> The slogan itself is blatantly self-conscious - an acknowledgement of the insane power that would inevitably accumulate as a result of the business model they were pioneering.

I think that's historically false. At the time, "Don't be evil" seemed like, more than anything, an acknowledgement that Google wanted to have a corporate culture that was different from Microsoft, which at the time was the 800 pound gorilla in tech and was widely seen as being "evil" (I may be dating myself, but does anyone else remember the Bill Gates/Borg avatar that was the standard for Microsoft stories on Slashdot back in the day?) Google was founded in 1998, right when the US v Microsoft antitrust suit was filed.

One could certainly argue Google now engages in some of the monopolistic tactics that originally got Microsoft in hot water (with MS is "everything is part of the OS", with Google it's "everything can be part of the search results page"), but I think you're reading too much into what was originally behind the "Don't be evil" slogan.