[pmontra]

"Don't be evil" is the corporate motto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil That's a very difficult motto to change. Removing it would mean "we're free to do evil now" and that won't be received well. Anyway, I wonder if is there anyone left who thinks Google is still faithful to their motto.

[curun1r]

> Removing it would mean "we're free to do evil now"

It's a subtle distinction, but the motto is "don't be evil", not "don't do evil." The former allows you to do evil things in service to noble purposes. For example, "don't do evil" would have required the company to shut down services rather than sharing information with the NSA. "Don't be evil" allowed them to balance that evil action against the good created by those services to realize a net-positive societal benefit from offering those services.

[hawkice]

Perhaps a better example: Censorship in Google China. The "don't do evil" vs "don't be evil" was almost exactly how they pitched that conversation.

[wavefunction]

Doing evil is being evil. End of discussion.

[gtremper]

Well, everyone is evil then.

[shizcakes]

Given a sufficient cardinality of perspectives, everyone and everything is "evil".

[pmontra]

Yes, me too and knowing that I never wrote "don't be evil" on the door of my house. Google did it and they put themselves in the position of having to be more moral than anyone else, to everybody.

[gtremper]

Paul Buchheit wrote it on a whiteboard once, and it stuck. Blame him.