The Guardian's headline is very misleading. Google's mission statement is not "don't be evil" - it's "to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Larry Page is clearly referring to the mission statement that may need to change, not "Don't be evil." This is all made very clear in the original FT article The Guardian cites, they just chose to go for a more inaccurate and salacious framing of the entire story. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3173f19e-5fbc-11e4-8c27-00144...
"Don't be evil" is the corporate motto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
That's a very difficult motto to change. Removing it would mean "we're free to do evil now" and that won't be received well. Anyway, I wonder if is there anyone left who thinks Google is still faithful to their motto.
> Removing it would mean "we're free to do evil now"
It's a subtle distinction, but the motto is "don't be evil", not "don't do evil." The former allows you to do evil things in service to noble purposes. For example, "don't do evil" would have required the company to shut down services rather than sharing information with the NSA. "Don't be evil" allowed them to balance that evil action against the good created by those services to realize a net-positive societal benefit from offering those services.
Yes, me too and knowing that I never wrote "don't be evil" on the door of my house. Google did it and they put themselves in the position of having to be more moral than anyone else, to everybody.
Given that the robotics part is from the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, who aim to make robots for the US military, some people would disagree with that summary. It's a long way from "don't be evil" to "we're a defense contractor".
Now that Boston Dynamics is part of Google they will finish their existing military contracts and then no longer take on military customers.
"Google told the Times it will honor Boston Dynamics’ existing contracts, including a $10.8 million deal with DARPA to develop its Atlas prototype for potential humanitarian use in disasters like the Fukushima meltdown. But Google added that it does not plan to become a military contractor itself."
I couldn't agree more with the article. The US Patent system is broken and needs revisions to meet today's marketplace.
Patents are awarded to non-practicing entities and people who can't act on nor implement the very patent they were awarded.
Idea's should not be patentable. If you can think of something, so can I. Especially when it comes to software, since software is nothing but an idea written down.
Idea's that oneself cannot implement and/or act on, should not be patentable. To be awarded a patent, you should, at the very least, be required to provide a working POC. I'm tired of companies being awarded absurd "future thinking" patents that have vague wording along the lines of "something will happen when the user does something, etc".
Patent Trolls (aka Non-Practicing Entities) should not be able to hold patents if they are not using and/or implementing them. How can you collect money on an idea for years/decades but not have the capacity yourself to perform the service/make the product the companies you are suing are doing?
The US needs drastic patent reform. It is stiffling innovation.
A "full investigation" is the law in California when sexual harassment claims are made. It's not an admission of anything, it's just literally the law.
The allegation that a co-worker made a sexual advance and then reverted code and generally created a hostile work environment is most definitely a "sexual harassment" claim.
Not really. You can do 4k in real time on relatively inexpensive machines already and it's better to invest price difference into storage. I did just that last year while I was waiting for new Mac Pros. AVID and Premiere work great on Windows as well. It would be great if Adobe supported Linux, but oh well.
I'd have to disagree with that. To quote Steve Blank himselve, no software ever fails because it can't be build. You can build whatever software you want. Software companies fail because they can't generate cash.
> To quote Steve Blank himselve, no software ever fails because it can't be build. You can build whatever software you want.
Bullshit. Budget and schedule overruns are endemic to the software industry. There are plenty of companies that fail because they can't deliver on the technology they promised.
Anyone who thinks they should get a salary like that when you've only raised $250k should not be your CEO. Run away quickly. Don't even try to negotiate him down.
Agreed. You may be overestimating his value in general. Take that money and use it to quit your full time job so you can focus entirely on building your business.
I don't know enough about the specifics of your business to say much else, but in general, the only thing that matters is having a product people will open their wallets for. If your poc is turning heads but not opening wallets--why is that? Are you positive those wallets would open if you presented some kind of MVP or a polished product? Could you get a deposit now?
re: specifics, of course and thanks for understanding my position to not yet be able to announce/disclose it (seriously, it is close). The POC was for that purpose, a night/weekend project for me over the past year until I realized it had legs. It needs just a bit more love before I could make it B2C ready, which is why I feel it's close. I would like to think that we can start making sales soon, however his role is not as much in B2C, it's B2B sales, which is why it's frustrating he wants to sell an MVP that isn't ready yet.
NationBuilder is hiring developers and organizers. We build tools for leaders, mostly focused on politics right now. We're backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Sean Parker, and many others.
His point that Zappos isn't a technology company, but rather a customer service company makes Las Vegas the perfect fit. Las Vegas is the #1 city in the world for service industries.
The main thing for me was being able to pursue an idea no one would fund. I could self-fund it to the point where it was obvious people wanted it, at which point fundraising is easy.
And having done a few startups, I also had the confidence to not need anyone else to tell me it was a good idea. I just needed to build something customers would pay for. Those can be two very different things.
Larry Page is clearly referring to the mission statement that may need to change, not "Don't be evil." This is all made very clear in the original FT article The Guardian cites, they just chose to go for a more inaccurate and salacious framing of the entire story. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3173f19e-5fbc-11e4-8c27-00144...
[edit: the guardian changed the headline!]