Don't Be Evil or don't lose value?

Mayer explained that Don't Be Evil was coined in 1999 by one of Google's first engineers, Amit Patel, who shared a work cubicle with Mayer.

She said Patel and other early employees were resistant when staff with business skills began joining the engineer-driven company. The engineers feared they would be pressured into moving certain clients higher in search results listings or building products they did not want to build.

Patel voiced his fears via the whiteboard in the conference room where Google sales people met clients.

I think Patel's fears were realised a number of years ago with the growth of an expensive and specialist search engine optimization industry. Google has directly supported the dominate voice listing higher in search results through the very foundation of how their company is structured in regards to search and the SEO industry it has created.