Corporate Personalities

Disclaimer: what follows is a completely biased take on some large companies that affect my everyday life. No independent research went into this diatribe. Also, there are some brilliant, hardworking people at all three of these companies and regardless of what I say below, I highly respect them.

Even big corporations have distinct personalities. Here are my perceptions about three important ones. First, Microsoft.

Microsoft’s motto seems to be: “We’ve got you by the balls and we expect your hearts and minds to follow.” Please forgive me if I’d prefer to invest in a balls-extraction device. Microsoft made big money by being in the right place at the right time with the right business model. The rest of the company was built on leverage by buying up other people’s software or putting other companies out of business by making Microsoft’s competing software free or essentially free. Microsoft was very lucky that they were not pursued more effectively by the US government’s antitrust enforcers. They have not been as lucky in, for example, Europe. Personality: extortionist.

Next, Apple. From the above you might expect me to go easy on Apple. True, I started using a Macintosh in 1985, and subsequently I programmed some games for that platform. But my main emotion concerning Apple is sheer frustration. Whenever I buy a new Mac (every two years, it seems) I have to take out a mortgage to pay for it.  Okay, I love the design of Apple’s computers, but the operating system has gone through so many incarnations that the games I programmed in the nineties only work on computers in museum exhibitions.

I’m hoping that with Intel chips and OS X, Apple finally has got it right. If only that had happened twenty years ago. Personality: high-maintenance blonde.

Finally, Google. Everybody loves Google! Well, almost everybody. The original idealistic “Do no evil” company founded to provide a free (?) service is somehow making huge amounts of money. Should Google be surprised to learn that once it becomes a behemoth, it might begin to crush smaller interests underfoot? I love maps. When Google made maps free, I was elated. Why should I care if it hurts some company like MapQuest? Right now, Google probably knows more about my web-surfing habits than I do. Should I be concerned? Hmmm…  Personality: likable, geeky teenager. I might have had the same impression of Microsoft or Apple also, earlier in their corporate histories. Will Google turn out to be a serial killer, or a nice rich uncle? Only time will tell.

Now, you may agree or disagree about what I’ve said, but everyone will probably acknowledge that it’s not unusual to think about companies in these terms. What I’ve done here is anthropomorphism, the attribution of human qualities to something non-human. In this case, I’ve ascribed human qualities to the abstract companies (rather than to the owners or employees). People do this as a metaphor without thinking about it much, but in some situations it is, or can lead to, a fallacy. Specifically, one can drift from using anthropomorphism as an analogy or metaphor into a situation where one draws conclusions from the expectation that the anthropomorphized entity will display human traits. For example, I might now (wrongly) expect that Microsoft will be mad at me for what I say about it. True, some person at Microsoft might find my comments offensive and be angry, but the company itself has no feelings to hurt.