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Comment by bryanh | Hacker News Reader

It was about time someone said something to this effect. Net neutrality aside, Google is a public company. They have shareholders. From what it sounds like, Larry and Sergey are more or less full blown academics and therefore idealistic. Problem is, they aren't the parents of a Stanford project anymore but instead a multi-billion, multi-national corporation with thousands of shareholders, employees and customers.

Could they have approached net-neutrality with a "cut off your nose to spite your face" approach? Absolutely. Could they have won out in the face of adversity? Maybe. Would it have been good business? Most assuredly not.

Google in acting in self-preservation; nothing more, nothing less. They aren't martyrs. I can understand if you are upset about them not admitting this fact, but anything else is naive.

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From what it sounds like, Larry and Sergey are more or less full blown academics and therefore idealistic. Problem is, they aren't the parents of a Stanford project anymore but instead a multi-billion, multi-national corporation

Patronizing comments about "academics" and "idealism" ought typically to be delivered before the target's company has attained megasuccess. Larry and Sergey's competency to lead a multibillion-dollar corporation has been proven for many years. More to the point, so has their ability to do it in a less evil way, a way that raised the bar for everyone. The issue is not whether it's possible for Google to be Google; we have an existence proof for that. The issue is whether Google is breaking its own values, and if so what the consequences will be.

Would it have been good business? Most assuredly not.

This wretched argument, so sure of its own hard-nosed realistic businessism, is just what people were saying 10 years ago to prove that Google should sell banner ads. Oh sure, that home page was cute. But look at all the money they were leaving on the table! Well let's just remember how things turned out: by sticking to their guns, rejecting that thinking, and putting users first, Google made orders of magnitude more money than they would have had they followed that path. (How do we know this? Because countless counterexamples ended up in the dotcom garbage bin.) Oh yeah, and they changed the world and the industry forever.

So what was really good for business?

I definitely believe the agreement is necessary for Google to have regular access to its current channels looking forward (both across the net and especially with Android through Verizon). Yes, it is good for business.

There may be a huge outrage over it, but I tend to doubt it.

Furthermore, the anecdote "Sergey Brin did not want to cave to any of the Chinese demands to operate inside of mainland China, but Eric Schmidt talked him into it", if true, is pretty good evidence that the founders are more idealistic. I don't think that is patronizing.

I think reputation matters a lot. If you rubbish your customers and only look at your bottom line, they will slowly start leaving.

I think this is spot on. The problem here isnt that Google did what it did, it's that they shouted about it for the other side for so long, and then switched teams. The same thing with China. If you're going to take a hard stance on something, then do it and people will respect it for you. But Google is turning into all talk and no walk, and walking straight into the next Microsoft.

If they had just said from the beginning that they were out for their own interest (just like everyone else), and not tried to play the good guy even when it would hurt them, then nobody would be surprised by this.

True, the old switcheroo is definitely bad business. A little more transparency would have negated this whole thing.

Actually, the "most assuredly not" in your post is debatable. One could put forward the argument that they've had the buy-in they've had -despite brouhahas like the gmail context-sensitive ads- largely because the tech/expert community at large understood they were headed by idealists. That trickled down through op-eds and family/friends recommendations.

Would an "all or nothing" net neutrality position be, erm, unconventional business? Absolutely. Would anyone have believed before Google's arrival that an ad company would be the single biggest name on the Internet? Again, debatable.

Good point, but I think Google sees the writing on the wall. Would they like pure net-neutrality? I am sure they would, but I think they are realists and know that in the end, profits win. They want a piece of those profits and are trying to compromise a lesser of evils.

Just my guess.

With respect to corporate governance, you can basically ignore the public shareholders in this case.

In addition to the fact that the law affords managements a lot of leeway in determining how to maximize shareholder value, Larry, Sergey, and Eric hold voting control due to the dual share class structure that public shareholders agreed to when they bid for shares in the IPO.

You can think of it as a limited partnership with three general partners.

That depends on how this outrage develops. If it turns out that it hurts recruiting in the future, damages morale, or flat out pisses off a sizable number of people who now have a beef with Google, then it may hurt them more than it helps them. Granted, all these side-effects are intangibles; hard to measure and mostly ignored. However, the question of does it make business sense is a bit more complex than tallying up the balance sheet.

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