Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet 356
Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times reports that H211 LLC, a company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added to its fleet a Dornier Alpha Jet, a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France. The 1982 Alpha-Jet seats two and was originally used by European air forces, but is now being sold relatively cheaply to civilians. The jet has landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA-operated airfield that is a stone's throw from the Google campus. It is not clear who exactly flies the fighter jet, although Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is an avid pilot. If the top Googlers indeed own the fighter jet, they would be following in the footsteps of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who has owned several aircraft, including fighter jets."
Pot, meet Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
I see you own a computer. Surely you could have sent your money to Africa instead?
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they own a computer. It's not like you can post to Slashdot on a library computer.
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. Using the fighter jet to take out clumps of corrupt African officials may be the single best piece of charity Sergei and Brin could ever offer them, as at least them the money us regular folks send over might have a chance of actually reaching the citizens and being used for its intended purposes. :-)
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't work. What ever governments replaced the ones wiped out would become corrupt in a few, short years. Just look at Zimbabwe if you need an example.
Re:That's right, mods (Score:5, Insightful)
So everyone with more money than you should give it all to charity?
You think those starving children in Africa wouldn't go out for a meal at a fancy restaurant if they were given a billion pounds? Then perhaps buy some nice shoes? They could just use it to buy everyone in their country just the right amount of food to make sure they're not classed as 'starving' for a while, but I highly suspect they might want to enjoy themselves a little too. They might even buy a bike or a car. You know, some people like to have fun occasionally, when it is within their means?
I'm very sure Larry and Sergey have caused more money to go to charity [bbc.co.uk] than you ever will. Just because they also want to use their money - money that they have earned by creating an excellent business - to have a bit of fun doesn't make them evil. It's easy to point the finger, but I bet you'd buy a nice car and house if you were a billionaire, rather than live in a slum. Any of us slashdotters could survive on a lot less than what we have. Why do you even have a slashdot account and access to a computer? Why aren't you out there earning as much money as you can so that you can redistribute the wealth?
The problem is not with our "consumerist culture", it's with corrupt and moronic governments who run their countries into the ground and treat their citizens like shit. No amount of charity is going to turn a country like that around if its leaders are corrupt.
Re:Far out thought (Score:5, Insightful)
This is beyond the realm of reality so cut me some slack... Corporations (or their top execs) are starting to buy military hardware. Do you think we will ever see a corporation declare war on another corporation? Gives a whole new meaning to hostile takeover...
You mean like the East India Company [wikipedia.org]?
It's a trainer (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an advanced trainer. It's a toy. (albeit a rich man's toy). What's the big deal -- he already owns several aircraft. This isn't even uncommon.
Now, if you told me he bought a couple of fully armed F22's, THAT would be news. (you may, of course, substitute your plane of choice for the F22)
Re:Far out thought (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people will tell you this has already happened. Most of it has been done by proxy so far, i.e. friends in the government. But I think you're asking for the meaty stuff?
With today's security situation the way it is, I'm guessing it won't be long before security contractors like BlackWater notice that CEOs enjoy fighter jets and begin to offer complementary patrol services. Only for the richest. Formation flyovers above corp HQ three times a day tell you that your husband is safe working in the new MegaCorp Building building gas canisters to be used against fringe groups, and the Baptists for Free America extremists won't ever sneak another Beechcraft loaded with FAE through our 49th floor lobby.
Alas, Babylon
Re:That's right, mods (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm. And Sarah Palin's $150,000 was also good fiscal prudence, too?
I'm not voting for her either way, but I fail to see why people pounce on her for this. She's a public figure that is engaging in the mother of all popularity contests. Like it or not, appearance makes a HUGE difference to the American people. That $150,000 is an investment in her campaign plain and simple. If she stood up there in K-mart clothes people would have perceived her as less sophisticated.
Essentially, consider it part of the advertising budget. When you're trying to sell yourself to a nation packaging is important.
Re:That's right, mods (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, let's look at the word "selfish": "Selfishness denotes the precedence given in thought or deed to the self, i.e., self interest or self concern. It is the act of placing one's own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others."
Assuming that's what you mean, here's a way of looking at it: so what? It's wrong to do something for yourself, even if it's not in someone else's best interests? Even if it was your hard work and energy that put you in a position to do this in the first place?
If it is, tell me /why/ it is? Why do other people deserve the fruits of their labor? Why should they send their money to a corrupt nation, where it's assured that scarcely any of it will be received by the people who need it?
Why doesn't the millions of dollars that they have already donated to charities count? Must they give it all away and live as paupers to meet that laudable goal of not being "selfish" or "consumerist"?
Poetically, your defense of them has the same root as any defense of ridiculously wealthy people allowing their silly purchases of toys to be publicized. You either are one of them currently, or you want to be one.
Let me fix that to apply to your post...
Poetically, your contempt for them shows the same deep-rooted envy of those unable to attain such positions of wealth.
Easy to make generalizations, isn't it? Though I suspect mine has as much truth as yours...
Re:That's right, mods (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no idea what you're on about with Sam Walton. I recognise the names of [the complete moron who seems to know less about American newspapers than I do, despite neither reading papers often nor living in America] Sarah Palin and Larry at Oracle, but that's about it. I live in the UK and have only watched some YouTube videos of Palin after seeing many comments about her here on slashdot. If you search for her on google images you'll find plenty of retarded photos of her holding guns and flags, etc. She's such an airhead, it's unbelievable .. okay scratch that, when Dubya is the most powerful man in the world, it's perfectly believable..
As for the Boeing thing, again I just don't see why so many people think they have the right to judge them. Many of us that have cars could probably get by without them in some way or another - certainly here in the UK and in built up areas of the US that have public transport and taxis. Very large companies make use of private jets in the same way that 'normal' people make use of cars. They may not always be full of passengers, and so are wasting fuel, but they can save a lot of time and if the company or person involved is willing to waste the money on that fuel to save time, it's up to them. It's not illegal. Some people might find it immoral, but they are probably doing exactly the same things with their cars, just on a different scale. Here in the UK, virtually everybody (apart from a few people in very remote areas like the north coast of Scotland) could get by without a car, but it simply isn't convenient - and so the people that can afford cars and are fit to drive, usually buy cars.
Now the fighter jet is more like buying a motorbike to just cruise around on. It's perhaps valid to criticise the amount of fuel that is being wasted just on joyriding (though how do you know that they aren't buying it for some AI test project? Larry and Sergey love their AI), but anyone that has ever gone for a drive just to clear their head or for fun would be guilty of the same thing, in my opinion.
I do get why people think they are "bad" guys for spending money on these expensive things, and their frivolous wastes of fuel are much more noticeable than other peoples, but I just think it shows a lack of perspective. Why the heck not buy that kind of stuff if you have the money? It's not like they are giving nothing to charity. Why should they be criticized by a bunch of bitter people (who most likely wish they could afford to spend money on stuff like that, and if they started earning a few billion a year would probably end up buying a jet or some other expensive toy at some point) for having a fighter plane any more than a homeless person should criticise someone for buying an expensive mountain bike that, strictly speaking, they don't really need? It just seems kind of pathetic to me.
If I made the kind of money they did, I would give some to charity sure, but I would use some to have fun. Is that selfish? Possibly, but I wouldn't feel too bad about it. If I'm doing a job that really justifies earning that much money, I'd want to have some of the rewards that go along with being successful.
Evil? No. Human? Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the more I hear about Google, the more they seem like everyone else. And I'm not saying it in a condemning way or anything. They're just human.
They too need some big expensive toy as suspicious consumption. They too would rape your privacy if it helps optimize 0.01% off their average search time, and thus make an extra buck. They too will sell some Chinese babbling about "democracy" to the authorities if that's the price to make a billion dollars in business in China. They too will expose your data occasionally if it's cheaper than hiring testers. And they too apparently aren't above making a backroom deal with Yahoo or using patents keep the competition out of their little monopoly field.
(According to at least one analysis, that's why MS wants to buy Yahoo. Some time ago Yahoo apparently bought a small company who had a blanket patent on matching ads to the text on the page. Yahoo licensed it to Google, but refuses to license it to MS or anyone else.)
In a nutshell, they're like any other corporation. Plus a funky meaningless motto, that some people mistake for some kind of final proof that Google is the digital-age Mother Theresa. Heh.
The thing is, no other corporation is "evil" in the sense of seeking to cause the maximum misery, pain and destruction possible. Even MS, I'd bet they never had a board meeting along the lines of, "how can we make more people miserable?" There are no super-villains cackling over doomsday device blueprints. And there are no altruistic super-heroes either. There are only greedy people trying to make a buck, and the difference is in how many corpses they feel they can get away with stepping over, on their way to the top.
At any rate, Google "doing no evil"... well, it's technically true, but only in as much as you could say with a straight face that MS does no evil. They don't sacrifice babies to Satan or anything. But from there, both have shown repeatedly that their goal is simply to make the most money, and both don't have much consideration for whoever might get to suffer for it. As is, indeed, expected of a corporation.
They're just human. They're just a corporation. That's it. It doesn't make them evil, it merely makes them the same as everyone else. One just has the funny motto.
Well, I think I'll make "36 inch penis" my motto. I'm sure some people will actually believe that I live up to that ;)
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:4, Insightful)
Larry and Sergey have shown unquestionably that they are utterly out of touch.
Lets see... you state a bunch of things going on in a country, then you use that as a basis to criticize how private personal funds are used by private personal people to buy something they want? Really? Who's the one out of touch? Have you bought anything recently... like say a video game, movie, or music? Then you're as much as fault as these guys, who happen to just have more spending power than you and you're jealous about it.
I won't go into the fact that these guys probably just saved a few people their jobs by spending their money... but oh well.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's right, mods (Score:3, Insightful)
I make enough money to live comfortably. I don't need any more money, and I know this. I don't feel any need to be as rich as these guys, or in fact any richer than I am. I can already buy all the gadgets and books, etc that I want to.
I was just as happy, if not happier when my family was 'poor' by the way - my father was a student (he had spent 9 years in the police but then went to University when I was born) and my mother was a full time housewife for a few years when I was growing up. So I can appreciate the value of the things I have now better than some. I even like to share them with my friends and family too, which doesn't to me seem very selfish, but call it what you will.
I am not particularly 'pursuing' anything at the moment, other than trying to find a new meaning to my life after renouncing Christianity in May. I have lived as a relatively poor person by western standards, and now am probably "middle class".
But yes, I can be a bitter, selfish, angry bastard sometimes. I have gone through bouts of depression, and OCD (read up on it, I didn't realise the way my mind was acting was OCD, I just thought I was weird. OCD involves a lot more messed up shit than just being obsessed with numbers or movements or whatever, the worrying was really crippling and took months to break free from) etc from family and other personal problems in the last 7 years. And then years of bullying before that. I know that I am much better off financially than a lot of the world, and yet a lot of them are better off than me mentally. Life is not all about money you know. I would happily make less money if I knew it meant I could have a better adjusted setup in my brain which enabled me to be a more positive person. I am trying to improve myself anyway. Sorry if my way of looking at things isn't as morally upright as yours.
I used to give a tenth of my income to the church even when I wasn't making as much money. Yes, a significant amount of that went to charity and missionary work. I remembered to stop that payment last month, and no I have not started a regular monthly payment to any other charity yet but I was intending to once I find one that I consider worthy if that makes it any better *shrug*.
I didn't say that I am not influenced by the culture around me, I just think that people who criticise it probably spending a significant percentage of their income on things that are not really necessary too. I do think that is a valid way of looking at it, though obviously once you start earning over a certain level then you have no financial worries and should be giving a higher percentage than before to charity. But if you are expected to give a higher percentage to charity, why shouldn't you be able to spend a higher percentage on toys too? You seem to be taking a very one sided approach to the whole thing. No, I don't think it's right to base your life on the pursuit of material possessions, but there is nothing wrong with having some if you can afford them, either. And I don't actually know what the purpose of life is yet so I wouldn't even say that pursuing possessions is "wrong", though it is of course selfish if you don't help to provide for those less fortunate than you.
After further reading of the comments, it seems that the fighter jet isn't even a toy anyway, it is for research projects (I did suspect something of the sort and mentioned it in a reply above, but I thought it would be more about AI research than just for fitting sensors to or whatever they're doing). So your self righteousness about "silly purchases of toys" is even less fitting.
Re:That's right, mods (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there are a number of points.
$150,000 is more money than most "real Americans" spend in an entire lifetime on clothing. That to me is pure hypocrisy.
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:3, Insightful)
The coolest part was at the end when one of the Afghans pointed to the contrails from a B52 flying overhead and said that so long as they were on the prowl, the Taliban would not come back and life would be good.
So they're like a cargo cult based around a very different type of cargo?
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pot, meet Kettle (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it's more like "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."