Myths don't matter so much to me. What I value is action. I shifted from Stanford to Google for exactly that reason. Overall I'm a great Google fan. It's so easy to get down on the top dog - but at this point in history we require a top dog at various different positions in the tech world - and face it, this new world is a tech world.
Take away the electricity and what do you have?
I did my masters paper on Tesla, the guy who was the real tech genius of all time, the man who mastered electricity. I saw how Edison and Westinghouse and the War Department and all the rest stole his patents and ruined his health and kept him from fulfilling his primary dream of providing free energy for all. He was a true mystic, yes, I believe that. He talked with angels and spacemen, he could merge his personal mind with the Great Mind - and come back with his inventive visions.
He died broke and broken because of the system, because of the Man, because of the greed that feeds the business addict. I shifted to Google because I want to make a difference in making business more ethical and fair and compassionate and especially more effective in bringing about the world that Tesla envisaged.
This story I'm in - I was almost an aftertnhought. The author brought in Google only after he moved back to the mainland and started observing trhe giant in action. But the fit is perfect, I must say - I just love being in this story because it shows the next evolution, the opening of something beyond Google Today. Google Tomorrow might not even be Google.
That amorphous vision that comes through toward the end of this book about a shakeup at the top of Google - we preach that change is everything, that resonating with the change that's happening anyway is the way for a company to grow. But we do resist it at Google as well as other companies - because of course, we're human. Humans love security, we love comfort, we love predictability. But even in the celebration of Google's success is the unexpected jolt that John hits me with.
Hit on!