Google memories (1/x)
y'all going to laugh, but I really believed it. I drank the kool-aid. this was the mid-00s, a tech company with a motto "don't be evil" still felt daring rather than cringe – for an alienated techie like past me, at least; my politically aware friends tried to warn me; but I didn't realise that Google leveraged its fine-tuned advertising machinery also for recruiting, and I swallowed the whole thing.
Last boost from @elilla is a good read and I encourage you to read the whole thread. I see many parallels in my former employer.
@ifixcoinops Sad thing is when I imagine building a company and then later start thinking rationally, I can't really see a way out of becoming at least somewhat evil. The way things are the small & honest fail slowly or suddenly, the small and dishonest grows, & the large is only large b/c it was dishonest back when it was small. At the very least you need to avoid tax and underpay employees to make sth akin to a white collar wage w/o investments.
@elilla We all fell, the acting was brilliant...
@cadadr Or it goes the way of Cisco and the principled founders are forced out.
