did they seriously mean it when they made “don’t be evil” their company motto way back in the day?
When they weren’t raking in tens of billions of dollars in government surveillance contracts and state-sponsored media ad buys? Probably.
But Google is under completely different management in 2025 relative to what it had at the outset in 1998. Perhaps the company’s commitment to “Don’t Be Evil” was violated the day they IPO’d. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin aren’t in the driver’s seats anymore. They sold their souls to join the oligarchy. Perhaps they assumed they could do more with an infinite line of credit than a rising star social media company. Or perhaps Google simply wouldn’t be allowed as the global leader in search without spreading its cheeks and admitting corrupt bureaucracies to puppet it from below.
When they weren’t raking in tens of billions of dollars in government surveillance contracts and state-sponsored media ad buys? Probably.
But Google is under completely different management in 2025 relative to what it had at the outset in 1998. Perhaps the company’s commitment to “Don’t Be Evil” was violated the day they IPO’d. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin aren’t in the driver’s seats anymore. They sold their souls to join the oligarchy. Perhaps they assumed they could do more with an infinite line of credit than a rising star social media company. Or perhaps Google simply wouldn’t be allowed as the global leader in search without spreading its cheeks and admitting corrupt bureaucracies to puppet it from below.