<i>Google gets a lot of criticism (often deserved), but it’s worth taking a moment to think of all the things they haven’t done. If Microsoft had Google’s market share in search, is there any doubt that they’d be systematically demoting or even banning their competitors in the search results? Demoting someone in Google is a virtual death sentence, and yet not only has Google ever been accused of using this vast power, the idea itself is almost unimaginable.</i><p>Oh <i>please</i>. This is so weak that it's laughable. First, Google hasn't always had this much market share in search and the other big search providers (to my knowledge) didn't ban their competitors. Microsoft didn't ban other office suite products from working on Windows. They didn't ban other browsers. Yeah, IE might have been more tightly integrated, but please explain how this is different from the incestuous pile of Google products that promote Google search at every turn?<p>Instead of glossing over how Google gets some criticism and then beating your anti-Microsoft strawman, maybe we should take a look at some of the questionable things Google has done (China).<p>It'd be nice if I was wrong, but in my opinion, Google isn't some special orgy of love and kindness towards humankind. It's a multi-billion dollar company with millions of shareholders and it'll do whatever it thinks is best for turning a profit. If that happens to be stuff that isn't "evil", so much the better. If not (China), so be it.<p>Let's revisit when Google is as old as Microsoft or Disney or News Corp. is now and see how it all turned out. I'm betting the only difference is that now articles like this will make Google out to be the big bad corporation filled with sociopaths trying to destroy the world.<p>EDIT: added a closing thought
The implicit claim is that the people running Google are not sociopaths, yet he presents no evidence to support this claim. He attributes these upheavals to the "march of technology" and expects the reader to swallow this without objection.<p>What exactly makes Eisner a "sociopath" and Brin & Page "normal decent people"? It's apparently that Google makes things people want and Disney does not. I'm not sure this holds up. Disney doesn't make desirable things?
Alarmist and self-congratulatory tripe to the max. And without much backup to boot.<p>Alarmist: Big corporations are run by sociopaths! What this means is never really defined (are we using the lay or clinical definition of sociopathy? If lay, then what definition?), but more tossed about as a straw man for why big companies are Bad(tm).<p>Self-congratulatory: Big companies are Bad(tm), but us feisty startups are so awesome. We're a force of <i>good</i> in this world! Us technical folk sure are more moral and just plain <i>better</i> than them durned "sociopaths"!<p>I find the constant overuse (and lack of definition or apparent understanding) of the word "sociopath" to be particularly stomach-churning, and it reads of alarmist hate-scribe not much unlike the racist, sexist, and other reprehensible things extremists tend to write about "them" (where "them" is a convenient, sometimes made up, demographic to blame). The consistent attempt to dehumanize these "sociopaths" (again, never defined) is really kind of sickening.
A lot of these comments are pretty harsh, but there is truth in what he says. There is a difference between Google and most preceding big companies. Google wins more by doing good work and less by deals and scheming that most big companies have in the past. When they crush competitors, they usually don't do it by deliberately trying to crush them, but by doing very good work, and crushing them as a matter of course.<p>Google wins the way better scientists do.<p>I don't think they're simply benevolent. I think what they've discovered is that focusing on doing good work actually makes you more dangerous.
Ah good old fashioned tech-industry elitism. Our guys are brilliant engineers changing the world for the better. Everyone in every other industry is a mere sociopath exploiting customers for their own selfish gains.
A referral upsale channel for Amazon's affiliate sales program -let's count them tricks of trade: misleading title (checked), inflammatory content (checked) targeted at a controversial topic (traditional pattern-matching makes people want to see google as the enemy by now); claims without proof, or evidence to back it up (checked), with a small hint of techno-superiority, that makes the target audience feel good (increased clickthrough&checkout of the book: checked). Deterministic geek-buzzing about content (triggering the network-reading effect): checked.<p>Oh, yes, someone's going to have a marry christmas.
I'm afraid Aaronsw has gone too far. But there is an element of truth here.<p>The men who created the media empires were incredibly aggressive. Many of their business practices were rooted in organized crime.<p>For instance, Lew Wasserman, creator of MCA and Universal. He inspired terror throughout Los Angeles. No, he was not going to have you killed (despite one minor flirtation with the real mafia) but he could kill your career or your company.<p>Wasserman was every bit a latter-day Genghis Khan. And I think it's true that capitalism directed his energies into making movies rather than building a mountain of skulls.<p>There is an undeniable style difference between MCA/Wasserman and Google/Schmidt.
<i>Demoting someone in Google is a virtual death sentence, and yet not only has Google ever been accused of using this vast power, the idea itself is almost unimaginable.</i><p>A total ban of an obvious competitor would clearly raise so much controversy that it is "almost unimaginable", I agree.<p>But Google's smaller-scale bans and reorderings, always for ostensibly legitimate purposes, have sometimes caused accusations about Google's real goals by the webmasters affected. That's not to say their paranoia is correct -- but "[n]ever been accused" and "unimaginable" is a bit strong given the real history.<p>And they are 'demoting' other content incrementally all the time -- whenever they promote their own content in the first few vertical positions. Tried any health-related search on Google recently? As of a couple months ago, 'Google Health', with an image, is almost always the top hit.<p>Do non-YouTube videos get as prominent placement as YouTube videos?
Also, I've always enjoyed this GapingVoid cartoon on sociopaths and the corporate hierarchy:<p><a href="http://gapingvoid.com/2004/06/27/company-hierarchy/" rel="nofollow">http://gapingvoid.com/2004/06/27/company-hierarchy/</a>
I think Aaron misses the point about sociopaths. Individual behavior has nothing to do with corporate behavior. Larry and Sergey's personal niceness or lack thereof is irrelevant.<p>Most people who work for giant tech corporations aren't sociopaths -- far from it. The top American tech firms are filled with people that are almost painfully conscientious, in an upper-middle-class way. Don't even think about cancelling the recycling program or face a general uprising at the next assembly. This is true whether you work for Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple, Oracle, or whatever. I don't know the telecom or media industry, but I bet it's about the same there.<p>The sociopath angle makes sense to describe the behavior of the corporation itself. (viz. "The Corporation" film). Even if there's an opportunity you have qualms about (subprime mortgages, expanding into China), the shareholders will insist you get into that market as long as competitors are making money.<p>Google's corporate behavior is pretty "evil". To their competitors. And sometimes even their partners. Consider how they are bootstrapping off TeleAtlas' mapping data product to basically make that entire industry obsolete, once people are carrying around iPhones that constantly map everything.<p>But as long as they are "evil" to competitors in the service of making a better product, they are "good" for everyone else.<p>The traditional media monopolies stopped really competing a generation ago, and after the consolidation of the 80s and 90s it's all been about denying entry to competitors, and controlling access to markets. That's what makes them "evil".<p>Google isn't in any position where they can do that yet, except maybe online advertising (sort of). So for the most part Google is focused on breaking open markets. That might change if they ever start "owning" a consumer, like say with a Chrome-powered netbook. Just you wait.
This is a little too sycophantic. Both Google and other firms want their products to succeed, which means an increase in market share, or an "Alexander the great" share of the market, if you will.<p>Both Google and other firms believe they are bringing value to the market. It's hard to believe Rupert Murdoch, for example, believes his companies bring nothing of value. You may not like what he produces, but it's hard to accept he doesn't in some way, and his customers certainly do.<p>It's pleasing to believe Google is full of salt o' the earth types out to make the world a better place, and Newscorp, for example, and its like is full of evil men and women--but this is a picture far too black and white to be taken seriously.<p>Essentially assuming two giant companies are so different to the extent that one wishes to make people lives happier, and has the success of the business as a second priority, and the other is inversed seems very fantastical, and without evidence.
The first paragraph says it all: capitalism is a good system for handling sociopaths.<p>After all we know, it is probably the best. In every other system known to mankind psychopath cause incredibly more damage. Think Soviet Russia, North Korea, the Roman Empire, Nazy Germany, Cold War Romania, ...<p>The irony: Aaron Swartz probably had some idealistic system in mind when he wrote it (correct me if I'm wrong or if I am erecting a straw man), that would handle everything better if only the "right" people were in charge. The available data speaks otherwise.<p>"Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head." Georges Clemencea
I've been having a thought recently that Google is Microsoft done right. Sure, they have massive influence. But I never find myself switching to a new Google product because I have to--I switch because they're better products.
The view of "major executives" (and Alexander for that matter) in the first paragraph is so ludicrously naive and shallow that I'm forced to believe anything else author has to say is utter waste of my time.
Wherein Aaron Swartz further confirms his status as a petty intellectual tyrant, pathologically obsessed with setting up nonexistent us-vs-them, good-vs-evil dichotomies.
I've been reading aaronsw's blog for years, and it surprises me how uniformly antagonistic the comments are -- both on the blog itself, and on HN and reddit -- compared to other blogs. He's either an incredibly skilled troll, or he's really on to something.
Technically speaking, most corporate leaders are <i>psychopaths</i>, not sociopaths.<p>A sociopath has conscience, empathy, and ethics but his differ radically from those of mainstream society. For example, a gang member who'll kill someone in a rival gang-- breaking the law in most societies-- but would take a bullet to save his mother, is a sociopath-- not a psychopath.<p>Psychopaths are selfish and devoid of any conscience or empathy. However, they're very manipulative and often skilled at playing within society's rules, which sociopaths rarely do (because they have so much contempt for society). Dr. House might be considered a very mild sociopath, but he's not a psychopath: he's never cruel, and he has very strong ethics, but absolutely no regard for the ethical principles society expects him to hold.<p>The difference is that sociopaths reject society's superego and conscience but still have their own. Psychopaths have none. So the corporate barons and media moguls are correctly typed as psychopaths, <i>not</i> sociopaths.<p>Otherwise, good article.
A nice summary of why Google is different. How refreshing for a company to ask themselves, "How can we create more value?" instead of scheming how to extract more value from the existing market.