"Do Less Evil" -- the best Bill Gates quote of the Decade
Newspeak comes to Google.
Very insightful little blog post from Davos following a Bill and Eric Panel:
"We even made an evil scale and decided it was more evil not to go in than to go in," Schmidt said.
On hearing that, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates muttered into his microphone: "That's do less evil."
It's not too hard to imagine the weenies at Google sitting around with a little evil scale to justify any of their decisions. That such cover for their cupidity is really a sign of profound fecklessness is not surprising. Gates' deadly accurate zinger is just the pinprick to explode the grandiose pomposity that has become the Google guys' moral swaggering.
The complete absence of maturity, perspective, humility, or even plain old common sense at the Googleplex these days has everybody -- everybody -- I know in the internet business rooting for the Fall.
Google's comeuppance, when it arrives, is going to be celebrated and feted on a wide, wide scale.
Posted by marc at January 28, 2006, 09:59 AM
Comments
Marc,
I agree, and frankly - its going to come VERY soon. Watch closely the next 6 months at how the DOJ is going to be looking at the amassing of data -- I am hearing rumblings of this already from people in DC.
Andy
Posted by Andy M on January 28, 2006 05:24 PM
Marc,
I still think a lot of the Google bashing is driven by plain old envy. That said, these guys have engaged in some creative accounting of "evil," such as when Sergey and Larry bought a 767--one step down from a 747 in size--to use as a personal jet.
When pressed on the environmental effects of this beast, they basically said that all their other environmental efforts would more than offset this, so their net effect as people would be positive.
In terms of "the fall," I think their soft underbelly right now is the swamp of endless beta projects. None of these have really expanded their footprint yet. Considering that they probably don't cost them that much I wouldn't call them failures, but to sustain their valuation they need to show the ability to open new fronts, and they haven't really done this yet. Adsense is a great cash cow and has plenty of upside but a lot of the market is banking on the Google-dominates-world hypothesis. If/when the bubble bursts the fall will be painful.
Among other things I think the damage to Google's brand from the China episode will be long-lasting. The innocence is gone now and I won't be surprised if the privacy issues start gaining steam. Just ask Microsoft what it's like when you start getting called to the floor in DC every week to defend yourself.
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