Tessa Williams

April 4, 2019
MGMT 464- Bierman
Corporate Issues Paper- Google

1. Background

In 1995, two P.h.D students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin came together with a

common interest, and created one of the world's most lucrative and innovative ideas: Google.

The search engine got its unusual name from the math term for one with a hundred zeroes

following. Google was officially incorporated in early September 1998. The company quickly

grew from an 8-employee startup in a garage in 1999, to the tech giant we know today. In the

process, it rejected many other companies’ attempts to take over or buy it out, most notably

Yahoo’s. In October 2015, Google was rebranded under the name Alphabet, Inc. Google is

currently the most visited website worldwide and in 2017 was the most valuable brand in the

world. It consistently ranks near the top of “best places to work” lists. The company is famous

for its dedication to innovation, adding new products and extensions throughout the years,

including Gmail, Google Drive, the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, celebratory doodles, and

predictive text algorithm in addition to countless others. The company’s unofficial statement

guiding employee morality used to be “don’t be evil” but has now been updated to “do the right

thing”. Though less catchy, this does reflect a more proactive moral stance on Google’s part,

imploring its workers to act in the affirmative rather than simply avoiding wrongful behaviors.

However, the company has been facing increasing ire in recent years for its actions that

apparently ignore this policy. Some of Google’s most prominent controversies have concerned

issues such as privacy, tax evasion, antitrust laws, censorship, and search neutrality. The

company is also one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in the nation, more than $21 million in

2018. Despite this, its popularity and market share are only growing.
2. Equity

The distinction between equity and equality is an important, if confusing one. Professor

Stone defines equity as “distributions regarded as fair, even if they contain both equal and

unequal parts”, whereas equality is simply “sameness”. Google occasionally seems uncertain of

this difference as well. After repeated lawsuits by female employees, Google recently conducted

its own research on whether the company pays its minority and female employees fairly. The

results were quite surprising. Not only does Google not underpay women, it actually overpays

them relative to its male employees. However, this study did not include its top paid employees,

including its C-suite and high-ranking managers, citing an inability to meet the company’s

standards of statistical rigor, due to a small sample size.

Equity paradoxes are also reflected in Google’s promotional procedures. Called “The

Ladders” by insiders, Google’s complex and striated system of promotion includes different

routes for different career paths, making it difficult to switch paths from say, marketing to

management. Switching career paths often entails taking demotions in order to “climb up” a new,

different ladder. In making promotion decisions, Google relies heavily on a myriad of data,

primarily objective, in conjunction with superior’s subjective perceptions of employee

performance and ability. Decisions used to be almost completed based around a complicated

algorithm that took into consideration factors such as college GPA and university pedigree. After

studying its hiring, promotion, and firing data, however, Google found that most of the factors

that made someone successful at their company were soft skills that the equation did not take

into account. Among the top seven crucial skills were communicating well, possessing insight

into others’ abilities and emotions, and being supportive of one’s colleagues. This caused Google
to reevaluate its policies. The company now includes people in the decisions, for their ability to

recognize and value soft skills that a computer simply cannot.

3. Efficiency

Efficiency, or achieving an objective for the lowest cost, is also relevant to Google.

Afterall, the company’s products themselves are designed to increase efficiency. Google often

strives to give people full information- that is, information that is accurate and comprehensive.

But it also sometimes overwhelms the user, perhaps strategically. For example, Google’s user

terms of service is about 2,000 words and its privacy policy is 19 pages long with external links

to additional information. Although this may appear to be transparent and honest on Google’s

part, it may also be used to confuse consumers and get them agree to terms they would not

necessarily agree to of their own volition. Many Google users lack the technical and legal

knowledge required to make sense of these policies. People who get bogged down in industry

jargon are likely to get frustrated and just give up on reading the terms. The sheer volume of

material itself may also have a preventative effect on users. Google actually benefits from their

consumers’ confusion, as many people sign away their information to third parties or to Google

itself, without knowing that they are doing so. And yet, because users technically agree to this

before or when using a product, it may be difficult to hold the company at fault.

Voluntarism also arises as an issue in light of Google’s sheer ubiquity. It is difficult to say

whether using such a large company’s products is fully voluntary or somewhat coercive, simply

because Google has an enormous market share. As mentioned previously, Google is the most

visited website in the world. The brand is so popular that the term “Google it” has come to mean

looking up something online. In addition, people may be required to use Google’s products in

their academic or professional life. In fact, Texas A&M University requires students to sign up
for a Gmail account during their New Student Conference, before a student has even begun their

first semester. Some classes also use Google Classroom to assign and turn in work. Because of

this, even consumers who are aware of and concerned about the scope of personal information

Google has may choose to agree to their terms of conditions, just because it is required in their

daily lives. It is therefore hard to say that users truly consent to their privacy policy when such

external pressures exist.

4. Welfare

On a more positive note, Google is as famous for its superior treatment of employees as it is for

its faults. Google is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work, and it is clear why.

Employees at Google are given access to a variety of free or discounted amenities, including a

healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner; health and dental insurance; haircuts, laundry, and

massages; gyms, napping pods, and several types of relaxing games; extended maternity leave;

and on-site physicians. It is easy to see the ways in which these perks serve material needs, but

they also serve important symbolic needs that help both the employee and the employer. For

instance, a healthy, chef-prepared meal fulfills a hunger need. Yet, it also has other meanings. It

tells the employee that Google cares about their health and comfort. It allows employees to join

together at mealtimes and discuss possible ideas for projects and innovations, as well as form

friendships, tying both employees more closely to the organization and reducing turnover. It also

alleviates some of the time and stress that accompanies meal planning and cooking.

Google also takes strides to realize employee’s intrinsic needs- those that are fulfilling to

the individual not because of external factors. Case in point, Google’s “20% Time”. Any business

person knows that one of the biggest financial and personnel problems facing companies is

employee burnout. Google aims to ameliorate some of the stress that precedes burnout by
allowing employees to spend 20% of their time on the job working on whatever they like.

Encouraging workers to expend effort on things that inspire them benefits Google as well. 20%

Time has led to the creation of some of Google’s most unique and inventive products such as

Gmail, Google News, and AdSense. In short, Google found that when a company invests in its

employees, the employees in turn invest in the company.

5. Liberty

Liberty is difficult to define universally, as so many people have conferred upon it

different meanings depending on the time, place, and the individuals themselves. Two popular

contemporary definitions distinguish between the ideas of positive and negative liberty. Positive

liberty is the ability of a person to live for their own consciously-chosen and self-directed

purposes. Negative liberty, the more commonly used definition in American political rhetoric,

means that people do not infringe on another’s activities, so long as they do not harm others. One

current hot topic concerning liberty is whether people ought to have the “right to oblivion”. The

right to oblivion is the right of a citizen to prevent the distribution of their personal information,

particularly in Internet searches of one’s name. The primary issue here is whose rights we ought

to protect: the subject of the search or those searching. Proponents of the right to be forgotten

will say that after a certain time has passed, a person should not suffer for their past deeds. If, as

has surfaced in the media, someone made a racist or offensive remark a decade ago, should they

still be punished? Before this question can be answered, one must ask whether the perpetrator is

even the same person they were ten years ago. Crimes have statutes of limitations; it may make

sense that non-criminal offenses do as well. On the other hand, one may argue that the person

conducting the search has a right to the information. This falls under the theory of negative

liberty; the government should not disturb the right of private entities to disseminate information
they find relevant. But if we look at the theory of positive liberty, then information about past

infractions may prevent the individual in question from attaining jobs, relationships, and other

things they desire; it prevents them from living out their self-directed purpose.

6. Security

A person’s sense of security is subjective and multi-faceted. It includes a political,

psychological, and scientific ideal, each of which have different meanings and goals. Politicians

may do their best to alleviate insecurity and anxiety, but inevitably some will arise.

Cybersecurity is a growing issue, especially for technology-oriented companies, and Google is

hardly an exception. Of particular importance to the industry giant is the concept of mass

surveillance. America is divided on the issue of mass surveillance; on the one hand, it is

inherently frightening to a citizenry who prizes freedom and privacy above all else; on the other,

it is undeniably useful in keeping the population safe. Starting in the late nineties, US

intelligence began working with tech companies to track people in the online world. In fact,

research groups started by the intelligence community actually gave grants to Brin and Page, the

founders of Google. In essence, each Google user can be individually identified and their online

activities monitored and stored. This has helped prevent many tragedies, as illustrated by the

story of Chris Hasson, whose plans to murder prominent Democrat politicians were foiled when

authorities reviewed his searches over the past year, including such questions as “do senators

have secret service?” as well as questions regarding arms. In this example, most people would

likely agree that Google did the right thing by allowing the government surveillance, since it

prevented such a gross mass killing. But it begs the question, what else can the government do

with the information of private citizens? Herein lies a tradeoff. Are Americans willing to allow

Google and other companies to view and record their searches, flag them, and continue to surveil
them in order to possibly prevent the rare, but severe disaster? More simply, which do we value

more: our privacy or our physical security?

7. Trump versus Obama

The two most recent Presidents differ in just about every way possible; they come from

different backgrounds, have different personalities, and promote vastly different policies. Their

attitudes toward Google differ dramatically also. The industry leader was said to have “created a

remarkable partnership” with the Obama White House, offering invaluable expertise and advise,

in addition to services and personnel for government projects. Google representatives also

regularly attended White House meeting and conferences, apparently much more regularly than

other companies and news sources. Journalists have also taken notice of the fact that Google’s

lobbying practices ramped up and changed strategy during his administration. Their lobbying is

said to include “D.C. parties,...[and] offering free services and training to campaigns...)”. Also

notable is Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, and his great support for the Obama

campaign. In turn, Obama spoke of Google favorably.

President Donald Trump took an opposite stance on the company. He has repeatedly

accused Google’s algorithm of suppressing conservative viewpoints, going so far as to claim

“they have rigged it” for him “so that almost all news and stories [about him] is [sic] bad.” He

then suggested that Google’s actions may be illegal and would be addressed, although the

prominent businessman has made no attempts to do so. Google has responded that its algorithm

considers hundreds of factors in determining which results to present to users, including user

experience and usefulness.

The presidents’ differential treatments of the company demonstrate the complex

relationships between politics and the media. Although the media’s importance to democracy is
unchallenged, many observers have concerns that different media companies are biased one way

or another, or that mass media manipulates citizens into participating in the polis in a specific

way.

8. External Environments/Threats from Competitors

To define Google’s competitors, it is first necessary to define Google’s relevant activities

and services. Many people think of Google as a search engine, but it is also an advertising giant

and major news source. Because of this, Google’s largest threats come in the form of other

industry behemoths Microsoft and Facebook.

Microsoft most directly competes with Google in the arena of its search engine, Bing.

Bing certainly does not have the global market share of Google, but it is constantly adding new,

innovative features, each an attempt to squeeze Google out of its niche. Both Microsoft and

Google also desire to dominate the cloud computing market. Google currently holds 63.8% of

the domestic market, with Bing coming in at a competitive 33.5%. Internationally, however,

Google still dominates.

Facebook primarily competes with Google in news reporting and advertising. Both

companies have gigantic user bases and access to vast financial capital. The main reason for their

competition is the overlap in the companies’ revenue-making strategies. Both provide services

that are mostly free to their users; users do not pay to sign up for Facebook or to conduct a

Google search. The companies make their money by charging advertisers heavy feess to promote

their products to customers. Google’s older Adwords model is pay-per-click and presented based

on users’ past searches, while Facebook Ads promotes advertisements based on users’ profile

information. Although Google still holds the title as leader in ad revenue, it must keep gaining

users and inventing news ways to show client’s advertisements if it wants to remain ahead.
9. Recommendations to the CEO

Based on the previous information, I would make several recommendations to Google’s

CEO. First, it should clean up its privacy policy and terms of service. Where possible, Google

should reduce the number of words and pages of its policies, as well as simplify the language it

employs so that an average user could easily comprehend its meaning. I understand that it may

be difficult to do so without decreasing the amount of actual information users receive, and while

still covering all its bases, legally speaking. However, if the company truly intends to be

transparent, it needs to be both honest and accessible to its customers.

Additionally, I would ask Google to consider making it easier on employees to transfer

between “ladders”. Ideally, any given position would be filled by the person most qualified, with

the most relevant skills and experience. That person is not necessarily the person who is next in

line based on their current standing in a company organization chart. Certainly, a company

should consider seniority and experience in an area when making hiring and promotion

decisions. But by holding on too tightly to its ladders, Google risks missing out on the unique

ideas and abilities of employees who are interested in a different track within the company than

they had been pursuing previously. These employees may be highly talented and otherwise

qualified, but choose not to switch paths for fear of being demoted and “starting back at the

bottom” in a new track. Google should not lose out on these employees for the sake of tradition

and a rigid structure. However Google makes its decisions, it should continue in its mission to

innovate and create, while treating its employees well, being open, and “doing the right thing”,

per its motto.

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