Slashdot Mirror
Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet
Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times reports that H211 LLC, a company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added to its fleet a Dornier Alpha Jet, a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France. The 1982 Alpha-Jet seats two and was originally used by European air forces, but is now being sold relatively cheaply to civilians. The jet has landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA-operated airfield that is a stone's throw from the Google campus. It is not clear who exactly flies the fighter jet, although Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is an avid pilot. If the top Googlers indeed own the fighter jet, they would be following in the footsteps of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who has owned several aircraft, including fighter jets."
I see you own a computer. Surely you could have sent your money to Africa instead?
So everyone with more money than you should give it all to charity?
You think those starving children in Africa wouldn't go out for a meal at a fancy restaurant if they were given a billion pounds? Then perhaps buy some nice shoes? They could just use it to buy everyone in their country just the right amount of food to make sure they're not classed as 'starving' for a while, but I highly suspect they might want to enjoy themselves a little too. They might even buy a bike or a car. You know, some people like to have fun occasionally, when it is within their means?
I'm very sure Larry and Sergey have caused more money to go to charity than you ever will. Just because they also want to use their money - money that they have earned by creating an excellent business - to have a bit of fun doesn't make them evil. It's easy to point the finger, but I bet you'd buy a nice car and house if you were a billionaire, rather than live in a slum. Any of us slashdotters could survive on a lot less than what we have. Why do you even have a slashdot account and access to a computer? Why aren't you out there earning as much money as you can so that you can redistribute the wealth?
The problem is not with our "consumerist culture", it's with corrupt and moronic governments who run their countries into the ground and treat their citizens like shit. No amount of charity is going to turn a country like that around if its leaders are corrupt.
which is totally what she said
This is beyond the realm of reality so cut me some slack... Corporations (or their top execs) are starting to buy military hardware. Do you think we will ever see a corporation declare war on another corporation? Gives a whole new meaning to hostile takeover...
You mean like the East India Company?
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
It's an advanced trainer. It's a toy. (albeit a rich man's toy). What's the big deal -- he already owns several aircraft. This isn't even uncommon.
Now, if you told me he bought a couple of fully armed F22's, THAT would be news. (you may, of course, substitute your plane of choice for the F22)
Hmmmm. And Sarah Palin's $150,000 was also good fiscal prudence, too?
I'm not voting for her either way, but I fail to see why people pounce on her for this. She's a public figure that is engaging in the mother of all popularity contests. Like it or not, appearance makes a HUGE difference to the American people. That $150,000 is an investment in her campaign plain and simple. If she stood up there in K-mart clothes people would have perceived her as less sophisticated.
Essentially, consider it part of the advertising budget. When you're trying to sell yourself to a nation packaging is important.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Well, the more I hear about Google, the more they seem like everyone else. And I'm not saying it in a condemning way or anything. They're just human.
They too need some big expensive toy as suspicious consumption. They too would rape your privacy if it helps optimize 0.01% off their average search time, and thus make an extra buck. They too will sell some Chinese babbling about "democracy" to the authorities if that's the price to make a billion dollars in business in China. They too will expose your data occasionally if it's cheaper than hiring testers. And they too apparently aren't above making a backroom deal with Yahoo or using patents keep the competition out of their little monopoly field.
(According to at least one analysis, that's why MS wants to buy Yahoo. Some time ago Yahoo apparently bought a small company who had a blanket patent on matching ads to the text on the page. Yahoo licensed it to Google, but refuses to license it to MS or anyone else.)
In a nutshell, they're like any other corporation. Plus a funky meaningless motto, that some people mistake for some kind of final proof that Google is the digital-age Mother Theresa. Heh.
The thing is, no other corporation is "evil" in the sense of seeking to cause the maximum misery, pain and destruction possible. Even MS, I'd bet they never had a board meeting along the lines of, "how can we make more people miserable?" There are no super-villains cackling over doomsday device blueprints. And there are no altruistic super-heroes either. There are only greedy people trying to make a buck, and the difference is in how many corpses they feel they can get away with stepping over, on their way to the top.
At any rate, Google "doing no evil"... well, it's technically true, but only in as much as you could say with a straight face that MS does no evil. They don't sacrifice babies to Satan or anything. But from there, both have shown repeatedly that their goal is simply to make the most money, and both don't have much consideration for whoever might get to suffer for it. As is, indeed, expected of a corporation.
They're just human. They're just a corporation. That's it. It doesn't make them evil, it merely makes them the same as everyone else. One just has the funny motto.
Well, I think I'll make "36 inch penis" my motto. I'm sure some people will actually believe that I live up to that ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.