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Google's Civil War

fortune.com

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Re: Google's Civil War

#41

Post by fyoving »

pjc50 wrote: post #14
fyoving wrote: post #7

I don't understand how someone can proudly be a nuisance to those who sign their paychecks nor how can an employer tolerate any of it, at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work". Not sure what's behind Google's inaction here, they really shouldn't be worried about the trouble makers defecting to somewhere else that most likely won't tolerate their bullshit.

The whole point of somewhere like Google is that they don't want people who will do what they're told, because such people are only capable of doing what they're told. You can't order someone to innovate unless they have no other choice. Silicon Valley has spent years setting itself up as an inheritor of the counterculture, a place where it's possible to "think different". Employees are given a share of the business…

Tell that to the suits who invented the future at IBM and Bell labs.

Counter cultural types don't have a monopoly on innovation.

Re: Google's Civil War

#42

Post by mcguire »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
rgoulter wrote: post #13

The Google organizers have taken to calling themselves the “entitled vocal majority,” after one employee publicly referred to them as the “entitled vocal minority.” I feel like this is a small example of where my views of these employees disagrees with the author's. (I'm fine with employees having strong opinions on ethical issues, but this kindof puff quote doesn't lend them respect). I dunno if the author thinks th…

There's a long history of naming yourself after the negative term your enemies use for you in order to neutralise it. Also "entitled vocal minority" works nicely as a parody of "moral majority".

The Bolsheviks were actually a minority.

Re: Google's Civil War

#43

Post by SolaceQuantum »

roenxi wrote: post #40
jpdb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees who can't voice their dissatisfaction for the status quo without fear of repercussion can't truly voice their dissatisfaction. There's an EXTREME amount of power imbalance between employer and employee; if employees have to fear retaliation for voicing their concerns it has a chilling effect. I'm okay with consequences, but voicing your concerns in public isn't grounds for consequences.

> Employees who can't voice their dissatisfaction for the status quo without fear of repercussion can't truly voice their dissatisfaction. Employees are signing up for a world where they don't wear significant risk in exchange for subordinating their decision making to a company. Companies are fundamentally an organised group of people working to a common goal. I can understand very well if individual employees want…

> However, once employees start organising to influence management on business decisions they really need to pony up the capital and become shareholders. Deciding what management does is the privilege of shareholders, not employees.

Isn't this precisely describing why unions were originally generated, so that employees can also leverage power equal to the shareholders, and therefore have a say in their own working conditions?

Re: Google's Civil War

#44

Post by [deleted] »

fyoving wrote: post #41
pjc50 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of somewhere like Google is that they don't want people who will do what they're told, because such people are only capable of doing what they're told. You can't order someone to innovate unless they have no other choice. Silicon Valley has spent years setting itself up as an inheritor of the counterculture, a place where it's possible to "think different". Employees are given a share of the business…

Tell that to the suits who invented the future at IBM and Bell labs. Counter cultural types don't have a monopoly on innovation.

[deleted]

Re: Google's Civil War

#45

Post by DFHippie »

fyoving wrote: post #38
wffurr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, retaliation against labor organizing is illegal under federal law. For another, Google is in fierce competition with the rest of the tech companies for talent.

For one, they are would be retaliating against employees who generate bad PR for them. For another the rest of the tech companies don't seem to enable let alone tolerate this shenanigans.

Retaliating against whistle blowers is a great way to generate bad PR for yourself. You may disagree that this is whistle blowing. You may view these employees as entitled troublemakers. I expect the googlers doing this view themselves as making personal sacrifices for the greater good. In any case, I doubt Google wants to lose talent to competitors because they are viewed as a hotbed of right-to-workers ideology in Silicon Valley.

Re: Google's Civil War

#46

Post by Eridrus »

idlewords wrote: post #17

I'd be curious to hear rank-and-file Googlers' views on how this dynamic is playing out within the company. It's in both journalists' and organizers' interests to play it up, so the reality can be hard to discern.

Like every issue, there are those who are obsessed with it, for whom it takes over their lives, and then there is a large swath of people who either agree or not, but do so without much intensity.

Since the intensity of most people's beliefs is low and the specific issues are not part of day to day work, it's not really a thing that comes up except when new news breaks and people talk about it at lunch for a day.

When you take a look at how many people, in an industry where it's trivial to get another job, quit over any of these issues, it's in the single digits.

Re: Google's Civil War

#47

Post by lallysingh »

fyoving wrote: post #7

I don't understand how someone can proudly be a nuisance to those who sign their paychecks nor how can an employer tolerate any of it, at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work". Not sure what's behind Google's inaction here, they really shouldn't be worried about the trouble makers defecting to somewhere else that most likely won't tolerate their bullshit.

Because that's implicit in the contract Google signs with it's employees. People go (went, at least) because of the autonomy they're given. That autonomy isn't a perk; it's a prerequisite for innovation.

Now Google's got reduced innovation and reduced autonomy for it's employees. They didn't scale the latter and subsequently, they're losing the former.

If the employees leave, Google's another IBM. Another corpse.

Re: Google's Civil War

#48

Post by eropple »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #28
dralley wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, employees shouldn't complain about (censorship, bosses tolerating sexual harassment, etc.), they should either put up with it or leave quietly (possibly to their own financial detriment)? I can't say I agree with you. What you're suggesting is basically the Wall Street model where bad and unethical institutional behavior gets a suboptimal amount of pushback.

That's how employment works. As an employee you are paid to execute the company's strategy. If you disagree you can of course, and even should, voice your disagreement but that should be done in a professional in diplomatic way, in private. If you cannot do that or cannot accept the company's strategy then yes, your alternative is to leave quietly. The new "red guards" of the left may not like it, but that's what pro…

This is an extremely...one-sided...view of things. Consider a more healthy one: capital and labor should be partners, and labor gets to have a say in the direction of the company, too.

It must be said, again and again: corporations exist at the sufferance of the society that grants them their charter and only exist for the benefit of that society. A company that can't do that should have its charter revoked. And its labor force is part of that society.

Re: Google's Civil War

#49

Post by roenxi »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #43
roenxi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employees who can't voice their dissatisfaction for the status quo without fear of repercussion can't truly voice their dissatisfaction. Employees are signing up for a world where they don't wear significant risk in exchange for subordinating their decision making to a company. Companies are fundamentally an organised group of people working to a common goal. I can understand very well if individual employees want…

> However, once employees start organising to influence management on business decisions they really need to pony up the capital and become shareholders. Deciding what management does is the privilege of shareholders, not employees. Isn't this precisely describing why unions were originally generated, so that employees can also leverage power equal to the shareholders, and therefore have a say in their own working co…

There is a big difference between that and what is being discussed in this article though. Unions are dealing with pay and conditions - important, but ultimately just aggregating topics that employers and employees were going to negotiate around anyway.

This article is talking about:

* Amazon workers are demanding more action from the company on battling climate change

* Microsoft, employees say they don’t want to build technology for warfare

* Salesforce, a group has lobbied management to end its work with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency

* Google, [employees] want a say in and control over the products they build

Those are issues going way beyond what an employee can reasonably expect to influence. Being employed by a tech company is an achievement, but the end of the day tech workers aren't that special. They don't formally get to decide how the world works.

They absolutely can't take to social media to complain about these issues and expect to hold a job with the company they are complaining about. This type of activity isn't acceptable; they can't draw a wage and overrule strategic directions from people with capital at stake. The options are work or walk.

Re: Google's Civil War

#50

Post by panpanna »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #23
neffy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think that's just darkly entertaining marketing. Silicon valley in reality is a ruthlessly corporate business world, where known to be worthless options are traded for people's lives and labour. (Look up "founder's shares") Startups require cheap labour, if their investors are going to make out like bandits - that's what's really going on. Google in particular, if they were looking for people capable of thin…

The equity grants awarded by publicly traded companies like Google/Alphabet are far from worthless, unlike for early stage startups where indeed most of those employee stock options end up as worthless as you say.

Weren't some early Facebook employee cheated out of their shares by some legal gymnastics?
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