> Google's free rein in its early years surely had a lot to do with the fact that Page and Brin were successfully marketed as nice guys who could be trusted to be responsible stewards of Google. However stupid the rest of the world may have been to ever take this on faith, it is still on Page and Brin to keep their end of the bargain now.
Being the proprietors of Google isn't something that Page and Brin could hypothetically do if they wanted to, it's the job that they already have now. And again, unlike Larry Ellison spending all his money on cancer research or whatever, it's not something that others want to push them into. Being the nice guys who will run Google in a responsible, positive-sum manner is a role that they to a large extent made up themselves and rather successfully auditioned for, and they were happy to enjoy the rewards, extremely valuable rewards, of reduced public and government scrutiny that came with it in Google's earlier years. (It's also more their time and their initiative than their money which is being demanded, but that's relatively incidental.)
It's also not as if they've simply gone "played you, so long suckers" and disappeared into partying or empire-building or personal weirdness with no concern for what the rest of the world thinks about them. It's fairly clear that they still want to enjoy public admiration and respect for some of the things they've been doing. Perhaps because it's good PR for Alphabet, or because it's something that they care about on a personal level: it doesn't matter which. Of course they should be asked about their already existing, more important commitments before they're rewarded with this. Naturally your missing alimony payments or the orphanage you used to support are not off-topic when you're being photographed unveiling the plaque with your name on it at the new lion enclosure at the city zoo.
> Google's free rein in its early years surely had a lot to do with the fact that Page and Brin were successfully marketed as nice guys who could be trusted to be responsible stewards of Google. However stupid the rest of the world may have been to ever take this on faith, it is still on Page and Brin to keep their end of the bargain now.
Being the proprietors of Google isn't something that Page and Brin could hypothetically do if they wanted to, it's the job that they already have now. And again, unlike Larry Ellison spending all his money on cancer research or whatever, it's not something that others want to push them into. Being the nice guys who will run Google in a responsible, positive-sum manner is a role that they to a large extent made up themselves and rather successfully auditioned for, and they were happy to enjoy the rewards, extremely valuable rewards, of reduced public and government scrutiny that came with it in Google's earlier years. (It's also more their time and their initiative than their money which is being demanded, but that's relatively incidental.)
It's also not as if they've simply gone "played you, so long suckers" and disappeared into partying or empire-building or personal weirdness with no concern for what the rest of the world thinks about them. It's fairly clear that they still want to enjoy public admiration and respect for some of the things they've been doing. Perhaps because it's good PR for Alphabet, or because it's something that they care about on a personal level: it doesn't matter which. Of course they should be asked about their already existing, more important commitments before they're rewarded with this. Naturally your missing alimony payments or the orphanage you used to support are not off-topic when you're being photographed unveiling the plaque with your name on it at the new lion enclosure at the city zoo.