Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 183 posts

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#31

Post by jfk13 »

azhenley wrote: post #24
dawhizkid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you should've left the country after Trump's election as an effective means of protesting his presidency.

I think these are two very different things. The cost of changing companies (especially if you are at Google) is fairly low (and often comes with a salary increase). The cost of changing citizenship could be exorbitant. People claim that if you want change in a country, you vote. If you don't believe in a company's values, you join another. Tech employees in this economy do have a lot of power. I think that is a more…

> The cost of changing citizenship could be exuberant.

That's a rather delightful image! But I think you meant "exorbitant".

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#32

Post by ocdtrekkie »

azhenley wrote: post #24
dawhizkid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you should've left the country after Trump's election as an effective means of protesting his presidency.

I think these are two very different things. The cost of changing companies (especially if you are at Google) is fairly low (and often comes with a salary increase). The cost of changing citizenship could be exorbitant. People claim that if you want change in a country, you vote. If you don't believe in a company's values, you join another. Tech employees in this economy do have a lot of power. I think that is a more…

Exactly. Every single engineer at Google could get hired almost anywhere else. And many, who start their own projects could build those things outside Google as startups as well. (One of my favorite services was created by a Xoogler's startup.)

In addition to that, while a walk out does not "move the needle" for executives or investors in any significant sense, if any even statistically significant number of engineers were to leave, it would likely force them to reevaluate their executives and whether they should still be employed there. If they want true change, the executives at the very top have to go.

As another commenter said, what are they hoping a walk out will accomplish? What are they asking for? Andy Rubin already has his $90 million.

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#34

Post by [deleted] »

jfk13 wrote: post #31
azhenley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are two very different things. The cost of changing companies (especially if you are at Google) is fairly low (and often comes with a salary increase). The cost of changing citizenship could be exorbitant. People claim that if you want change in a country, you vote. If you don't believe in a company's values, you join another. Tech employees in this economy do have a lot of power. I think that is a more…

> The cost of changing citizenship could be exuberant. That's a rather delightful image! But I think you meant "exorbitant".

[deleted]

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

olliej wrote: post #11
rayvy wrote: post #3

Someone with more info please correct me: But from what I read it sounds as if Google had to pay him the $90MM+, else be sued by him right? Because if they didn't pay him, he'd sue, then they [Google] would have to prove that he [Rubin] acted maliciously (or whatever), which would've been hard (if not impossible) to do, given that the accuser said they were coerced (not forced). So it seems as if Google's hands were…

It's not "malicious", its the assumption that he gets to act like that. What they need to do is prove that he behaved in a way that was inappropriate. It sounds like there's plenty of evidence that he did - hell, they had enough evidence to record, in writing, that they found the claims against him credible. The difference between him and the people that they did fire was his position. Which is entirely backwards - t…

> It sounds like there's plenty of evidence that he did - hell, they had enough evidence to record, in writing, that they found the claims against him credible.

“Credible” is a far cry from being likely to meet the civil “preponderance of the evidence” standard, it literally is just “not implausible”.

> The difference between him and the people that they did fire was his position. Which is entirely backwards - the penalties for criminal behaviour should be higher for people with more power, not less.

Google doesn't impose criminal punishment, and I don't think anyone wants that to change.

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#36

Post by dawhizkid »

azhenley wrote: post #24
dawhizkid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you should've left the country after Trump's election as an effective means of protesting his presidency.

I think these are two very different things. The cost of changing companies (especially if you are at Google) is fairly low (and often comes with a salary increase). The cost of changing citizenship could be exorbitant. People claim that if you want change in a country, you vote. If you don't believe in a company's values, you join another. Tech employees in this economy do have a lot of power. I think that is a more…

I don't think that's true. Given how consolidated "big tech" has become you have a limited number of options for matching liquid compensation, especially from a company that pays near top of market. You would need to heavily discount the value of whatever private shares from the 1000s of startups that would love to convince you that what they're offering you is equivalent or more than what you have (which it's almost definitely not).

Also some people would rather try to use their power to change things they don't like about a company from within rather than assume they have no power to affect change and just leave.

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#37

Post by asianthrowaway »

olliej wrote: post #23
tw04 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, correct me if I misread, but what he did wrong was have consensual sexual relations with a subordinate, right? And then he was fired for it (which he should be). And they protected him how? Paying him the severance package he was owed? I'm not following if that's all correct.

No, he coerced them into it - if you have a position of power, and you say "have sex with me", effectively in exchange for your treatment/employment in the company - I can't recall if Rubin was the burning man "sex or no job" guy, or that was another - that is sex discrimination and/or harassment. I doubt Rubin would have had the same behaviour with male subordinates, so that's a difference in treatment based on gend…

The burning man guy is another guy (who still works at Google afaik).

This Rubin guy was no doubt a creep. From the NYT article:

"The suit included a screenshot of an August 2015 email Mr. Rubin sent to one woman. “You will be happy being taken care of,” he wrote. “Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people.”"

Yikes!

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#38

Post by cityzen »

a "walk out"... one in which people are so darn angry they walk out of work.. and then walk right back in and keep doing their job. I wish more people would quit these mega-corps over stuff like this. "Google engineers outraged...", "Facebook employees outraged..."... so quit. Go find work at a place that isn't an evil corporation. If you didn't get the memo, Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are all pretty evil.

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#39

Post by filmgirlcw »

azhenley wrote: post #24
dawhizkid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you should've left the country after Trump's election as an effective means of protesting his presidency.

I think these are two very different things. The cost of changing companies (especially if you are at Google) is fairly low (and often comes with a salary increase). The cost of changing citizenship could be exorbitant. People claim that if you want change in a country, you vote. If you don't believe in a company's values, you join another. Tech employees in this economy do have a lot of power. I think that is a more…

That's not universally true. If you have a family, if a lot of your salary is tied up in stock grants, or you are an immigrant, leaving isn't always so easy.

I'm none of those things (well, I'm married but we're child-free by choice and that's not changing), and even if tech employees do have more power than employees in other industries, that doesn't make "quitting" so easy.

And my past work in organized labor certainly gives me a bias here, but I'm of the opinion that if you like the place you work and you enjoy your job -- the appropriate response to bad things happening isn't always to quit (sometimes it is. Sometimes things are too egregious and you walk out. I did this once when I worked retail in college and saw blatant racism targeted at an employee by a regional manager and I walked out), the appropriate response is to fight internally to change things to make them better.

Re: Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Protection of Andy Rubin

#40

Post by manfredo »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #30
manfredo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this wasn't swept under the rug. The alleged harasser was fired. Google took steps to remove the alleged harasser. Keeping the details private is standard practice and is usually something all the parties involved want. From what I'm reading, Google paid Rubin the amount he was entitled to in his contract. Some people point out that Google could have paid him next to nothing for firing him with cause - but Rubin…

But it was swept under the rug. He got a splashy send-off and a thanks for his service. At the very least, that seems over the top. The reasons for his ouster weren't disclosed. I would be curious if Essential's investors (Redpoint, Altimeter, Amazon Alexa Fund) were aware of why Rubin left Google. Moreover, this is a pattern at Google. Amit Singhal[1] was fired (also with a send-off and goodbye party and settled out…

To sweep something under the rug means to ignore it and not deal with it. Google did deal with it, so it's incorrect to say that the accusation was swept under the rug. Sure, you may be displeased at how they handled it but there's no denial of the fact that they did take the accusations seriously and fired a high level exec.

You're ignoring the damage cause by the optics of such a lawsuit. Google being known as the company that used an allegation of harassment to try and cheat an exec out of his outstanding compensation would be atrocious for the company's image - and not to mention attach huge negative stigma around people who come forward with harassment campaigns against powerful people. It's easy to be idealistic when you're not the person or group who is at stake.

Post reply on HN