Sundar Pichai argues in court that Google isn’t evil, it’s just a business

It would be pretty funny for a court to actually determine that a “just business” is synonymous with “doing evil”
- /r/selfawarewolves
- In general I think business is not good or evil. They just operate on law frameworks given to them.
  If company can be 30% more efficient by being more "on the edge" of law and regulation, it is more probably going to succeed.
  This is why governments must regulate the hell out of everything, because the system itself is not doing it. It should include data protection, unions, environment etc.

Can’t fool me, they gave it away when they removed “Don’t be evil” from their motto back in 2015.
- Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.
  
  There's also another continuation: "fool me twice - shame on me".
- The first time I saw the slogan all I could think is "a normal not-evil person doesn't need to make such a disclaimer".
- They were already evil at that time so honestly it was refreshingly honest when they dropped it
  
  Except they didn't drop it.
  And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
  https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/
- Exactly this man
- No they didn't. Please stop spreading this false rumour.
  https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/
  And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
  
  That's not their motto
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil was specifically removed from their motto in 2015
  
  That's not their code of conduct, they are telling YOU not to be evil.
- Lol, how simplistic do you have to be to believe this means anything? First off, you need to believe in good and evil, which are completely arbitrary. And do you think they thought "hmm, we need to start doing evil things do extract more profit... Change the motto so everybody knows! But then we'll pretend to not be evil when confronted about this change..."
  Maybe being evil would be to not change the motto and start doing evil acts anyway. Simpler answer is that somebody probably thought it was a stupid thing to have on there in the first place, and was likely thought up by a Cheeto stained LOTR neckbeard.
  
  "Good and evil are arbitrary" mfers when I chop off their balls and feed them to their kids because I wanted to:
  
  They started deemphasizing the motto when they became a conglomerate in 2015, and removed it completely in 2018 after employees started getting fired for criticizing Google’s shady dealings with the Customs and Border Protection Agency.
  Essentially, the employees argued that Google including “don’t be evil” in their contracts made them ethically obligated to speak up against bad behavior, and they didn’t actually want that. So it appears Google did indeed have a definition of “evil,” and when forced to choose between changing their practice or their definition, they chose the latter.
  
  It's what is known as a canary statement. Taken from when miners used to take canaries into the mines so that the bird would die first if there was toxic gas.
  If the canary is dead, something is wrong. Google had it in their mission statement to not do bad things, then that was quietly removed. The canary is dead.
  
  Y’all I found the bad guy
  
  Spoken like a guy who wants to avoid getting in trouble for being a bad person
  Google seems a great fit for you
  
  So what you're saying is that driving a rusty nail through your eyeball into your brain isn't evil at all, and totally fine to do?

These are not mutually exclusive statements.
- That venn diagram would make a functional wheel.

A publicly traded company is legally obligated to be evil.
- Are you perhaps referring to the myth that the law requires companies to maximize shareholder profits above all else?
  
  Ok I was ready to disparage your link since the domain ends in .ai, but actually that was a decent read and a pretty good argument. I'm glad to have better knowledge of the actual court rulings.
  
  There is no law that says they must. But shareholders are justified to fire C suite who don't. And realistically shareholders only care about profits. Therefore they effectively must. Regardless of it not being "law".
  
  Who/Where are these people that believe that? I have heard people say shareholders only care about profits, but I have never heard anyone say it was a law to maximize them. Regardless, they do love profits more than anyone or anything at any company. Companies also like to keep their shareholders happy. Evil comes about becuase of these.

Is profit at any cost morally irresponsible?
No, it's the consumers who are wrong.

We can and should no longer accept "it's just good business" as justification for morally reprehensible actions.
- Accepting it is what makes it good business. We stop accepting it, it costs money and then it's no longer good business.
  Business is purely profit driven. We need to make morally wrong things costly. Orders of magnitude more costly than doing the right thing.
  Blame the ayer AND fix the game.
  
  While I definitely agree with parts of this, that making it costly to do amoral things would be good, I have to say that the rest is exactly what I'm calling out. By saying that profit is the only goal of business, and that being purely profit-driven is an amoral position, we give the greedy and amoral a tremendous free pass. We blame the victims, consumers, because they continue to support these greedy people with their money, when we should be holding the greedy fully accountable. They are the problem and existing purely for greed is not an amoral state of being. It is quite the opposite, and that is what we must no longer accept.
  No offense to you, I don't think you mean any harm by your comment, but it served as a good example of the mindset I am trying to address.
- Well regulations try to do that but somehow they’re always one step ahead 🧐
  
  (with well placed dollars, to the politicians, supposed to set those regulations, "just weaken this corner here, bud, here's a small percentage of the profits we will make if you do that")

Ah, so that's why they changed their slogan from "don't be evil" to "don't not be a business."
- "Google - Business with electrolytes"
  
  It's what shareholders crave

Does he not know that business IS evil?
- I think that's what he's trying to hide behind, all business is evil so we're just doing business things.
- Business can be good for all stakeholders.

Okay. Google isn’t evil, business is.
- That is exactly what he's saying.
  
  Death to business!!
- The ol' don't hate the player, hate the game defense.
- Is business in the room with us right now?
  
  It is certainly more present than your wit.

Slavery was just business at some point, what kind of justification is this?!
- But it wasn’t just business. It was also slavery.
  An endeavor that’s just business requires all the people involved to be doing business.
  
  Obviously you've never met anyone in middle management.

So… evil.
“That’s not a shit, it’s a doodie!”

Capitalism is a curse that instills the most evil traits in all of humanity.
- Worse; it rewards them.

No, businesses are people. Corporations have fought to make that a distinction. So therefore it can be evil. Can’t have it both ways.
- Oh Mitt Romney, what a legacy.

Business are soulless evils
- It takes people (souls) for a business to exist.
  some people are evil.
- Many smaller businesses are good organisations. It's when they grow too big, that moral gets lost.

“Hey man, just doing our job to maximize shareholder value”

Good argument for dismantling Google and any other company of similar size.

"Nothing ~~Personal~~ evil, Kid"
"Just Business"

A business is only as moral as its least moral shareholder. Shareholder Primacy is the law.

It can be two things, jackass.
- You gotta understand that from the mindsets of the extremely rich, there are no multipurpose objects.
  
  Don't employees count as multipurpose objects?

You can see how one could easily be confused…

Don’t be evil
Nailed it
- Don't. Be evil.
  Ifify

No one thinks they're the bad guy. That doesn't change the fact that their actions speak for themselves.
- I do, actually
  
  Correction. No one but ashe@lemmy.starless.one thinks Google is the bad guy...

This is the best summary I could come up with:
You might not expect an antitrust trial focused on Google’s overwhelming dominance in the year 2023 to spend a lot of time talking about Internet Explorer circa 2005.
One exhibit proved particularly interesting: a letter from Google’s then-top lawyer David Drummond, sent on July 22nd, 2005, to Microsoft’s then-general counsel Brad Smith.
Microsoft was tech’s dominant player and a ruthless competitor, Pichai argued, and it was doing an acceptable thing — prioritizing its own products — in a uniquely shady way.
“I realized for the first time the internet would touch most of humanity and it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” He quoted Google’s original mission without missing a beat, and said that “if anything, it’s more timeless and relevant than ever before.”
Google uses the rev-share structure to incentivize Android OEMs like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola to promote their devices, he said, and even maintain them better over time.
(When Judge Amit Mehta asked how that worked, Pichai said Google makes some of its rev-share money dependent on devices getting security updates.
The original article contains 1,280 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

So companies are people when it's convenient for them to be so, and 'just a business' when it isn't.

You're not evil, you're just a cunt 🤷

Corporate needs you to find the difference between these two pictures.
Sundari: Lol, obviously the left usess g255 and the right side has g254 in their RGB codes. Can you not tell the difference?