Jobs, Googlers Spar Over ‘Evil’ Quip

Nothing like a good word war between übergeeks to stir things up: Apple CEO Steve Jobs made an incendiary jab this weekend at his counterparts over at Google, accusing them of going against their company mantra, “Don’t Be Evil.” The current and former bigwigs at Google weren’t going to take that lying down. But is this a case of competition bringing out the worst, or is there something, in fact, rotten in Google’s Silicon Valley kingdom? (Or, as one other potential option, is this a “pot, meet kettle” scenario?)  —KA

Valleywag:

“I don’t know where people get the idea that competition is evil,” writes Paul Buchheit, the ex-Google who invented “Don’t Be Evil,” along with Gmail and FriendFeed. One current Googler says he plans to tack up Jobs’ “very motivational” quote beside his monitor; another says Jobs myopically “sees all competition as zero-sum.”

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Flickr/Robert Scoble

Colorful yet evil?: Google’s past and present top brass denies Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ claims that Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” mantra is “bullshit,” according to Valleywag.