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What’s happened to Google?
For some in the tech industry, Google’s reputation for integrity has frayed.
“It seems as if no company, executive, or institution truly understands how to survive and prosper in the internet age. Except Google.”
–Jeff Jarvis, “What Would Google Do?” (2009)
If you had asked members of the tech industry in the mid 2000’s which company most embodied trustworthiness, transparency, integrity, and overall geek-friendly values, you might have received a variety of responses. But one was sure to dominate the rest: Google.
By 2005 or so, Google’s company culture had become famous for, among other things, its disarmingly simple motto: “Don’t be evil.” In context, the statement was a differentiator; the phrase was understood to be a response to the dominant and intractible technology companies which had, over the course of several decades, gradually and unapologetically acquired greater control of our lives with little apparent accountability. Google’s motto has become so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that it even has its own Wikipedia page.
Taken literally, the motto sets a fairly low bar. And for a company of Google’s size and complexity, any attempt…
