Pride Googleth Before a Fall
Google rant:
One of the advantages of being older than most (I turned 50 this year) is that I was there for events that many people never really experienced or learned about only from dim history. I remember the huge sensation of the first Apple ][ (sic) computer, was thrilled at a demo of the first TRS-80 Model 1, fell in love with the Zilog Z-80, and thought Turbo Pascal was heaven arriving on Earth. Likewise with the IBM-PC, the 286, 386, Windows, OS/2, and so on. Each of those, in their day, was The Greatest Thing Ever, their inventors fawned upon as not only super-geniuses but also far-seeing visionaries, their uplifted visages shining with the light of the future.
And of course every one of those did contribute something toward the shape of today, but none of them remained The Greatest Thing Ever for very long. Apple is still around but no longer dominant, TRS computers are no more, Zilog is a footnote to history, OS/2 never really got off the ground, and within 10 years of IBM's peak of dominance it was teetering on bankrupcy.
And so it is that when I look at latter-day Googlemania, I hear echoes of the past. Google has been wonderful in many ways -- a great search engine, a boon to its investors, and a driving force in computing innovation. But Googlemaniacs (its founders foremost) seem strangely unacquainted with patterns of the past, that no one forever remains The Greatest Ever.
It's not that the Google folks are not bright, innovative, and bold. They are all those, and more. But so was Microsoft, back in the '80s when it was the wünderkind of the computer world. But as Microsoft grew into a huge mega-corporation it became less nimble, more muddled in its vision, a force more for stagnation than innovation. And so will Google, the smugness of its founders notwithstanding.
So history repeats itself. But what is new about Google is the moralizing tone of its smugness. Its corporate dictum "Don't be evil" indicates an amazing self-righteousness, an implication that at least some of its peer companies are evil but Google will always be saintly.
But the higher the pride the greater the fall, and Google has since found itself cooperating with the Communist Chinese police state in suppressing information available to the Chinese people, a corporate stance difficult to reconcile with "Don't be evil." Google is also now a major employer of lawyers to go after small companies that Google claims are infringing on its broad patent holdings. How many of those smaller companies have had to give up the fight, not because Google was right, but because Google is much bigger and can afford more lawyers?
I credit that the billionaire corporate executives at Google believe that what they do is not evil and that they honestly try to do the right thing. But I also hope that by now they may be realizing that they might have been a little too full of themselves when they put themselves on a higher moral plane by proclaiming their corporate choices as not only economically successful, but morally righteous.
C'mon, Larry and Sergey, try a little humility. It's good for the soul. Google it and see.
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OK, rant over. I promise I won't come back to it.
One of the advantages of being older than most (I turned 50 this year) is that I was there for events that many people never really experienced or learned about only from dim history. I remember the huge sensation of the first Apple ][ (sic) computer, was thrilled at a demo of the first TRS-80 Model 1, fell in love with the Zilog Z-80, and thought Turbo Pascal was heaven arriving on Earth. Likewise with the IBM-PC, the 286, 386, Windows, OS/2, and so on. Each of those, in their day, was The Greatest Thing Ever, their inventors fawned upon as not only super-geniuses but also far-seeing visionaries, their uplifted visages shining with the light of the future.
And of course every one of those did contribute something toward the shape of today, but none of them remained The Greatest Thing Ever for very long. Apple is still around but no longer dominant, TRS computers are no more, Zilog is a footnote to history, OS/2 never really got off the ground, and within 10 years of IBM's peak of dominance it was teetering on bankrupcy.
And so it is that when I look at latter-day Googlemania, I hear echoes of the past. Google has been wonderful in many ways -- a great search engine, a boon to its investors, and a driving force in computing innovation. But Googlemaniacs (its founders foremost) seem strangely unacquainted with patterns of the past, that no one forever remains The Greatest Ever.
It's not that the Google folks are not bright, innovative, and bold. They are all those, and more. But so was Microsoft, back in the '80s when it was the wünderkind of the computer world. But as Microsoft grew into a huge mega-corporation it became less nimble, more muddled in its vision, a force more for stagnation than innovation. And so will Google, the smugness of its founders notwithstanding.
So history repeats itself. But what is new about Google is the moralizing tone of its smugness. Its corporate dictum "Don't be evil" indicates an amazing self-righteousness, an implication that at least some of its peer companies are evil but Google will always be saintly.
But the higher the pride the greater the fall, and Google has since found itself cooperating with the Communist Chinese police state in suppressing information available to the Chinese people, a corporate stance difficult to reconcile with "Don't be evil." Google is also now a major employer of lawyers to go after small companies that Google claims are infringing on its broad patent holdings. How many of those smaller companies have had to give up the fight, not because Google was right, but because Google is much bigger and can afford more lawyers?
I credit that the billionaire corporate executives at Google believe that what they do is not evil and that they honestly try to do the right thing. But I also hope that by now they may be realizing that they might have been a little too full of themselves when they put themselves on a higher moral plane by proclaiming their corporate choices as not only economically successful, but morally righteous.
C'mon, Larry and Sergey, try a little humility. It's good for the soul. Google it and see.
---
OK, rant over. I promise I won't come back to it.
