Can Google be a “Good Corporation”?

One year ago, myself along with 12000 other Googlers, awoke to a startling email in the morning informing us that our time as employees of Google had ended. We were given a generous severance package, but we were not given support to say farewell to our colleagues, to wrap up projects, or to continue interacting as part of the organization. We were explicitly told we were not welcome at the campus, not even as a guest of another. This was, I think, the largest hit to Google's company culture it has ever seen, although perhaps this was a long time coming, as many folks inside and outside of Google have pointed to a continual degradation of the once great Google culture, a culture that prided itself on being innovative, inclusive and non-conventional; a culture that despite valiant efforts, has struggled to scale effectively with the organization.

One of the defining characteristics of corporations in this day and age is a fiduciary duty to its shareholders that creates a forcing function to pressure all corporations, especially those traded on wall street, to play into the game of capitalism in our world, as it is currently defined. And capitalism, as it is currently defined, has largely failed to adapt to the kind of 21st century economic thinking that Kate Raworth describes in her book "Doughnut Economics". Rather, modern capitalism continues to operate from out-dated assumptions that the market is a self-contained entity rather than embedded within and dependent on a larger ecology; and also that humans are rational economic agents rather than socially adaptable beings. Anyone with eyes to see can recognize the fallacy in this dated economic thinking, and yet these views continue to be a primary driver in our economy today.

Google, at its foundation, had strong intentions to be a good company, to do good in the world. Google’s motto from around 2000 to 2015 was “Don’t be evil”, and then in 2015 with the introduction of the parent company Alphabet, the motto became “Do the right thing”, while “Don’t be evil” was still retained within the code of conduct. There’s a whole conversation to be had about intention vs impact, but it seems clear to me that Google intended to be a good company.. But here comes an issue, Google is a company, a corporation to be specific, and a corporation that is embedded within this present economy with all of its distortions. In its founding letter in 2004, Sergiy Brin and Larry Page articulated that “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one”. I think it’s worth examining whether, 20 years later, Google is still walking this talk. If these recent actions are any indication, it seems Google has become quite conventional, and with that, I think it’s becoming rather clear the challenge that is presented in being a conventional company within this modern economy while also seeking to be good. Because the conditions of this modern economy seem to, in many ways, enact the opposite of what is good, contradicting the very motto that Google has held at its core for so long.

The issue with the current economic structure is that we are distorting our sense of value. By having an economy built on corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, we incentivize companies to prioritize an abstract value defined by the “market” rather than prioritizing the well-being of human beings and the planet we inhabit, and all the other living beings we co-inhabit it with. Furthermore, by creating a structure in which a company is owned by investors who are so distant from the actuality of what is happening within an organization, we forget where the actual value in an organization is, which is in the people who make it up. There are those who are attempting to address these issues, defining businesses, ownership, and responsibility differently. B-corps, social enterprises, and ESOPs are some examples of these. I wouldn’t say that simply transitioning to one of these fixes all the problems of corporations but they do represent a move in the right direction.

I suspect that many of the top leaders at Google recognize that these actions are problematic in the context of the vision “Don’t be evil”, but they rationalize it by suggesting that it is for the greater good; that if they are to succeed in their mission of goodness, these sacrifices are necessary. The fact that a decision is made to make those sacrifices by terminating the employment of many hard-working people who are committed to the Google community, for no reason other than the rationalization that their roles were unnecessary, with no consideration of whether this rationalization is true, and without cutting the excessive salaries of the executives responsible for making the decision, is quite telling. It points to the classic way that people are seen, as rational economic agents or cogs in a machine, rather than as socially adaptable, living beings. When we recognize the humanity of employees rather than objectifying them as assets to the corporation, we will change the way we view them and the way we treat them in regards to the profits being sought. As humans and members of the corporate community, they are more important to the success of the business than the profits; this is contrary to classical capitalism, and this is where the need for change in our perceptions of value is most needed. This means changing the way we assess value to be inclusive rather than exclusive, which is the goal, it seems to me, of a goal such as “don’t be evil” or even “do the right thing”.

Google has demonstrated a company culture that values innovation, trust, transparency, creating and sustaining community, with a goal to do good in the world. It’s this culture that has made so many brilliant people want to come to work at Google and want to stay there. Several aspects of this recent layoff violate these values and so concern me as indicating that being a good corporation is not so easy, and requires continual self-examination and participation by the entire community, to prevent falling into the old ways of corporate business, putting profits before people, which negates all of the ideals set forth from the beginning by Google and its founders. The question for Google leadership right now is this: Is it possible to succeed as a corporation and be good?