- Think twice before plugging your phone into a public charging socket It’s such a wicked world: people exploiting desperate smartphone owners who are running low on battery. But there is a fix — a “USB condom”.
- How Turkish coffee destroyed an empire Basically by getting men out of the house to places where they could debate and scheme.
- Australian Law should treat social media companies as publishers says Attorney-General So much for Section 230 then.
Daily Archives: November 21, 2019
‘Don’t be Evil’ changes to ‘Don’t ask me anything’
From Steven Levy, who knows as much about Google as any outsider:
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email blast to his 100,000 or so employees, cutting back the company’s defining all-hands meeting known as TGIF. The famous free-for-alls had epitomized the company’s egalitarian ethos, a place where employees and leaders could talk freely about nearly anything. More recently, however, the biweekly meeting had become fraught as it increasingly reflected Google’s tensions as opposed to its aspirations. “It’s not working in its current form,” Pichai said of what was once the hallmark of Google culture. In 2020, he declared, the meetings would be limited to once a month, and they would be more constrained affairs, sticking to “product and business strategy.” Don’t Be Evil has changed to Don’t Ask Me Anything.
It was inevitable, really. You can’t run a giant company as if it were a small startup.