It's interesting, because if The Intercept is to be believed, Beaumont has basically gone rogue, carving out his own little empire, aggressively preventing other internal teams from figuring out what he's doing, and engaging in behaviour that violates internal Google rules and policies, as well as which opening Google to significant reputational risk.
I mean, I'll be the first to admit I have made mistakes in my career, but I can't recall ever making a mistake that got my boss called in to testify before Congress, or that got my company prptested by Amnesty International, or that got hundreds of my colleagues to sign a letter of protest! Managing to do all of those at once is...well, honestly it's sort of impressive, but is raises questions.
If The Intercept is just completely wrong, I'd expect to see a categorical denial; after all it would make Google look a lot better if they can convincingly demonstrate that all of this didn't actually happen. If The Intercept is right, I'd expect to see Beaumont fired; that's what happens when people violate internal rules and cause significant damage to their employer as a result.
Since we've seen neither...I guess the logical assumption is that The Intercept was right about what Beaumont was doing, but he...wasn't rogue? That official Google policy was to subvert official Google policy, and hide things from the internal teams charged with stopping that exact thing? Like...is the CEO really having meetings with the privacy team and telling them to be extra vigilant not to let product teams misuse personal data, and then later that afternoon meeting with Beaumont and telling him to be extra careful not to let the privacy team find out that he's misusing personal data to develop a product?
What a bizarre situation.