Doug Edwards was the man behind the creation of a five-year old Google document called “10 things Google has found to be true” and referenced that in response to Danny Sullivan’s recent Google love/hate lists.
It isn’t a surprise that Sullivan’s Google hate list has garnered more attention than the Google things he loves about the company. People like gossip, dirt, and the wielding of sharp remarks in celebrity feuds.
Edwards posted that he could have cleared up Sullivan’s last complaint that Google needs to “fix its philosophy” and develop a more realistic one it can express publicly.
“I was supposed to take care of that before I left last year. Whoops. My bad,” Edwards wrote. In 2001, Edwards crafted the “10 things Google has found to be true” list. Edwards wanted to list an eleventh item, “Always deliver more than expected,” but that was shot down by consensus. (Perhaps irony isn’t a strong suit among the long-time Googlers.)
Said Edwards of his 10 things list:
The real gist of Ten Things was that Google’s focus was technical and that the company had high ethical standards. Googlers felt strongly that blurring the line between advertising and “real” search results, or selling placement in search results without telling people, broke the trust of users looking for unbiased information. We wanted to show the world we weren’t like that. That was evil and we wanted no part of it.
Even though Sullivan is much more of a Google insider than Edwards is these days, it’s Edwards who still sees Google’s connection to “the spirit, if not the letter of its manifesto”:
Google has taken heat for some recent decisions, but it’s too early to damn them for trying to deliver on the most ambitious promise a company can make in an imperfect world.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
