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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

#71

Post by morgante »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #69
morgante wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's really hard for me to imagine regular Google software engineers doing stints in government just to procure IT contracts. Do you really think that's how things work? It amazes me that people will look for corruption in anything. Is it really that implausible that people might not just feel a civic duty to help improve government?

For the record, 18F and USDS both seem to have pushed for multiple cloud solutions, including their own cloud.gov.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#73

Post by ocdtrekkie »

morgante wrote: post #71
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's really hard for me to imagine regular Google software engineers doing stints in government just to procure IT contracts. Do you really think that's how things work? It amazes me that people will look for corruption in anything. Is it really that implausible that people might not just feel a civic duty to help improve government? For the record, 18F and USDS both seem to have pushed for multiple cloud solutions,…

Many of these aren't "regular Google software engineers". Eric Schmidt is the former CEO and is on an advisory board at the DOD, while still chairman of the board for Google. Matt Cutts, USDS and still employed formally at Google as well, is one of the most public faces of the biggest and most profitable division Google has. If Google was a single color, I'm confident Matt Cutts would bleed it.

I'm not "looking for corruption in anything". I'm looking for corruption in one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington DC that has very close ties with our administration, and strangely, has managed to avoid any sort of legal action against them, despite the fact that almost every other first world power finds cause to do so.

The previous FTC Commissioner, who is tasked by our government to regulate companies like Google, was a former paid Google shill who fabricated pro-Google "studies". After being paid under the table by Google, and then squashing an FTC investigation against Google during his term there, he's now working for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm who has a notable client... Google.

I'm not "looking for corruption in anything". It's just that it's incredibly implausible that Google does not have a corrupt relationship with the government.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#74

Post by gedrap »

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…

I got the same impression. It would be worth taking a second look at if the vast majority of those 250 people were top executives:

>> Regulation watchdogs may be just as keen about the moves between Google and the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. Those government bodies regulate many of the programs that are at the heart of Google’s business, and there have been at least 15 moves between Google and its lobbying firms and those commissions.

>> The 18 people involved in the revolving door listed in this story are just the tip of the 251-plus name iceberg, though in some cases people among that 251 are low-level employees.

So they looked at ~20 people in the article who moved from Google to the government. Given the size of Google, that number seems to be barely significant.

"Google employees have enjoyed good employability" seems like a better title, unless there's something major that I've missed.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#75

Post by hobohacker »

gnu8 wrote: post #33
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…

> Your specific background, including current salary and years of experience, will ultimately determine your pay. U.S. Digital Service salaries are set in accordance with the General Schedule Pay Scale, which is capped at $160,300. All of the Googlers you've met who work for USDS are already well funded from their previous companies. Who in their right mind would go to work for the government, for minimum wage, unles…

Ex-USDS here. Did 6 months at USDS, still federally employed as a USDS reserve.

Just wanted to chime in on "Who in their right mind would go to work for the government, for minimum wage, unless they were already independently wealthy?" GS-15 pay is nowhere near minimum wage. If you actually think so, I'm sorry to say that you are out of touch with society. And while some USDS employees may be independently wealthy, the majority certainly aren't.

There are also the nice perks of USDS, like working on things that critically matter to the lives of millions of the neediest demographic (both domestically and internationally), and collaborating with a bunch of A+ human beings who, despite the personal sacrifices, passionately want to do what they can to improve the welfare of others.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#76

Post by morgante »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #73
morgante wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard for me to imagine regular Google software engineers doing stints in government just to procure IT contracts. Do you really think that's how things work? It amazes me that people will look for corruption in anything. Is it really that implausible that people might not just feel a civic duty to help improve government? For the record, 18F and USDS both seem to have pushed for multiple cloud solutions,…

Many of these aren't "regular Google software engineers". Eric Schmidt is the former CEO and is on an advisory board at the DOD, while still chairman of the board for Google. Matt Cutts, USDS and still employed formally at Google as well, is one of the most public faces of the biggest and most profitable division Google has. If Google was a single color, I'm confident Matt Cutts would bleed it. I'm not "looking for c…

You didn't answer my question about why you think Google software engineers would work for government just to sell Google products. Instead, you pointed to much higher-level and isolated cases. The vast majority of the 250+ Googlers working in government are likely mid-level employees without significant policy responsibility.

I gave a specific link to this "Transparency Project" targeting mid-level Google engineers. [0] You seem to think the people on this list are mercenaries working in government just to sell Google contracts.

Since you seem to be uninterested in having a conversation on this and instead have an axe to grind, I'll see myself out.

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

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#77

Post by gedrap »

traek wrote: post #59

The "Google Transparency Project" [1] seems like a deliberately misleading name. They're not at all associated with Google yet they're going as far as using Google's logo in their logo. I wonder how legal that is, and if Google's comms team is aware of them. [1] http://googletransparencyproject.org/

And a color scheme somewhat similar to Google's. Well, there's "Campaign for Accountability" logo in the header, however, it's probably still a bit too deceiving than it should be.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#78

Post by asimuvPR »

navahq wrote: post #67
TheSageMage wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This seems really interesting! Is there a way to learn more before applying? :)

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#79

Post by BinaryIdiot »

> "it’s hard to know for sure how more than 250 people moving between Google and the federal government since 2009 compares to other corporations, but “it sounds like it’s a very significant number.”"

Considering we're talking about a time span of 7 years and Google has over 50,000 employees (took a rough average from the crazy range of source I saw) I'm surprised it's not more. The quote above seems to be someone guessing without any type of information to back up their assertions.

I'd love to see the numbers for other companies but this article is somewhat lackluster and seems to be trying to point to a possible conflict of interest

> Amey said he’s not as concerned about programmers moving over – and quite a few data engineers who worked on Obama’s re-election campaign have ended up in White House jobs – but top level executives changing jobs can raise “red flags.”

I can understand this a bit more. Not sure there is any direct evidence of conflicts of interest but like the investigation I could see it easily appearing so regardless of the truth. Hard to avoid though. After working in the government space they need lots of help.

Re: Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration

#80

Post by danielrhodes »

Thaxll wrote: post #19
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…

The problem with gov is that everything is slow has hell / old tech on top of corporate contracts with the like of Oracle / SAP. I don't expect to improve things there because of all thoses problems + layers of bureaucracy.

I would imagine that silo'ing all these projects in outsourced contracts and agencies really exacerbates this whole mess. It would be far better to centralize the IT infrastructure of the federal government, perhaps even into its own agency. For compliance, cross-integration, security, and just efficiency, doing it in house would make far more sense.

I've seen the distributed approach done at a university and it was a total bureaucratic don't step on my toes mess - when they centralized, things got organized very quickly.

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