Under Eric Schmidt, Google evolved from "Don't be evil" to "Be kind of evil."

On Thursday, the second most valuable company in the world announced that one of its chieftains was stepping down. Rather, he said he’s going off to work on “science and technology issues”—which, CNBC reports, may include advising the company’s urban development division, Sidewalk Labs, as well as some health care projects with the company. Before Schmidt became a Googler, the young company abided by that famous guiding philosophy: “Don’t be evil.” The slogan helped inspire trust from its customers, who knew or didn’t much consider that they were getting free, high-quality tech in exchange for allowing it to trace their every move on the site. When Google was reorganized to become Alphabet in 2015, the new company decided to abandon the mantra and replace it with a call to “do the right thing.” Under Schmidt’s leadership, Google notched its fair share of not-quite-not-evil missteps. Either not being evil didn’t mean not being racist, or the company’s executives never prioritized the mission to the point that it meant excising hatred and bias from Google’s services.