A Google ex-employee sheds light on why the tech company abandoned its "Don't be evil" mantra

Published Aug 12, 2026, 12:50 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary A 2011 leadership change tilted Google toward tech ambition and corporate bloat, claims ex-employee. The "Don't be evil" mantra slipped from mantra to footnote by May 2018. What started as idealism morphed into Apple-style branding and corporate complexity. Back in the early days of Google's history, the company was bound by one guiding rule: "Don't be evil." Over time, that rule has slowly been relegated lower in the company's code of conduct until it hit the very bottom. Now, one Google ex-employee has given us insight into why that happened, and they believe it happened due to a change in leadership. A shift in management caused "Don't be evil" to die out, claims Google ex-employee It went from a mantra to a footnote As reported by Ars Technica, this information comes to us via Claire Stapleton, who worked at Google from 2007 to 2019. She recently published a book titled Don't Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech – A Biting Memoir of Twelve Years Inside Google, in which Stapleton writes personal accounts of her experiences working for the biggest search engine in the world. She talked to Ars Technica about why she believes the tech giant downgraded its "Don't be evil" mantra that it had since 2004. Due to her position in communications, Stapleton says she had good insight into the company's shift and pins the turning point to Larry Page replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO in 2011. Stapleton says that while Schmidt was "the corporate guy," Page was "the pure tech guy" who had an "incredibly lofty rhetoric about the company’s ambitions and his hopes that it would solve all the world’s problems." This, Stapleton said, would cause a shift: “I think it created a culture that was more corporate—the opposite of what Larry said he wanted to happen. The company became much more complex and inefficient. The irony was Larry was calling this out: ‘We’re going to become sclerotic, and we’re going to stop innovating if the company gets too bloated.’ But that’s exactly what happened: Google became a bloated Borg. And all of a sudden, Google wanted to do cool branding, like Apple.” This then led to products such as Google Glass and Google+, which would eventually run out of steam and be left on the wayside. Google would eventually move the "Don't be evil" mantra from the top of the code of conduct to the bottom in May 2018.