Because we haven’t written enough about Google today … the New York Times looks at Google’s growing power base and suggests “Relax, Bill Gates; It’s Google’s Turn as the Villain.” It’s a litany of ways Google is perceived as threatening, including the company’s voracious appetite for engineers to work on its myriad projects.
Says LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, “Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did. … It’s harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.” Much as Microsoft once was — and still is — Google is the straw man many entreprenuers have to knock down during conversations with VCs.
Brian Lent, president of start-up Medio Systems, was there for Google’s founding. Now he nails the core concern more people are starting to have. “In the day, you’d hear that Microsoft was the evil empire, especially in Silicon Valley. … Google is the new evil empire, because they’re in such a powerful position in terms of control. They have potential monopolistic control over access to information.”
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