[kelnos]

I never said profit was their only motivation, but it is the reason they are a corporation, and not a charity.

Not necessarily. To parrot one of the other posters here: saying it doesn't make it true.

You could also argue that being a charity would be a very slow and inefficient means to achieving many of the things Google has set out to do. Being a for-profit corp gets them there faster and with fewer distractions not core to their purpose. I'd even venture to guess that it wouldn't be possible for Google to do what it does as a non-profit.

Sure, profit is a motivation, but it's certainly not the only (or even necessarily primary) motivation.

[TeMPOraL]

An interesting take on the subject by pg:

http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

"That was a surprising realization. Companies often claim to be benevolent, but it was surprising to realize there were purely benevolent projects that had to be embodied as companies to work."