Growing Too Big for a Conscience

In 2000, when Google could count its employees by the dozen, it adopted its now famous mantra: Don’t be evil. Google considered it such a cornerstone of its operating philosophy that it was included in the S-1 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 when it went public. Now, 12 years later, Google has more than 30,000 employees with annual revenue of $38 billion and growing, and although it still sees itself as a company doing good, its latest actions raise the question: Is Google too big not to be evil? “The past two months have been unprecedented; there has never been anything like it at the company,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land, who has closely covered Google since the company began. “They are a big company, and any big company is always going to have something happen that they don’t expect. But these things keep happening where you can’t even trust their word.”