Organizational theory & behaviour

When Claire Stapleton joined Google in 2007, it felt like stepping into a worldview as much as a job. The company offered not just a career, but a moral project. In the heady early years of Big Tech and when Google’s in-house slogan was ‘Don’t be evil,’ it was easy to believe that technology wasn’t just changing the world – it was going to fix it. As Stapleton rose through increasingly rarefied roles, from the storied Creative Lab to YouTube marketing, she helped shape the myth from the inside. But as the gap between Google’s ideals and its reality widened, the dissonance became impossible to ignore. In 2018, amid outrage over the company’s handling of sexual harassment, Stapleton helped organize the Google Walkout – a defining rupture in Silicon Valley’s self-image. Sharp, witty and unsparing, ‘Don’t Be Evil’ is an insider’s account of how power actually works – and a deeper reckoning with the stories we tell about work, purpose and ou