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Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

nytimes.com

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Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#131

Post by ProAm »

sokoloff wrote: post #110
ProAm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one was forced out, HR said one of them had to leave. We dont know anything beyond that she was the one to change departments. She wasnt fired.

She worked for him in the legal department . If she's asked to change departments, what's someone presumably trained and skilled in law going to do? Start coding? Run a product team? Do sales?

Right, she had affair with her boss at a company where there was a clear policy against it. What was she supposed to do? Maybe think ahead and realize this is a bad idea, OR realize there are potential consequences for making said decisions. Regardless when google found out they did not fire her, they gave her a chance to continue employment at the company. I dont know what her qualifications were but if she managed to get hired at google I would imagine she could also find work relatively easily outside of google.

>aware that our relationship was in violation of Google’s new policy which went from “discouraging” direct-reporting-line relationships to outright banning them

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#132

Post by ProAm »

lanstin wrote: post #97
ProAm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did not get her to quit, she made that choice herself because she wanted to protect him. She made that choice. Yes he is a terrible person, yes possibly psycho and this story sucks but no one forced anything. > so I quit Google, signing whatever documents they required because likewise, I wanted to protect him

Is rape the only thing that companies should fire people for? A pattern of relationships like this is quite likely to be very bad for Google, both in terms of settlements and in terms of lost morale and acceptance of shitty behavior instead of working together on the great common project. The question isn't "forced" it's "why is firing the subordinate done instead of firing the habitual asshole when it's clearly in t…

She wasnt fired. And she quit on her own volition.

I can't speak to a pattern of bad behavior because I just dont know more than this story and the one she posted about. He absolutely sounds like human garbage, but her story isn't a #metoo story. There was no abuse, no abuse of power, no forcing anything.

> so I quit Google, signing whatever documents they required because likewise, I wanted to protect him.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#133

Post by hackinthebochs »

defen wrote: post #115
hackinthebochs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, we generally accept that women have the right to an abortion regardless of their willfully chosen actions prior. How do you square the two positions? Note that I'm not arguing that the man has a right to absolve himself of financial responsibility.

An abortion doesn't result in a person so it's not really comparable. My understanding is that the vast majority of surgical or medical abortions occur due to either 1) grave risk to the mother's life 2) serious genetic defects or malformities in the fetus or 3) well before viability (during a time when spontaneous abortions are also common)

Basing a principle of rights or duties based on contingencies (live birth or not) seems dubious. If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal). Granted, all things aren't equal, but the financial obligation seems sufficient to fulfill a duty to the living child. Besides, why should we force contact when the father doesn't want it? I don't see that as benefiting the child.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#134

Post by Waterluvian »

qroshan wrote: post #109
loganfrederick wrote: post #79

I really liked Ben Horowitz's new book "What You Do Is Who You Are". However, the only passage that I disliked and stood out to me is when he defended David Drummond for his ability to thrive at Google for a long time despite the corporate culture changing. This was after Drummond was called out publicly for abandoning his kid he had with a subordinate: https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2018/10/25/report-alphabet-c...…

Steve Jobs also abandoned his kid. He created a $1 Trillion company.

Exactly. Success as a business person has nothing to do with success as a moral or ethical person. In fact it's probably easier to be one when not being the others.

Being good at business does not make you a "good person".

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#135

Post by rayiner »

d1zzy wrote: post #113
defen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is "evil" about not wanting to see a child that you presumably didn't want to begin with? The child doesn't get a choice about being brought into the world, so your desire or intent to produce a child is irrelevant. If you don't want to father a child, don't do anything that could reasonably lead to producing a child. If you father one anyway, that's on you. To deliberately alienate yourself from your child in…

> The child doesn't get a choice about being brought into the world, so your desire or intent to produce a child is irrelevant. If you don't want to father a child, don't do anything that could reasonably lead to producing a child. If you father one anyway, that's on you. That's on a man no more than it's on a women if she gets pregnant and the previous agreement was that the guy had to use condoms and he didn't. Oth…

People routinely get pregnant despite using hormonal birth control. (Condoms are even less effective.) The purpose of sex is having kids, and unsurprisingly humans are very good at conception. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have sex.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#136

Post by ProAm »

FireBeyond wrote: post #103
ProAm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did not get her to quit, she made that choice herself because she wanted to protect him. She made that choice. Yes he is a terrible person, yes possibly psycho and this story sucks but no one forced anything. > so I quit Google, signing whatever documents they required because likewise, I wanted to protect him

... because he had promised her financial support and if he also lost his job, that would go away. And then he withdrew / refused support, that he'd agreed to, in writing. Yes, it's not all black and white, but it's close to willfully obtuse to see a timeline of events and then fall back to a definition of "well, he didn't hold a gun to her head/use physical violence so it wasn't really a forced situation".

I agree he's a horrible person, but all those things have nothing to do with Google and his position at Google or her position at Google. Those were relationship decisions they made on their own. They both made horrible personal decisions, but it doesn't involve google.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#137

Post by ocdtrekkie »

defen wrote: post #81
hackinthebochs wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "evil" about not wanting to see a child that you presumably didn't want to begin with? A woman with an unwanted pregnancy can abort. Men don't have that option. But that doesn't obligate them to an emotional bond with the child.

> What is "evil" about not wanting to see a child that you presumably didn't want to begin with? The child doesn't get a choice about being brought into the world, so your desire or intent to produce a child is irrelevant. If you don't want to father a child, don't do anything that could reasonably lead to producing a child. If you father one anyway, that's on you. To deliberately alienate yourself from your child in…

> The people in Google’s legal department were very close and in 2004, at my birthday party at the W in San Francisco, David reserved a suite to host an “after party.” It was there, that night he told me how he wanted more children. I urged to him to have one with his wife but he demurred and said that would never happen because he was estranged from her, which admittedly I already knew — he was the only married one in attendance without his spouse.

The kid was, in fact, David's idea from the get-go. He lamented at a party to a then-just-coworker about how badly he wanted more children. Of course, whether or not that was just his move to try to get a woman into an affair with him or not, we have no way of knowing.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#138

Post by hackinthebochs »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #111
johnhughesco wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it occur that the employee might be attracted BECAUSE of the power discrepancy?

Sort of: "I 'want' to have sex with him because I don't get to decide not to have sex with him and keep my job"

It turns out money and power are standard features of attraction to women generally.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#139

Post by andrewprock »

senordevnyc wrote: post #89
vanusa wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay - "evil" may have been a touch too strong. I'll go with "scummy and reprehensible". And: "deeply at odds with the ethical standards that Google once claimed to stand for (not that we ever took them seriously when they said those things)."

Do we really want companies firing employees for personal morality issues that have zero bearing on their ability to do their job?

No, we don't. But we do want companies firing employees for personal morality issues which have bearing on their ability to their job.
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