[matt4077]

Isn't this, like, cynicism completely decoupled from reality? Google invests a lot of money and time in a myriad of projects with altruistic motivation. Google summer of code, $100 Million per year for non-profits, OSS releases such as tensorflow or Chrome, google.org and on and on.

Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything right.

Many of their regular products also straddle the border to altruism. Google Scholar doesn't seem to bring in much money, yet it's one of the most important tools for research. Electric, and self-drivings cars seem to be obvious wins for both the shareholder and humanity etc. etc.

They've also created the model for the modern workplace: rooted first and foremost in trusting people to do the right thing, and letting follow their interest to a degree previously only seen at Bell Labs and similar institutions of a lost era. And where Bell Labs was possible because Bell was raking an incredible amount of money, Google has turned the causality around: their free-wheeling embrace of creativity is seem the world 'round as a reason for their success.

[waisbrot]

> Google summer of code

Trains and evaluates young engineers either for them to hire or to work in their ecosystem

> $100 Million per year for non-profits

PR, taxes, and as the article describes, leverage.

> OSS releases

Giving things out for free helps pull everyone into your ecosystem.

> Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything right.

This is true. The only way for a company to be truly altruistic in a capitalist system is to be irrational: donate anonymously to organizations that oppose it, buy commercial time and then air white noise to block other groups from political ads. No company is going to do that (or if they do they won't last long).

There's no real solution that involves "tsk"ing at Google or trying to shame them into "doing the right thing". That has to come from outside.

[hodgesrm]

At worst this looks like enlightened self-interest. You don't have to be a fan-boi to see there's there's a difference between Google and companies like Massey Energy (29 dead after flagrant safety violations [0]) and Enron (massive accounting fraud [1]). Making it a binary choice between altruistic/not erases any differences in corporate behavior when in fact there are practical distinctions with direct effects on the lives of employees, customers, and society at large.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_Energy

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron

[quickben]

And then you have Bill Gates going: this year, I'm going to eradicate disease X from the planet for all humanity because I have the money.

That's altruism.

Research into self driving cars, on a closed platform, is a PR move.

[visarga]

> Research into self driving cars, on a closed platform, is a PR move.

Google has the largest contribution in advancing the state of the art in AI. That benefits humanity in many ways, SD cars being just one of them. They are also working on healthcare, robotics and reasoning agents. All these things will be a boon for humanity. Discoveries are discussed in the open.

[FridgeSeal]

Yes that's true, but that doesn't mean they're being performed with ulterior motives.

Whilst we can appreciate the benefits that have been brought forth, we shouldn't be blind to consequences both short and long term and potentially hidden. A very blunt and hyperbolic analogy is giving infection ridden blankets to indigenous populations in the depths of winter.

[kobeya]

They're not going to invest in things that might disintermedate themselves.