Duty calls. http://xkcd.com/386/
Having worked at Google, people frequently ask me about some of Google's shadier dealings. There's a recurring one that comes up frequently, and here are 2 articles of many that have come up over the past 4 years:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/11/googles-3-top-executives-have-8-private-jets/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-for-googles-founders/
It's important to notice that the first was written very recently (2011) and the second in 2008.
First of all, I'm not Google's biggest fan. They do stupid and evil things sometimes. But this is not one of them - in fact it's the opposite.
NASA and Google have a close relationship. First, they literally are close:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google+headquarters+to+moffett+field
I recall driving over Moffett Field - where NASA launches many experiments from, and even houses a dorm for budding scientists - on my commute to Google each day.
Second, they are intellectually close - they both run buildings worldwide filled with nerds dreaming of crazy things they can do with technology, that may or may not be useful or a good idea, but from time to time may turn out to be very important to humanity.
They differ in two important ways: NASA is allowed to do crazy things almost no one else can, like launch satellites, fly fighter jets, and drop astronauts out of the sky. Google has a gigantic pile of cash - $42.6 billion. NASA is short on funding as people find it and the space race less and less relevant. And this is where the insane articles people keep asking me about begin.
With NASA's lacking funds, Google loaned a private 747 - with a giant Google logo on the side - to NASA. Knee-jerk reporters took a photo and reported Google was using federal airbases to fly in style. Since then Google lent several more planes to NASA, and even helped them pay for a fighter jet that NASA used to help monitor their European equivalent's mission.
So, Google is making up for the US's lack of funding to NASA by handing some of their giant pile of cash to NASA, with no business win on Google's end unless you believe mankind's gradual progress into space is somehow in Google's business interest. To really hammer this home, these reporters for the New York Times and TechCrunch are slamming Google for doing something philanthropic.
And here's the part that makes me go XKCD on these guys: These aren't some 2-bit bloggers trying to make their name. These are established arms of the media, supposedly the 4th branch of government, meant to monitor government and industry and warn the population when they get out of line. The New York Times article was written in 2008, and updated after the fact with the same knee-jerk headline and a brief, uninvestigated note about NASA maybe owning the fighter jet.
The TechCrunch article had 3 years to figure out the facts, and regurgitated them all over again. They then go on to say that 8 jets are divided amongst 3 Google Execs: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders, and Eric Schmidt, the CEO. Except Eric Schmidt stepped down as CEO, replaced by Larry Page, so he could go work for the Obama Administration. So even in their attempt to exaggerate with a "2.6 jets per executive," they failed to do basic research to maximize their claims to 4 jets per "executive" (Google has hundreds of executives that may at any time have need for a flight to a national or international office or business partner, so it's a weak number anyway).
The point being that if a company, individual, or politician can't even do something nice and get away with it - let alone be applauded for it - how is the US supposed to ever pull itself out of the hole it's in? The fourth branch is broken, and the idiots writing the linked articles are part of the problem. Shame on you, douchebags.
No comments:
Post a Comment