"A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn't have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. Google's motto—"Don't be evil"—is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business that is successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence. In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything. Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money; non-monopolists can't"
But Google had its culture before it got rich didn't it?
There are also a lot of small tech companies like 37 signals and fog creak that try to be ethical and and treat their employees well. I don't think thiel could argue that they are monopolies.
Nor frankly do I buy that Google is a monopoly. But that's beside the point.
I understand the sentiment, and promoting civil discourse is a wonderful goal. But the way forward is figuring out how to promote the good, and discourage the bad, not disengagement.
I don't think I can say why it is important to engage better than Charles Krauthammer, so I'll just put his words here.
"While science, medicine, art, poetry, architecture, chess, space, sports, number theory and all things hard and beautiful promise purity, elegance and sometimes even transcendence, they are fundamentally subordinate. In the end, they must bow to the sovereignty of politics.
Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything – high and low and, most especially, high – lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933… Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns."
Note that what he said is that the solar roof plus the electricity that it generates is cheaper than a conventional roof. The up-front cost is higher for the solar roof.
So, yes, there are assumptions in there: how much power can be generated, how valuable will it be 10 years from now, etc.
This is big. My roof cost nearly double what my solar installs did, and getting the tax credit on the roof might have paid for the additional cost of the solar tiles over standing seam metal. (Not that I don't love the metal; it's awesome.)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-l...
"A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn't have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. Google's motto—"Don't be evil"—is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business that is successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence. In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything. Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money; non-monopolists can't"