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An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

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Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#191

Post by eecc »

eecc wrote: post #12

I wonder how that code managed to stay secret so many years. How did they keep all the mass of data, the tickets, the user stories and pitch decks from being spilled online and get publicly dressed down? I guess that’s the one single major threat to effectively WHF: the need for maximum security secrecy and infrastructure control.

Clarification: I’m not wondering how they managed to keep the human ethics in check, that’s pretty obvious: paying the price for corruption and wrapping it up in legal threats of economically violent retribution.

I’m referring to the technological aspect. The amount of air-gapping, leak prevention, no-more-than-need-to-know protocol, opsec is impressive if they managed so far so long.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#192

Post by izacus »

heisenbit wrote: post #43
colordrops wrote: post #34

I just can't get worked up over this. Advertising is at best amoral, and inherently a shady activity. I've always assumed that advertising is a cut throat industry full of sharks. This doesn't really come as a surprise that google, the king of advertising, would partake in cutthroat activities in a cutthroat industry full of sharks to dominate and extract maximum value. So they acted like sociopaths among a society o…

In a world where R&D is now often dwarfed by ad spend it is really a threat to progress.

Don't worry, USA will continue investing orders of magnitude more money into R&D for killing people so progress won't stop.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#193

Post by eecc »

tommek4077 wrote: post #15
eecc wrote: post #12

I wonder how that code managed to stay secret so many years. How did they keep all the mass of data, the tickets, the user stories and pitch decks from being spilled online and get publicly dressed down? I guess that’s the one single major threat to effectively WHF: the need for maximum security secrecy and infrastructure control.

Because the code itself is much simpler than you would think.

What about the rest; the presentations the executive summaries… all the paperwork that suits babble around… it takes some serious “terrorist organization” opsec to perform like this

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#194

Post by roland35 »

mysterydip wrote: post #188
cletus wrote: post #185

This is pretty damning stuff. Here's the question I have: there are a ton of quotes in here from employees. In what context were these statements made? In depositions? I would guess not. I'd guess they were made in emails, Google docs and presentations that were a result of discovery (or a whistleblower I guess). If so, I really want to find these people and ask them "what were you thinking?" Any big company has requ…

When I started a new job, one thing in orientation was "the 'e' in 'e-mail' stands for 'evidence'."

That's a good way of thinking about it. When I was a kid I remember hearing "imagine reading everything you write down to grandma" or "read on the morning news". I try to keep that in mind to this day.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#195

Post by Hnrobert42 »

FabHK wrote: post #128

Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... > Google was frustrated @Facebook was not aligning with it to reduce users’ privacy. “We’ve had difficulty getting FB to align on our privacy goals and strategy, as they have at time[s] prioritized winning on reputation ove…

Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law.

Speaking of the law, Google’s abuses listed in this thread are what gall me. In Gulliver’s travels, the Lilliputians don’t strongly punish a common thief. You can just build a higher fence to thwart them. They severely punish “white collar” crimes. Outsmarting those criminals may prove impossible. We now have some of the greatest minds of our generation figuring out how to enrich Google even if it means breaking anti-trust/anti-collusion laws and even just basic breach of contract.

I get that Google is a huge company and not all bad, but its primary revenue model is so morally bankrupt, I question how anyone can justify working there.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#196

Post by jacob55555 »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #179
FabHK wrote: post #128

Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... > Google was frustrated @Facebook was not aligning with it to reduce users’ privacy. “We’ve had difficulty getting FB to align on our privacy goals and strategy, as they have at time[s] prioritized winning on reputation ove…

> Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... These are not incompatible statements. Any corporation, once it gets large enough, inevitably veers toward "profits over people," if only in the more benign sense of "if it doesn't make money, it doesn't make sense." Yes,…

There’s no such thing as people: just “users”.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#197

Post by newshorts »

mola wrote: post #142
heavyset_go wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means Google is strangling innovation and market efficiency by offering unsustainable products that prevent profitable businesses from entering those markets. Some people might lose their jobs at Google, but a healthier market will allow competition to hire for actually sustainable businesses. The benefits of increased innovation and competition for consumers makes breaking companies like this up worthwhile on t…

I think the products are great, but users are trained to not to pay for them.

I really like their cloud office suite for personal use, however I would not rely on them for an enterprise solution.

Probably less about training the users and more about sales/support, feature set and ecosystem as barriers to getting paid.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#198

Post by moneywoes »

true_religion wrote: post #178
throwaway6734 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I mean, if they were still paying us all handsomely like stock brokers then I bet popular opinion would be on their side. Aren't FAANG salaries still absurd?

Faang salaries are pretty good when you are starting out, but they level of pretty quickly. After say twenty years, my friends on Wall Street are mysteriously richer than I am. Of course the ones who didn’t survive the early treadmill aren’t included, but I guess that’s the trade off. Engineering is fairly stable and well paying, but you don’t get million dollar payouts unless you are a founder.

Yep senior engineer is a terminal level

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#199

Post by twobitshifter »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #195
FabHK wrote: post #128

Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... > Google was frustrated @Facebook was not aligning with it to reduce users’ privacy. “We’ve had difficulty getting FB to align on our privacy goals and strategy, as they have at time[s] prioritized winning on reputation ove…

Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. Speaking of the law, Google’s abuses listed in this thread are what gall me. In Gulliver’s travels, the Lilliputians don’t strongly punish a common thief. You can just build a…

Fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits is a myth. It’s something that businesses hide their unethical behavior behind, but there’s no law that requires it according to the US Supreme Court.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#200

Post by _bkyr »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #195
FabHK wrote: post #128

Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... > Google was frustrated @Facebook was not aligning with it to reduce users’ privacy. “We’ve had difficulty getting FB to align on our privacy goals and strategy, as they have at time[s] prioritized winning on reputation ove…

Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. Speaking of the law, Google’s abuses listed in this thread are what gall me. In Gulliver’s travels, the Lilliputians don’t strongly punish a common thief. You can just build a…

> FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law.

What US law states that the board of any company has to make money for shareholders? I've tried finding it but haven't been able to. So what happens when a company fails? Does the board get prosecuted?

Facebooks - Board of Directors - Mark Zuckerberg - Sheryl Sandberg - Peggy Alford - Marc L. Andreessen - Andrew W. Houston - Nancy Killefer - Robert M. Kimmitt - Peter A. Thiel - Tracey T. Travis

Alphabet - Board of Directors - Larry Page - Sergey Brin - Sundar Pichai - John L. Hennessy - Frances Arnold - L. John Doerr - Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. - Ann Mather - Alan R. Mulally - K. Ram Shriram - Robin L. Washington

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