and step up to the plate: or why else you think did Yahoo/Microsoft improve their webmail, maps, etc. Besides, I do not see Google seriously competing in the market anyway: the moment they seem too lose, they do not force their competition out of the way, but either simply buy them (YouTube vs. Google Video, and more recently Omnisio) or leave them alone and happy (Facebook v. Orkut); and why should they: everybody there has enough money already and just wants to have a good time: Sergey and Larry keep the google machine as a hoppy, putting new technology out there and move on to newer stuff – nothing wrong with that, is it?
You act like preferred stock is some kind of Google innovation. Founders and boards have been fucking shareholders for way longer than Google has been around.
Google has a 600 billion market cap, and more employees than it knows what to do with. And no management structure or corporate culture. It’s still profitable, but it’s churning.
i think the problem with google is more like they’re like A.D.D. afflicted genius children on too much sugar and no parent to give direction. like molly wood’s take here.