<story><title>Larry and Sergey: A Valediction</title><url>http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8661</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kinkrtyavimoodh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s funny how much public perception is tied to the media pulse of a company. If you read comments on online boards today, you&amp;#x27;d think Google was one of the worst companies out there.&lt;p&gt;And yet, I think it is safe to say that Google basically defined the post-dot-com-bubble era, in a good way. So many things that comprise &amp;#x27;company culture&amp;#x27; today and that have been emulated (whether willingly or out of pressure to stay competitive to other companies in the hiring market) by tech and non-tech companies around the world were pioneered by Google. Anyone who has actually worked in other industries will attest how much a breath of fresh air Google brought to corporate life. It&amp;#x27;s a separate matter how some of it is coming back to bite them now that they have hired too many people who are more interested in activism than doing their job.&lt;p&gt;So many of Larry&amp;#x27;s and Sergey&amp;#x27;s ideas were truly about organizing the world&amp;#x27;s information. That vision statement wasn&amp;#x27;t just words. It affected how Google and Googlers thought of things. My favorite example is Google Books. Is it an obvious ad-funnel? I doubt it. Or Google Street Maps, for that matter. And yet it has provided so much value to the world.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s almost never a good idea to make gods out of people. But it is at the same time a terrible idea to make absolute demons out of them. And I think we stray too much into the latter territory just because it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattkevan</author><text>It’s not so much hiring people more interested in activism than their jobs, it’s that Google positioned themselves as something better than all the others. A company determined to do the right thing.&lt;p&gt;This naturally attracts people who are interested in making a difference and want to work somewhere that aligns with their values. You don’t go and work for somewhere like Phillip Morris or Oracle if you care about making the world a better place - and neither company would claim they’re trying to do so.&lt;p&gt;But Google said they were different, and it’s disillusioning to discover that somewhere you love and have worked hard for is just as evil as everywhere else - moreso as it wasn’t up-front about it.&lt;p&gt;And then you’re going to want to do something about it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Larry and Sergey: A Valediction</title><url>http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8661</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kinkrtyavimoodh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s funny how much public perception is tied to the media pulse of a company. If you read comments on online boards today, you&amp;#x27;d think Google was one of the worst companies out there.&lt;p&gt;And yet, I think it is safe to say that Google basically defined the post-dot-com-bubble era, in a good way. So many things that comprise &amp;#x27;company culture&amp;#x27; today and that have been emulated (whether willingly or out of pressure to stay competitive to other companies in the hiring market) by tech and non-tech companies around the world were pioneered by Google. Anyone who has actually worked in other industries will attest how much a breath of fresh air Google brought to corporate life. It&amp;#x27;s a separate matter how some of it is coming back to bite them now that they have hired too many people who are more interested in activism than doing their job.&lt;p&gt;So many of Larry&amp;#x27;s and Sergey&amp;#x27;s ideas were truly about organizing the world&amp;#x27;s information. That vision statement wasn&amp;#x27;t just words. It affected how Google and Googlers thought of things. My favorite example is Google Books. Is it an obvious ad-funnel? I doubt it. Or Google Street Maps, for that matter. And yet it has provided so much value to the world.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s almost never a good idea to make gods out of people. But it is at the same time a terrible idea to make absolute demons out of them. And I think we stray too much into the latter territory just because it has become fashionable to shit on Google for the tiniest of things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chillacy</author><text>Splitting people into good and evil, or just binary thinking in general, is all around us. &amp;quot;Good&amp;quot; people have done bad things, &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; people often have good intentions. And Good and Bad can be vastly different in different places in the world or different time periods.</text></comment>