Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Party Plane 238
Mr. Soxley writes to tell us that the Boeing 767 recently purchased by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page is at the heart of what promises to be quite a legal battle. From the article: "Now the Delaware holding company that technically owns the 767, Blue City Holdings LLC, is embroiled in multiple lawsuits with an aviation designer hired to plan and oversee the massive plane's interior renovation. [...] But last October, Blue City terminated Mr. Jennings's contract, saying he wasn't doing his job properly. Mr. Jennings then filed a nearly $200,000 lien against the aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration for payment he hadn't received. He later filed a complaint related to the matter against Blue City and Gore Design Completions Ltd., the San Antonio executive-jet outfitting firm that worked on the plane, in District Court in Bexar County, Texas."
Re:Do no evil - except when outfitting your 767 (Score:5, Interesting)
No it shouldn't. I don't remember any of the Google lot having been convicted for anything - there's quite a difference there. Also, I'm not American so I don't know who the Tyco guy is, but Ken Lay and Martha Stewart in the same breath? Wouldn't you think there was just a little bit of difference in the level of scam pulled...?
I'm not a Google fan really. In fact, if someone would give me as clean an interface I'd switch away from its search in a heartbeat, as I find it too heavily spammed and blogged these days. But really...it might show something about the Google boys' characters, but it doesn't show them as criminals.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Doing the job well? (Score:4, Interesting)
Contractor: "I'll get back to you."
Company: "I hear there's a cost overrun with X"
Contractor: "I'll look into it."
Company: "Are your guys actually doing anything, or are they just in my plane for the A/C?"
Contractor: "We hire only the best"
Repeat every day, for 400 days, and you have 1200 email exchanges and zero usefulness from the contractor.
Re:Do no evil - except when outfitting your 767 (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because you are jealous someone else has more money than you do not tell them how to spend it. They made a successful business, and now are spending the fruits of their labor. How is that evil? Sounds like every American or European's wet dream to me.
I fail to see where it is evil except that it makes you green with envy.
So much for the environment (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever wonder why American troops are fighting for Iraqi oil? Bush just sells it - it is clowns like this that burn it up.
Re:Do no evil - except when outfitting your 767 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is a rich person's problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
Google's products are more polished? Get real! My favorite example is to compare Google Maps with Yahoo Maps. Now, in terms of features and usability, Google Maps is far superior. But I still use Yahoo maps a lot. Why? Yahoo maps has a simple, not very interesting feature that I use a lot: you can maintain a list of addresses you refer to a lot, and then never have to enter them again when planning a trip. It's a very simple, basic feature, but nobody at Google can be bothered to implement it. They're too busy with fancy AJAX features.
Which is not to run down the fancy AJAX features. Google deserves a lot of credit, not just for having kewl features, but forcing all web application developers to rethink their art. Great! But the boring stuff is important too, if you ever want to claim your product is more than a toy.
Oops! I just looked at the new href=http://maps.yahoo.com/beta/index.php#maxp=loc ation&q2=675+S.+Sixth+St.+San+Jose,+CA&q1=4150+Net work+Circle+Santa+Clara,+CA+95054-1778&trf=0&mvt=m &lon=-121.915112&lat=37.362176&mag=5>maps beta version of Yahoo Maps. It's already somewhat more polished than Google maps. And I bet it doesn't stay beta for 3 years.