Google search improves the world immensely. Ads are how they pay for it. Ads are Google's day job, not its whole focus.
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The fact that making money is not Google's whole focus is part of the reason it makes so much money.
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That is the secret weapon of nearly all big Silicon Valley companies. And it is one I can't imagine Wall Street ever duplicating.
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Actually, this is simply a leading indicator. Every firm, even finance firms, must be Mission Driven in the long run or they don't exist.
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You see, your company is a "Wall Street" company, you manage money for people. But
@ycombinator is still young. -
Yours and
@pmarca's and@firstround's and@foundersfund are innovative approaches in the investment business but we need more cc@cdouvos -
The entire investment world must also be Mission Driven in the long run. "Wall Street" must catch on too. And they will.
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We see signs in companies like
@Aspiration@artivest@Betterment@Wealthfront@FutureAdvisor#Bitcoin@AngelList but we are VERY early. - 2 more replies
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Man, I wish I had your view of the world. I think it's naive but maybe that's what you need to be a successful VC!
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Here's an encouraging thought: it's almost certainly based on more data than yours. So keep learning and maybe you will.
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*Burn Notice*
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Maybe at Google, but many engineers go on to pursue careers in adtech service companies. Does that change the world?
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Less than at Google, but it could.
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they still deserve immense scrutiny, because they hold immense power
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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and there's another situation, for search it's a de facto oligopoly, barrier for market entry very high (maybe just specialized search),
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which leads necessarily to political questions; if results are filtered, they almost do not exist for broad audience
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the sum of vectors is going in the wrong direction. eg, political advertising. zero transparency on micro targeting.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Wouldn't it be more honest to say that, on average, working at google is 96% advertising-related and 4% trying to change the world?
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Any reaction to this thread
@matt_levine ? -
No response from
@matt_levine , so since you linked to him@gruber, any reaction from you? -
I don’t know about “dishonest” but it’s not fair. Google search is inarguably one of the greatest contributions to knowledge in history.
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That makes sense. I also think it is unfair to label google/tech as "advertising" if we aren't going to apply the same label to all media.
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That said, Levine was talking about “quants”. There are some great math minds putting themselves to work on as tech. That’s sad.
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Assume you mean *ad tech. Anyway, good point
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