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Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

theguardian.com

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Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#101

Post by bobthepanda »

joeblow9999 wrote: post #99
bobthepanda wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dual class shares seem like a perversion of what the stock market and stocks were initially intended to do. If you can’t vote on important decisions made by the company, do you actually own the company, or is a stock just a fancy piece of paper to gamble on? (I call it gambling because any return is based purely on stock price; there are no dividends paid out for FB and GOOG).

you don't have to work there and you don't have to buy their stock. end of story. hell, you don't even have to use their products...

They're in the Nasdaq and S&P 500. Even if you don't own them they do have systemic impact on the rest of the market, given that lots of money tracks those indices and they're used as a measure of economic health.

Not investing in banks didn't make people safe from the financial crisis.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#102

Post by xyzzyz »

jrockway wrote: post #85
bobthepanda wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That intention is still a perversion of the actual intention of stocks and the stocks market, though. If you wanted to tie bonuses to share price, you can just do that instead of issuing these fake stocks. Plenty of people get paid with bonuses tied to share price or EPS.

It's a tax thing. It's apparently cheaper to give someone $100k of stock versus $100k of cash.

It is, but not for tax reasons: giving employees stock is cheaper because it is the shareholders who pay for it, while cash comes from actual company account. Stock that is awarded to employees as stock-based compensation is typically new-issuance stock that's added to the total number of outstanding shares, thereby depressing the share price. Thus, the company doesn't have to pay anything, it is the shareholders who suffer dilution (albeit a very minor one).

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#103

Post by goobynight »

acdha wrote: post #50
goobynight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it will be the same. 2008 was not just a regular business cycle recession. That was a huge event that I agree would be devastating. Tech work is much more diversified now, right? Did capital one, starbucks, nordstrom, Walmart, Target, car makers and just about everyone have a sizable SWE team in 2001? They do now and a lot of those are probably in profit center roles. That sets aside that big tech really got…

> Did capital one, starbucks, nordstrom, Walmart, Target, car makers and just about everyone have a sizable SWE team in 2001? Yes - and 1991 for that matter. They weren’t building mobile apps and the trend has become stronger but almost every large organization has been building software for decades.

Building software wasn't what I was talking about. They've obviously done that.

I'm talking about the sheer amount of software and people that support those efforts now, in addition to how much profit comes from it. Surely it has grown by more than say...5x.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#104

Post by paul7986 »

chrshawkes wrote: post #44
paul7986 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their arrogance and ignorance is already affecting them as many people I know no longer use Google search. Also check out DuckDuckGo on Alexa ... its now the 100th most popular site in the US and continues to increase its reach; 167 globally. Love to get away fully from Google myself! They are horrible and personally their arrogance and ignorance is catching up to them!

The only problem is Duck Duck Go and every other search engine sucks ass compared to Google. Even DDG has turned to Bing (which sucks) for their searches.

It must not suck if more and more are using it and talking about it.

I use to bang google fairly frequently when I first started using it but my use of that command has become a lot less; now 10 to 20 percent of the time.

I don’t hear ppl talking about Bing. Also I hear people talking about privacy including Apple. It’s now seems to be apart of their branding and those who are on the same bandwagon I’m sure will find continued success.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#105

Post by roymurdock »

m0zg wrote: post #79
roymurdock wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The short explanation for my decision is my health: I’m having another baby in the fall (I acknowledge that there’s incredible privilege in being able to walk away from a job like this)."

You make it sound like having a child is the main reason (which would, admittedly, be pretty normal anywhere other than at a progressive tech company - motherhood is hard), whereas the article suggests that the main reason is internal retaliation and gaslighting, and the baby is just the straw that broke the camel's back.

The commenter I replied to left out this important detail that is also somewhat buried 3/4 of the way into the letter. Definitely read her original statement and form your own opinion based on the source material.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#106

Post by MaupitiBlue »

gamblor956 wrote: post #47
0815test wrote: post #4

She walked out for good. Gotta admire her integrity! Also this from her post just hits the nail on the head: > [Google leadership] are talking to everyone who thought my story sounded familiar, anyone who’s been Through It in some form: pushed out or punished for speaking up, gaslit, discriminated against, isolated, harassed. People are telling each other their stories. Refusing to acknowledge our humanity and engage…

I forwarded this story to my HR department with the suggestion that we find a way to expedite our company's transition away from GSuite. I've been using GSuite (and Gmail) since they launched, so when even a long-term user thinks Google isn't worth it anymore--to the point of actively evangelizing against the use of Google services--Google's got serious issues. If they can't resolve this soon, they'll be the new IBM.…

Have we really reached the point where HR departments decide which email provider to use?

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#107

Post by mabramo »

ohaideredevs wrote: post #68
billy_beef wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech world! Was trying to engage in dialog with the person I was responding to! You seem pretty upset so maybe chill out before engaging, have a good day!

"You seem pretty upset" is a pretty passive aggressive statement. In fact, it's openly hostile since it's tantamount to stating that I am not in control of my (perceived by you) emotions (of which there are actually none). Coupled with you pretending to be the aggrieved, polite party, the irony is thick. In fact, needing to write this reply is pretty comical, thanks for the entertainment, I guess. Edit: The more I th…

"You seem pretty upset" in this context is basically the same as saying "you mad bro?"

I hate when people say that during a discussion or argument.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#108

Post by jandrewrogers »

erinnh wrote: post #77
nerpderp82 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what you did there, an Ouroboros argument about a continual and inseparable membrane between the owners and the workers? Is it _really_ not possible to have employee representation? I find that hard to believe.

Look into work councils. Its one solution that does work. Employees are elected by all employees to represent them in the council. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

I have some experience with work councils in Germany and they have some significant downsides, including for employees, that we need to be honest about. Yes, employees get credible representation at the most senior levels of management, but that comes at a cost. My experience may not be universal but from what I gather it is representative.

First, works councils are strongly biased toward the organizational status quo by default. They can deny/delay opportunities to individual employees against the wishes of that employee and even though the works council has no credible claim to skin in the game. I've seen it happen and it demotivates employees it happens to. Companies use a lot of hacks to informally let people reorganize themselves without the consent of the works council to get around this.

Second, many trivial and inconsequential operational decisions become glacially slow because works councils tend to micromanage all of them at ponderous speed. Even obvious employee issues which would be resolved in 30 seconds at an American company can take months when the works council is involved, all to the benefit of no one really. This takes a very visible toll on speed of execution. It creates interesting dynamics when the company is global because the rest of the company may not be able to wait for the works council, so the employees under the works council may feel like they are on the outside looking in as the rest of the company moves forward.

The loss of autonomy over my own career would bother me as an employee. The loss of operational agility and execution speed would bother me as a business.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#110

Post by JeremyBanks »

fyoving wrote: post #74
busterarm wrote: post #54

Google also recently terminated the maintainer of the republicans@google list.

No politics talk at work seems to be the rational and only solution here.

The Google status quo circa 2016 was the worst of all worlds. Political discussion was tolerated up to a point, but the point was ill-defined, and (naturally) enforcement tended to be based on how many people disagreed with your opinions. Generally, more liberal employees could get away with much broader and more aggressive proclamations than more conservative employees (not sure if that's still true), but that wasn't consistent, and consequences seemed largely random.
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