I guess it's what you get when you get judged by revenue growth, not just revenue, or even by people-employed-and-kept well-fed or some other more sensible metric.

Measuring companies “by people-employed-and-kept well-fed or some other more sensible metric” strikes me as a fantastic idea.

It's either that or pay dividends...

> Expect many big "evil" things to come from Google in the near future.

I worry a lot about the long term. What is going to be done with FB and Google's data once their founders are gone and Wall St has complete control? As far as I know, from their point of view there is no line that cannot be crossed for shareholder value. I believe in many cases the founders of these companies have actually been more morale than your generic fund manager. What's going to happen when the founders are gone?

Dont be evil was pretty much meaningless to begin with. Its not like there was a clear definition, and not being evil is a far cry from being actively a force for Good.

Sure it had meaning. It was protest against the old Microsoft.

Now that google is big enough to have the sort of financial incentives old Microsoft did, they’re making the same decisions. No it’s not identical, the EU is after them for their anticompetitive behavior, not the US.

"Don't be evil" was cute marketing, never a serious statement. It was removed precisely because people kept using it to argue against anything the company did.

Advertisers are also not leaving Google at all, and Facebook is not a replacement.

> keep those profitable quarters

Isn't it actually illegal for publicly traded companies to do otherwise?

Illegal? No. The principle is "best interests of shareholders" but that has never meant only profits, especially if the costs of those profits do material damage to the world those shareholders live in, in which case it's not in the best interests.

absolutely not, but the shareholders can stage a rebellion if the company keeps going in a direction they don't want it to. The standard examples here are companies that lose money or make minimal profits due to investing revenue into product development or growth. This is something shareholders are often okay with.

No this is actually a myth.

“More to the point, corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price.”

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

>First the military drones, now getting in bed with China, and the law straw was removing almost every mention of "Don't be evil" from its workers' code of conduct manual.

I'm sorry, but providing services to the US military (as an American company) does not qualify as 'evil'. I hear the same insane calls for not providing services to ICE, a federal, civilian agency enforcing American democratically-derived laws.

With respect to Google's dealings with China (and similarly Facebook's dealings with Russia), you can't expect technology companies to fight or even ignore major world military, economic and geopolitical powers.

It's not fair for Google to take the 'high-road' with China when nobody else does. I'm certain OP has no qualms in buying and using Chinese-made goods but still complains about Google being evil because they can't afford to ignore 1.4 billion people.

It is not fair for Facebook to fight Russian attempts at election engineering. It's not fair when the public demands that Facebook take all responsibility for being targeted by a major global power with unlimited resources to launch cyber attacks (looking at you Swisher).

Both cases are failures of US, and European governments. US and EU should exert diplomatic and economic pressure on China and Russia to liberalize their governments, and economies (the shit the China gets away with in the kinds of hoops it requires foreign companies to jump through is insane). In the case of Russia, it is the US and EU that should take every step necessary to force that government to stop targeting western technologies companies for purpose of manipulating the voting public.

This is particularly directed at the EU and Germany as they are very fond of publicly stating that with Trump being Trump that EU/Germany should take on a leadership position in world and they have the most to lose. Thus far, EU has done very little to curb Russian aggression (Germany particularly has been quiet) EVEN in light of the fact that Russia funded and took active role in the misinformation campaign that led to Brexit, and multitudes of EU and European nations have been either targeted with military force (Ukraine) or dirty money for corrupting politicians. Apparently none of this is enough for EU and Germany to pay more than lip service to Russian aggression.

Both being considered evil by a significant portion are a direct result of their own past actions. Saying "it is unfair to be judged morally for your actions while in power" is fundamentally about as much of an excuse as "I didn't shoot the guy I paid people to do it and they were just following orders so really nobody is at fault here!"

ICE's conduct isn't following the laws unless there were changes that called for putting tearing children away from families to place in steel cages in the custody of known child molesters and psychotropically drugging children without specialized medical licensing. Even if you accept their job the way they beyond the pale. They are literally acting in ways that would get a work critically panned as having such cartoonishly evil strawmen villains a few years ago. Don't fall for the hypernormalization efforts.

You are correct, but unfortunately people do not use rational thought when discussing emotional issues, especially in today's highly politicized and socially sensitive environment.

Spoken like a true boot licker.

It is absolutely the responsibility of every sovereign citizen and every company made up of those citizens to resist objectively evil behavior regardless of the larger apparatus at work.

Saying it “isn’t fair” for google to take the high road is the most asinine childish argument you could possibly put fourth.

It isn’t fair that people are having their human rights curtailed for profit. So that some people in some part of the world get amazing healthcare and amazing lunches, others have to suffer.

ICE was invented recently under Bush in 2003 preceding the Homeland security act. You are wrong to say we democratically voted in ICE. Even if we did vote it in, kidnapping children is evil fullstop and should be protested.

No American is free of using third world slave labor. This is unavoidable and all we can do is bring attention to it.

Your kowtowing to the powerful and buying into their propaganda is insanely stupid, evil and you should be ashamed of yourself.

>You are wrong to say we democratically voted in ICE.

Do you not understand how your own democratic system works? You don't democratically vote in any policy. You elect representatives charged with creating laws (Congress) and enforcing laws (Executive Branch). ICE is a federal agency created by Congress under the Homeland Security Act, with specific task of enforcing immigration laws and investigating immigration law breaches.