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Why Eric Schmidt Left As CEO of Google?
Edsj writes "According to The New Yorker: 'Schmidt, according to associates, lost some energy and focus after losing the China decision. At the same time, Google was becoming defensive. All of their social-network efforts had faltered. Facebook had replaced them as the hot tech company, the place vital engineers wanted to work. Complaints about Google bureaucracy intensified. Governments around the world were lobbing grenades at Google over privacy, copyright, and size issues. The “don’t be evil” brand was getting tarnished, and the founders were restive. Schmidt started to think of departing. Nudged by a board-member friend and an outside adviser that he had to re-energize himself, he decided after Labor Day that he could reboot. He couldn't.'"
So basically what they're saying is "Eric Schmidt is pro-evil".
You heard it here first.
As far as I know the share structure of Google gives enough voting rights to the founders to retain absolute control even with a minority of the shares.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, mr. schit
sergey brin emigrated to the usa at age 6 from russia. it is my understanding his strong anti-censorship views comes from what his parents imparted on him from their experience in the totalitarian ussr
so good for you mr. brin, bless you. maybe google can be a force for good in this world and not a data abusing behemoth like facebook as long as you draw breath
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A CEO getting butthurt over not following something in their company core values shouldn't be running that company. Not everything can be easily quantifiable by dollars and cents, but you can bet your ass that that corporate philosophy has made them money over the years. Schmidt is short sighted.
or at least not clearly right. Context from TFA:
This doesn't mean that Schmidt wanted to move away from "don't be evil", he may have just been worn out from trying to uphold it for as large and diverse a company as Google is.
Why lolcats added to headline proofreading department?
10 years as CEO of a Fortune 500 company isn't a bad record. The average is 6.5 years. Schmidt leaves with Google much larger than when he started, profitable, and in good condition. He's done far better than the CEOs of most of the Fortune 500 in the last decade.
They had the choice of obeying China's laws or being shut down, and they were shut down. I see where you're coming from, but it's not like they wilfully tried to continue running while breaking the law, or attempted to hide what they were doing - they were open about their position, and China responded. To say they were ignoring the laws implies (to me, at least) that they were trying to get away with doing so, rather than making a direct and public stand. Agree with it or not, that's the difference between crime and civil disobedience.
I viewed the China censorship affair as a large corporation ignores a country's laws because it was powerful enough to be above the government.
Another deluded fool thinks a business is more dangerous than a authoritarian state. The current government of China is a long term threat to the freedom of the world in a way that no mere business can ever be.
Governments are far more dangerous than corporations. Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally. The governments have the armies and the guns, remember? In fact, since we are on the subject of China, wasn't it Mao Zedong who said that, "Political power flows from the barrel of the gun"? Indeed, I am often frustrated by those who fail to grasp the irony of advocating for more government power to regulate individual economic activities without realizing that those same powers invariably destroy the individual liberties and freedoms which they claim they want to protect and preserve. They cannot have it both ways. They are either being disingenuous, as those with an anti-freedom progressive agenda often are, or naïve or both. As much as I distrust the motivations of some corporations I distrust governments even more . So I view Google's defiance of the Chinese government as a victory for freedom and individual liberty. In my opinion the governments of the world need to be taken down a notch or two, if only to remind them that it is the people who are sovereign, not the governments elected by them. Too much government control, too much nanny state and too much power over people's lives is the real danger. Those who continually seek to enhance the power of the state over the individual should be careful what they wish for; they might actually receive it and if they do, they will deserve it.
From TFS: "Facebook had replaced them as the hot tech company, the place vital engineers wanted to work."
Could someone explain?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Wait, so we can't change our posts but they can change the summaries!
YRO!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally.
So do corporations.
C.f., the Banana Wars and the United Fruit Company, and the "privatization" of the Iraq war. Oh, and let's not forget the US railroads in the 19'th century. Among other things.
I love how you guys try to absolve corporations of their sins. The doublethink in your head must be nearly crippling.
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BMO
No one is forced to support a corporation, whereas governments rule through coercive force. I know that doesn't sink into you anti-corporation people too well, but since most of your views are founded on poor understanding of reality in the first place, I don't worry too much about that.
Leave Google to go work on PHP spaghetti code? Puhleese.
Maybe people have left Google, but show us the numbers. I highly doubt they went to FACEBOOK.
I'm a 2000 man.
No, you can avoid a monopoly by going without it's services or products. You might end up either slightly inconvenienced, or living like a cave man, or dieing from some horrible disease because said monopoly makes some drug that you need to not die slowly and painfully, but you can avoid it. Think "Matrix" with this. As long as you technically have a choice, it is all good and wholly acceptable. The second you don't, there are issues. Of course, some of us live in the real world. Where "I can technically disassociate myself from these bastards" doesn't really work out to much of a choice.
Sigh. Not this shit again. Is China the evil villain now? I wasn't paying attention to Faux News. I am still at EyeRaan as the Axis of Evil chapter. In my non-American view, the US is the short, medium and long term threat to freedom in the world. The last global economic meltdown originated from there. The most Draconian laws (copyright, intellectual property laws, RIAA etc.) emanates from America. America can and did invade any country it likes on any pretense and get away with it. It can kidnap, imprison without trial and torture anyone regardless of nationality and get away with it. It has nuclear, chemical and biological weapon stockpiles that at any moment could fall into the hands of Sarah Palins and their ilk. It has mercenary fanatical soldiers who will carry out any order, even shooting civilians in cold blood. And worst of all, Americans still believe that they are the good guys. This belief is what scares me. Historically, China on the other hand had not much interest in the outside world other than the buffer zones around it. China want to become a world player but from what I have seen, it does not want to become the world police, judge and executioner.
They, to paraphrase, "lose some energy and focus" when they do not get their way. Interesting way to put that.
That really describes everyone. I often "lose some energy and focus" when my boss tells me to change the way I am tackling a problem, because he doesn't think the same way I do.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally.
So do corporations.
For a corporation to do that, two conditions must be met first:
1) there must exist a government
2) that government must be corrupt
Without a corrupt government, corporations do not have the powers you mention.
Without any government at all, let's say as happens in some parts of Africa, no corporations exist.
Google's PR problems started at the same time that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp saw them as a serious competitor for the advertising dollar. That is why "Governments around the world were lobbing grenades at Google" after Murdoch went around the world talking to governments about the evils of the net and most likely calling in favours. Even the streetview wireless thing was really a non-event until it was blown way out of proportion by the Murdoch press.