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Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

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Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#61

Post by argonaut »

jzwinck wrote: post #54
justinlardinois wrote: post #49

> More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office. Google has over 30,000 employees in Mountain View alone, and that's just a portion of its workforce. The term "Obama administration" in the headline is somewhat misleading considering that the above quote says it's surveyed from "the federal government," which is a huge wor…

Some back of the envelope math: 50% of total staff are at Mountain View. Of 60k staff, maybe 20-25k are engineers. So in the US it's probably 10-15k engineers total. In my experience, software engineer attrition is around 20% per year in firms with good employee satisfaction. That's 2-3k engineers excited to be tackling new opportunities each year. In 8 years: 16-24k employees. Of course Google is a great place to wo…

You're reading the table (egregiously) wrong. It says around 2.7 million people work for the executive branch of government. That is about 1.8% of the employed US workforce. 2700 doesn't pass the smell test, anyways.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#62

Post by morgante »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
oxymoron wrote: post #31

I think the Google Transparency Project needs some transparency: http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/google-transparency-project/

This article contains no data. Merely speculates or insinuates that if it's investigating Google, clearly it has to be part of some plot against them. I know it's hard to imagine, but sometimes people may just want to know what a giant evil international conglomerate is doing in backrooms with the most powerful people on the planet.

I think it's a little suspicious that they won't reveal who is funding them.

More importantly, I don't see any clear reason to target a specific company. There are lots of organizations like The Center for Responsive Politics which investigate lobbying and corruption without doing targeting a specific company with whatever they can find.

This organization clearly seems to have an axe to grind. For example, what is the point of naming and shaming programmers who dared to quit their cushy Google jobs to come work for USDS? [0] This is symptomatic of a hatchet job:

> suggests that many former Google employees working for USDS today may return to their Google jobs tomorrow with inside knowledge and relationships that could prove invaluable in securing large IT contracts for Google.

The notion that programmers are going to work for Google so they can secure IT contracts is ludicrous. I know people working for USDS—they definitely are not interested in making a career out of government consulting.

If this group cares so much about transparency, they should be transparent about who is funding them. I suspect it's several corporations which are even more corrupt than Google.

[0] http://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/us-digital-ser...

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#63

Post by justinlardinois »

jzwinck wrote: post #54
justinlardinois wrote: post #49

> More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office. Google has over 30,000 employees in Mountain View alone, and that's just a portion of its workforce. The term "Obama administration" in the headline is somewhat misleading considering that the above quote says it's surveyed from "the federal government," which is a huge wor…

Some back of the envelope math: 50% of total staff are at Mountain View. Of 60k staff, maybe 20-25k are engineers. So in the US it's probably 10-15k engineers total. In my experience, software engineer attrition is around 20% per year in firms with good employee satisfaction. That's 2-3k engineers excited to be tackling new opportunities each year. In 8 years: 16-24k employees. Of course Google is a great place to wo…

Did the linked article ever say that the flow was limited to software engineers?

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#66

Post by jokero »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #36
hueving wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the examples in the article are non-technical. High level advisory roles for policy advise.

I don't really understand why having people who know about technology advise in the creation of technology policy and strategy is a bad thing.

maybe because of how they use this 'force' to keep themself at the top or to make life better.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#67

Post by navahq »

TheSageMage wrote: post #17
philip1209 wrote: post #11

I met some of the former Googlers working for the USDS. They seemed to be many pre-IPO SREs who decided that improving government was more important than being an LP at a VC fund. They were motivated by getting tens of millions of people healthcare, and along the way they encountered huge challenges - like figuring out how to reconcile VA and Pentagon records. Their passion was inspiring, and the work they do affects…

So I'm a software engineer in SF who would love to work on projects like you mentioned. Where do I look and what do I look for?

Also check out Nava-- we're a part of the original team and continuing to improve Healthcare.gov and work on other projects, and we're actively hiring for software engineers in SF and DC. See profile for details!

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#68

Post by enneff »

ivanca wrote: post #8

...just like thousands of people on every industry does: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I If you didn't want this to happen perhaps you should make it illegal?

And then there would be a bunch of unqualified and inexperienced people working for the government.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#69

Post by ocdtrekkie »

morgante wrote: post #62
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article contains no data. Merely speculates or insinuates that if it's investigating Google, clearly it has to be part of some plot against them. I know it's hard to imagine, but sometimes people may just want to know what a giant evil international conglomerate is doing in backrooms with the most powerful people on the planet.

I think it's a little suspicious that they won't reveal who is funding them. More importantly, I don't see any clear reason to target a specific company. There are lots of organizations like The Center for Responsive Politics which investigate lobbying and corruption without doing targeting a specific company with whatever they can find. This organization clearly seems to have an axe to grind. For example, what is th…

It's hard to imagine big IT contracts isn't a part of it. Bear in mind, Google Cloud Platform is Google's big push these days, and they're currently in a distant third place. Now, with all those Google employees who are then also going back to Google after their USDS stint... how many of them do you think will recommend or even consider Azure or AWS when they recommend a cloud platform for the government project they're working on? Google Apps for Government is a thing too.

And at the end of the day, basically all Google wants is... all your data. Good way to accomplish that is getting your employees to write the software too.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#70

Post by adrianratnapala »

rtpg wrote: post #34
azakai wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar arguments are made when the close ties between the government and say Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants are discussed. There is a revolving door there too. Even the most forgiving interpretation of the facts implies that Google and Goldman Sachs and other corporations have massive influence in government. There is no need to posit a conspiracy theory. It's just that the same people flow back and fort…

The most forgiving interpretation doesn't imply massive influence at all. US gov't needs help regulating banks. Employees with experience in finance will likely have an easier time navigating things. Same argument for tech. Is it really that shocking that you hire former finance people to regulate the finance industry? Experience in the domain means knowledge about how things work. It's the same argument as putting a…

But regulation is supposed to provide an impartial set of rules that defines how people go about their buisness fairly.

One of the great criticisms of regulation is that incumbents with access to government can influence the rules to favour themselves and avoid competition. Having employees of particular large companies work as beaurocrats encourages this, especially if they return to those companies.

In it's early phase -- such as with these googlers in the US gov, the revolving door brings dynamism. But over time it brings stagnation because parties have an interest in making current practice the only thing allowed.

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