Playboy published an interview with Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the September 2004 issue, which got them in hot water with the SEC based on the company's pending IPO (I had to read the article for class
). When asked what the company's motto meant, CEO Eric Schmidt replied, "Evil is whatever Sergey says is evil." Brin responded, "...we have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good -
always to do the right, ethical thing."
The interviewer asked specifically about China, which had already blocked Google. At that time, several companies had already capitulated to China's demands on censorship, in return for access to the market.
Quote:
PB: Have you ever agreed to conditions set by the Chinese government?
BRIN: No, and China never demanded such things....To be fair to China, it never made any explicit demands regarding censoring material. That's not to say I'm happy about the policies of other portals that have established a presence there.
PB: What would you do if you had to choose between compromising search results and being unavailable to millions of Chinese?
BRIN: There are difficult questions, difficult challenges. Sometimes the "Don't be evil" policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil. One thing we know is that people can make better decisions with better information.
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Apparently, selling out is not "evil." Welcome to the public markets, Sergey.