Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy

In 2004, Larry Page, one of its founders, excited the nonprofit world with a bold commitment to philanthropy. He vowed to dedicate about 1 percent of Google’s profits, 1 percent of its equity and a significant amount of its employees’ time to the effort, which became known as Google.org, or DotOrg.

However, the hyperbole looks more like hubris. DotOrg has narrowed to just one octave on the piano: engineering-related projects that often are the outgrowth of existing Google products.