I live in Argentina. Few years back, an ex government official from the previous government was caught in the act of hiding 8 million dollars in a church.

My partner's auncle was also an ex government official from the previous government.

He was in charge of the country's office for regulation work in rural areas.

Up to that point, he was a complete believer that the government he was part of, was there to really change things and put the country in the right track.

When the news about that other guy's 8 mill broke out, he was completelly and uterly devastated.

I think the same can be applied to a lot of the people that works in Google regarding the way they perceive the company.

I just recently read in the news that there has been some retaliation exherted on googlers because of organizing some walkouts.

To think that your company just does good because you try to do good, and not take a look at what is really going around in the world related to what the company you work for is "a little" naive.

Also, I think that right now companies like Google and FB should be treated and reasoned about like states. To think that they will not abuse their power in one way or the other - just like countries do - is also "a little" naive.

>Also, I think that right now companies like Google and FB should be treated and reasoned about like states. To think that they will not abuse their power in one way or the other - just like countries do - is also "a little" naive.

That companies this big ought to be reasoned about just like Nation States is a very interesting idea.

Alternatively, we could reject the notion entirely and revive the antitrust movement. Centralized private power is just as, if not more, dangerous than centralized public power and we aught to have a discussion about whether nation-state size companies are really a desirable feature.

I think both the approaches in your comment and the one above (Or any comment to that matter) are worthy of a lengthy discussion.

But my point was more directed towrds understanding how companies this big are starting to behave.

I do think antitrust is a way to look at it, but the anti trust laws in the US I think are difficult to point towards Google for instance (Probably the same about European laws)

> we aught to have a discussion about whether nation-state size companies are really a desirable feature

I think it goes a way longer than that. Obviously private companies are subjected to a lot less scrutiny than states, but states do miss behave and do not run into the risk of eternal intervention, unless they really fuck up, and even then.

Forcing mega corps to assume the responsibility of statehood is one of the key plot points in the "Poor mans fight" series of books. (some of the best sci-fi I've read in a while too).

Hey, thanks for that. Interesting. I'll take a look at those books.

As I started to read this, I SOOO wanted it to continue on like this:

> I have this 8 million from the church, but I need to get it out of the country in order to spend it ...

Why stop there, and not go full nigerian scam, Argentinian style.

This seems to be common with the product teams I’ve interfaced with. Good intentions, but bad prioritization and little incentive to do anything other than cater to the big revenue drivers.

Why would you start a for-profit company to not focus on "big revenue drivers"?

If you are a for-profit company, why would you kill off business lines that are "only" making you $10-$50 million per year?

Most likely due to opportunity cost. Your resources and effort would be better spent elsewhere.

Immediate profit and cost saving might hide something more valuable to a business in the long run: reputation.