The image of Google as a playful, “not evil” company is carefully cultivated (The Economist has more at http://economist.com/business/.....id=4135286), but and while there may be some basis in fact for the playful bit, the fact is that they are at least a little evil. This piece (http://www.bazaarz.com/archives/2005/08/googles_ethics.php) gives only part of the story on this. Say what you will about Microsoft, they never actively tried to put their customers out of business.

Another strange thing about Google — though it does not make them evil, certainly — is that everything it does is totally controlled by Larry Page, Sergei Brin, and Eric Schmidt. Every CV that comes into the company? LSE vet it first (this is according to Google employees in California HQ). According to those same employees, the only ones who really have any power to affect change or do anything within Google are LSE. It’s not even a matter of passing the buck, but simply that not even managers have the authority to make decisions. There’s flat structure, and then there’s extreme control freakery from the top down.

Google really seems like a great company, and certainly it does do some incredibly cool stuff, but the allegations of arrogance are a very small fraction of what they would be if people really knew how they do business.