I'm making no claim as to how they are as people, but rather what they see as the philosophical center of their organizations. "Cheated on his wife" and "has a foundation" couldn't be less relevant. Bill Gates, as you mention, is practically the poster child for charity, and yet the idea that that implies much useful about the principles that animated Microsoft under his tenure is foolhardy.

My statement didn't say anythjng about who they are as fully-rounded human beings, and even further, spoke only about the _perception_ of what their company's philosophies (as embodied by their founders words) are. You're flattening the nuance of my statement into a simple-minded "Sergey good, Zuck bad" that I didn't come close to expressing.

The rest of your comment is pretty much a non sequitur and this is already a pretty long response, so forgive me for not addressing it (though I'm happy to if you think I'm being unfair to your point).

> I'm making no claim as to how they are as people

Well, sorry I thought you were, but when you say "consistently come across as being principled and passionate" and talk about who Zukerberg was as a person when he was 20 (when he made the "dumb fucks" comment) and his "his ethical foundations", it very much sounds you're making claims about them as people.

> spoke only about the _perception_ of what their company's philosophies

If you say "It's of course entirely possible that this simply means that the Google guys are better at personal", by personal I'm gonna assume you mean surrounding their person, not their companies, and personal PR _is_ very flat and all about "Sergey good" or "Zuck bad". My comment was meant to give the other side of the coin: it's evident you personally see Google's founders as better people ethically, and Zuck as lacking principles, so I gave you an example of the opposite to complement your point of view and hopefully give you a more rounded vision of them. They're all people, with their flaws and strengths; neither has it all figured out.

> The rest of your comment is pretty much a non sequitur and this is already a pretty long response, so forgive me for not addressing it (though I'm happy to if you think I'm being unfair to your point).

I don't mind long comments, feel free to address it. (:

> it very much sounds you're making claims about them as people.

That's not an unreasonable interpretation, but it isn't what I intended. Their personal PR about how they run the company matters because these are unusually founder-driven companies, and even more so in terms of perception. Just as most people think of the President as more of a king, most have an image of Facebook as Mark Zuckerberg's personal playground.

> it's evident you personally see Google's founders as better people ethically, and Zuck as lacking principles

You have me wrong here. As I said, I was speaking about perceptions of them. As I said tho, that's not unreasonable, since in the name of succinctness, I presented the view and only afterwards indicated that I was focusing on perception.