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Google's Civil War

fortune.com

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Re: Google's Civil War

#151

Post by FabHK »

bijant wrote: post #103
wbl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they were the majority in 1917. Earlier they had been the minority, but post Kornilov they were a majority at the time of the storming of the winter palace.

The Bolsheviks were a majority within the RSDLP in 1903. The extent of their support in 1917 within the wider population is highly debatable but their thought-leadership led to sufficient mindshare to (belatedly) ship the October revolution and scale their product to numerous global markets from the Americas to China within the 20th century. Adoption is currently stagnating while the product is being refactored. The…

You should write a whole history book in terms we can understand.

Re: Google's Civil War

#152

Post by repolfx »

inlined wrote: post #100
inlined wrote: post #96

This was a fine recap; I’m surprised more hasn’t leaked to the press. Google’s culture is shifting for the worse, but I won’t give specifics because that would require leaking.

I would define Google’s troubles or decline in three parts: 1. Outrage over previous sexual misconduct 2. Outrage over Google seeking amoral revenue streams 3. Declination of perks The first one is just the chickens coming to roost. The second two I’ve always felt we’re due to a transition in CFOs.

Alleged misconduct. That's what Googlers seem to have lost sight of.

Take Andy Rubin. One of Google's most valuable executives, he built up Android from nothing. He has a consensual relationship with a woman, but it starts to cool off and fade away. Around this time she accuses him of "pressuring" her into a sexual act, but the whole thing happened behind closed doors and there's no way to know what really happened.

Has he done anything wrong? Who knows? Google can't actually adjudicate this dispute, and Rubin claims innocence. In the ultra-feminist environment Google has accepted internally a woman can't ever be disbelieved so Rubin must be punished. But the situation is deeply unjust and everyone knows it. Rubin did great things for Google, and Google is now rewarding him by stabbing him in the back. So an arrangement is made: everyone stays quiet and the pain of the injustice and betrayal is soothed with a big payment.

Years later Googlers find out about this situation and instead of being outraged that a successful executive was fired on the basis of nothing more than heresay by someone he was in a relationship with, are outraged that he wasn't treated even more harshly. What message does this send to the future Rubins of the world? It says: don't team up with Google.

Re: Google's Civil War

#153

Post by repolfx »

deogeo wrote: post #18

> Things got even uglier when Damore sympathizers leaked comments made on the message boards by Fong-Jones, a trans woman, and other Google diversity advocates to right-wing news sites. [this fortune.com article] This got me curious, so I tried searching for these leaked comments, while avoiding far-right news sites. This is what I found: > Diversity advocates at Google – including the Mountain View tech giant's high…

Yes, basically every news outlet other than Breitbart refuses to publish the racism and sexism of the Googlers in question, instead allowing them to present themselves uncritically in whatever way they like. Why? Because apparently journalists on non "far right" sites (whatever that means) share their biases.

Anyway, let me help readers who may not be familiar with this motley crew. Here are some examples of the comments in question.

Liz Fong-Jones posted internally, "Frankly, I could care less about being 'unfair' to white men" and "I feel that if there's any harm to the interests of white men from that work, it is more than made up for by the benefits to everyone as a whole".

Colin McMillen, also named in the articles, said, "You are posting devils-advocate bullshit along the lines of 'oh no, some hypothetical white man who is just barely above the hiring bar might be intangibly harmed by some Googlers who decided to give marginally more training or education to non-Googler women'"

Kim Burchett said, "In the T5->T6 promo committee I served on, 2/4 committee members were women. Yay! 4/4 members were white. Boo! 12/15 candidates were men. Boo!"

The overriding theme of the leaked comments is that if you're white and a man, you deserve bad treatment and discrimination.

Re: Google's Civil War

#154

Post by TaylorAlexander »

googthrow2019 wrote: post #129
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it affects some groups more than others. A lot of people get mistreated at Google (TVCs, women, people of color, trans people). It’s a lot of high achieving people and a high pressure environment. Inevitably some people will push others without realizing how hard they are pushing. It’s good in my opinion for people to speak out about this.

> A lot of people get mistreated at Google (TVCs, women, people of color, trans people) It's true that TVCs are not employees, but this different in status does not amount to mistreatment. The groups you mention are not mistreated at Google. In fact, the company bends over backward to recruit and accommodate them. I challenge you to name one policy that disadvantages women, people of color, or trans people. These per…

I think it would be good for you to speak with TVCs from disadvantaged groups and ask them if they have been subject to mistreatment. I did when I worked there, and a lot of people are subtly and not so subtly mistreated by other employees. A female TVC I know was subject to unwanted sexual comments, and when she complained she was subject to retaliation by her FTE manager. TVC is just a different employment agreement yet many TVCs are treated as lesser than FTEs.

Re: Google's Civil War

#155

Post by TaylorAlexander »

UncleMeat wrote: post #143
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it affects some groups more than others. A lot of people get mistreated at Google (TVCs, women, people of color, trans people). It’s a lot of high achieving people and a high pressure environment. Inevitably some people will push others without realizing how hard they are pushing. It’s good in my opinion for people to speak out about this.

It is absolutely good to speak out. There *are" people at Google who are suffering due to their identity. No question. But these questions have become wrapped up in other activist topics related to government contracts, ai, and more. I 100% support anybody who has been a victim at work due to their identity and support programs to help these people. But that isn't a civil war.

It’s not a literal civil war. But as a TVC for two years, I felt like the treatment of TVCs was an important issue that was not fully appreciated by management. It felt kind of like a class war inside the company.

Re: Google's Civil War

#156

Post by atomical »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #139
atomical wrote: post #5

Both Apple and Google support Saudi Arabia by refusing to remove the Absher app from the app store. Could any current employees shed light on if there is any internal disagreement on this?

Do you want a central authority dictating what code you can run on your computer?

Is an employer allowed to use code to discriminate against female employees? No, that's outrageous. Apple and Google should take the high road.

Re: Google's Civil War

#157

Post by Eridrus »

inlined wrote: post #95
Eridrus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Whe…

The set may be larger than reported. E.g. I didn’t sign the Maven petition because I was up for promotion and work in Cloud.

I mean this is kind of my point, you weren't willing to take the small step of signing a petition because you thought it could endanger your promotion. Most people are the same way, they have beliefs, but they don't believe them intensely enough to risk the downsides of doing something about it.

Re: Google's Civil War

#158

Post by dang »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #150
dang wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please not take HN threads further into generic ideological flamewar? First you posted flamebait above ("red guards of the left") and now head straight into the most generic and therefore most boring possible direction ("socialism does not work"). Maybe it doesn't, but all these discussions are the same, and tedious repetition is not what HN is for, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelin…

I felt important to repeat that socialism does not work since we keep reading people advocating it. That is not generic, that's quite the crux to the issue here. I maintain the term "red guard" because that's exactly how they behave. See the reactions to me daring to contradict. I am very surprised that a moderator would take side and use a rather rude and condescending tone in replying to a commenter that hasn't do…

I'm sorry that my comment sounded rude and condescending. I try to avoid that, but haven't yet mastered the art.

Generic ideological arguments are simply off topic on HN. If you like, you can think of that as an arbitrary moderation decision. I think of it as following from the site principle of curiosity. Either way, please don't post any more of those.

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