Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#561

Post by cjfd » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #413

stcredzero wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. It sounds like the work culture at Google has rediscovered the emergent factors which gave rise to the traditional cultural strictures against talking about money, politics, and religion. Good science is repeatable. Given that Google is arguab…

> Good science is repeatable. Given that Google is arguably an intellectually friendly environment, where more people than average understand how to talk in ways that get closer to truth, the inadvertent experiment conducted by Google over the past 15 years or so should hold a lot of weight. But what conclusion should be drawn from this experiment? During those years, Google grew into a large and profitable company,…

I am not sure if google could have done that but there is always the realization to be made that small is beautiful. At some point growth turns into taking on more useless people and then you need more money to fund all of them and then you need to turn to unethical practices. Perhaps the google founders could at some point have decided to buy back as much of their stock as possible and after that they no longer would have needed to make as much money as possible and could have just kept having the greatest search engine with a little advertising on the side.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#562

Post by threeseed » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #374

gwbas1c wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, now go re-read Google's official response. Note that they did not respond to "we should not assume that it is evidence of discrimination, and that policies designed to engineer an outcome closer to 50/50 are likely creating discrimination"

Right they cited "perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes". From which we can infer that Google believes that claiming that absent any discrimination or social pressure women would not work in tech at the same rates as men as "perpetuating gender stereotypes".

You are misrepresenting their point.

There are many reasons why women don't go into IT. And whilst you can look at at it holistically it is ultimately a personal decision.

And so if you take that personal decision and instead make it about some gender stereotype e.g. they aren't physically suited then it discourages women from entering IT.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#563

Post by corey_moncure » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

oppositelock wrote: post #385

apple4ever wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. There are plenty of areas to discuss politics, and at work doesn't have to be one of them. I've studiously avoided talking to anybody at work about politics, as it usually only serves to anger people if you don't agree. I've had a successful career of doing that.

I enjoy discussing politics, at work too, however, you have to do it in a respectful way. Politics is like religion, you will never directly convince anyone of anything, but if you can expose them to new ideas, and watch them either incorporate or challenge these ideas, it's a really rewarding discussion. You also have to limit these discussions to willing participants. In my time at Google, there were tons of people…

>you will never directly convince anyone of anything

Policy is the surface level of a deep tree of rational beliefs. No one will ever be convinced of policy because each sees their favored policy as rational due to the underpinning structure of beliefs.

Discussions that don't begin with the core beliefs are bound to lead nowhere, you're right.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#564

Post by joshuamorton » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #513

jshowa3 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore was fired for his contributions to this conversation". Hardly just.* According to what you said in this post, It was completely just as Damore basically wrote a dissertation about things that were completely unrelated to any work done for any Google product. All that work would've been tantamount to a complete waste of company time and could be grounds for a firing. Google users don't care at all about the pol…

My understanding is that Damore was asked for his response to a training class he had taken. That would make the dissertation, as you call it, a work assignment. Is that understanding incorrect?

Yes. For a number of reasons, not least of all that such feedback optional, and to be sent to the people who managed the class.

So it wasn't an assignment, and sharing it with everyone wasn't the way to handle it.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#565

Post by ntnxw » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #239

nailer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the memo was citations of studies of sex differences. People can either agree with the studies or disagree with the research used (it's totally cool with me if you do disagree with the research), but the idea that someone should be punished for talking about research at a company that extols "data driven decision making" as one of it's principles baffles me.

The memo made some very poignant points, but then the author expressed some strange opinions that I would never attempt to defend. (Even worse, there was no reason to put some of these opinions in the memo.) But what's more scary is Google's official response to the diversity memo. (For context, Google instituted certain hiring policies to increase diversity, which the "diversity memo" questioned.) If you have the ti…

>The memo made some very poignant points, but then the author expressed some strange opinions that I would never attempt to defend.

Yeah but why have a discussion group about politics if you can only defend the mainstream points of view?

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#566

Post by geofft » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #355

stcredzero wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. It sounds like the work culture at Google has rediscovered the emergent factors which gave rise to the traditional cultural strictures against talking about money, politics, and religion. Good science is repeatable. Given that Google is arguab…

I remember the Founder's Letter included with Google's IPO in 2004 - "Google is not a traditional company. We do not intend to become one." It looks like they became one. The other interesting takeaway for me is how long-term equilibria can leave holes that may be exploited by short-term-focused actors . When Google was young, it's say-anything culture was a big competitive advantage: it let them hire people who were…

Google was also smaller, which both makes political discussions feel more personal and allows maintaining a political bias in recruiting/hiring because you don't need to fill headcount as urgently. I would absolutely believe that a company of 100 SJWs bringing their whole self to work contracting with a company of 100 MAGA hat wearers bringing their whole self to work would be more productive than putting all 200 of them in a single company and imposing the traditional politeness restrictions of a corporate job.

So the question in my mind is, why did Google need to grow?

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#567

Post by pkaye » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

oppositelock wrote: post #187

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. There were definitely groups meant for discussing politics, and loudmouths like me willingly participated in those - however, it was very uncivil. There was a majority view in the company, and if anyone didn't agree with the majority view, the…

What has your experience been in places outside of Google? I've worked in a couple of non-FAANG companies over the years and politics never enters into the conversation. People just agree not to discuss controversial political stuff except may out over a beer or something.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#568

Post by threeseed » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #71

zarkov99 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because political discussions are incredibly polarizing, specially these days, and once they are allowed they pulverize the company into factions that cannot work together until the more strident or powerful of these factions takes over and pushes everybody else out or into silence. And when this happens, you have an homogeneous political body as the gatekeeper to the worlds information. What could go wrong?

So the key to a diverse organization is not talking about politics? Seems unlikely.

The key to diversity is figuring out what unites people.

Politics, religion etc. divides people.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#569

Post by hendersoon » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

I don't blame them. Even aside from the President and GOP media machine attacking them for anti-conservative bias, Why would you want people to talk politics at work in the first place? At work you should be working. Argue about politics on your own time.

(He said, posting from work.)

And the difference is my employer doesn't host Hacker News. I'm posting on my own recognizance.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#570

Post by duxup » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #504

duxup wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta admit I'd take a peek too to watch the fireworks. But also a bit shocked how many people feel that participating is a good idea.

I'd maybe participate if it was some kind of... workplace-internal 4chan. An anonymous forum, but only available through an Enterprise SSO gateway. Otherwise, yeah, that seems crazy.

Many moons ago I worked for a company that did some outsource work for another company who asked for responses to an anonymous survey.

So I responded.

1. I shouldn't have gotten the survey as I didn't work for the company who sent it, but nobody at either company was very smart or careful because it went to everyone.

2. I misread the email and didn't notice it wasn't my company asking for responses it was the company we did outsource work for.

I made some pretty tepid constructive criticism. So did a couple other people.

The next day we were in a conference room with people we never met before angry that we responded to the survey. They hadn't realized we were actually sent the email just like everyone at the company (like I said these were not smart people) ...

It also raised the question about how anonymous this survey was. Of course it wasn't, you could see in the URL when responding your name, email address, etc ;)