> That's a rather naive view of a complex question.
Absolutely correct. I thought someone would call me out on that so let me explain in more details:
It is still about making money. It is about the expected ability to keep making money in the future. I was talking about maximizing the global future returns function (you can think of it as the stock value). This function is some composition of the 3 functions you broke it down to.
That still doesn't change the goal.
However,as you argue, there is a set of decisions that when taken, might lead to maximizing short term profit at the expense of long term profit.
Google traditionally tried to maximize the long-term, by positioning itself on the positive side of the moral spectrum -- it is their well-known "do no evil" mission statement. This of course could just be pure PR. Or, if not, it could have resulted in taking some short term losses (not getting involved with repressive governments around the world, for example) while increasing long term gains (attracting the right kind of geeks who actually care about morals, human rights, freedoms, etc.).
[As a quick side node on such moral mission statements, one can argue that the losses taken as a result of defending a moral stance, might be a good measure of how serious and sincere that moral stance really is. I am not passing any judgement on Google one way or the other here, just pointing out a general guideline].
The bigger the company got, the more likely that short-term gains will be emphasized. The company has stopped being identified with the personae of the original founders.
Consequently it's moral properties have been slowly pushed aside and it became just another faceless multi-billion dollar behemoth.
Don't get me wrong, I like Google. It is making me money. I bought stock in it. But, I never bought into its "morality" message. I just assumed it was a PR trick to attract the right talent. It worked great, you have to give it to them. Eventually they'll have to rely on PR again, when that bubble bursts to minimize the damage to it "good" public image. Perhaps, now is such a time...
Absolutely correct. I thought someone would call me out on that so let me explain in more details:
It is still about making money. It is about the expected ability to keep making money in the future. I was talking about maximizing the global future returns function (you can think of it as the stock value). This function is some composition of the 3 functions you broke it down to.
That still doesn't change the goal.
However,as you argue, there is a set of decisions that when taken, might lead to maximizing short term profit at the expense of long term profit.
Google traditionally tried to maximize the long-term, by positioning itself on the positive side of the moral spectrum -- it is their well-known "do no evil" mission statement. This of course could just be pure PR. Or, if not, it could have resulted in taking some short term losses (not getting involved with repressive governments around the world, for example) while increasing long term gains (attracting the right kind of geeks who actually care about morals, human rights, freedoms, etc.).
[As a quick side node on such moral mission statements, one can argue that the losses taken as a result of defending a moral stance, might be a good measure of how serious and sincere that moral stance really is. I am not passing any judgement on Google one way or the other here, just pointing out a general guideline].
The bigger the company got, the more likely that short-term gains will be emphasized. The company has stopped being identified with the personae of the original founders. Consequently it's moral properties have been slowly pushed aside and it became just another faceless multi-billion dollar behemoth.
Don't get me wrong, I like Google. It is making me money. I bought stock in it. But, I never bought into its "morality" message. I just assumed it was a PR trick to attract the right talent. It worked great, you have to give it to them. Eventually they'll have to rely on PR again, when that bubble bursts to minimize the damage to it "good" public image. Perhaps, now is such a time...