An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion • Hacker News Board

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#311

Post by _dain_ » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

syngrog66 wrote: post #279

harry8 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only PR. Compared with what came before and what was competing with it in those days google search was terrific. Finding more of what you wanted faster. Clean interface. Ads off to the side clearly identified. People just felt good about using google product. That's a great place to start any PR. People's affection for polish of Apple Product compared with horrible machines most have been forced to use in pod far…

US intel community assessed that Wikileaks was a thin front/wrapper for Russian intelligence operations intended to harm the US and allies. A kind of "launderer" at best for docs that Russian hackers or agents would steal or forge. Assange was the key guy behind Wikileaks. Therefore, Assange is... neither credible or honorable.

And you just believe everything the "US intel community" says?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#312

Post by Tarsul » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #20

willvarfar wrote: post #5

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

None of them, I am quite old to have learned in a capitalist society it is always about the money. Company mottos, cultural values, we are family, and all the marketing garbage that they sell for new hires to feel good is just that, plain marketing. When things get though, the "values" hardly matter to get deals or fire people.

it's similar with governments actually: All the talk about human rights, social justice etc. are usually way less important to the government than the GDP and hence capitalism/profits. BUT, this is not only good for the top x% but good for everyone usually. With profitable businesses you can pay everyone and everyone is getting richer, thus everyone wins. At least unless the top x% keep the riches to themselves, that's when the government should intervene. If they don't, it's up to the voters. So the system has quite a few fail safes. (although I agree it's not enough nowadays, especially regarding those oligopolies and climate change.)

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#313

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

_bkyr wrote: post #200

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

Note that for business, governing law is virtually always state law, both legislation and common (case) law.

The most relevant law will be in Delaware (overwhelmingly popular for incorporation for its "business-favourable" climate), New York, and California.

Semi-related tangent: in going through US Library of Congress classifications, under US case law, by an extreme margin the most detailed classifications of state law are for New York and California (I forget offhand which leads). I believe Pennsylvania and Florida are also among the larger.

To an extent this is a synthetic artefact (classification schemas are created by librarians), though it probably reflects underlying complexity within the respective domains.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#314

Post by bseidensticker » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #280

mysterydip wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Isn’t that a huge red flag as an employee for that to be in orientation? It would make me want to put everything in writing in case they did sketchy shit.

Yeah I got that feeling as well, but it's not the main reason that is presented in the training.

The main issue is that your words will be taken out of context and used against the company. If you say "we are going to dominate the market" instead of "our product is going to be really well received" that can be used as evidence of anticompetitive behavior. Nevermind the fact that you're an IC and not a lawyer qualified to comment on if you are truly dominating the market.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#315

Post by lovecg » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

mrhands556 wrote: post #266

bsenftner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a Capitalist, the only possible deal is a profitable one. However, to be profitable, the arangement between participants has to be unfair. It is only through an unfair exchange of goods and services is a profit produced. So it imperative the other parties believe they are getting a fair deal, otherwise they would not participate. So, it is unmentioned while required that the Capitalist control the information of t…

I pay an electrician a slight premium for knowledge and experience that won’t burn my house down. Sure, I could look it up on YouTube but the probability that I do something wrong probably outweighs the premium I would pay for a qualified electrician. How is this unfair?

It’s completely fair and it’s also not quite what people who critique capitalism are talking about. Imagine you’re hiring a company that has electricians on payroll, then by definition the electrician you hired will get less than the labor he performed, and the company will pocket the difference as profit - or it won’t stay in business long. Electricians have the option of going alone, many other industries not so much.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#316

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

aj3 wrote: post #216

cletus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to James Robert Liang [1]. This isn't about protecting the company. It's about protecting yourself. You're opening yourself to be a witness in a suit (nobody wants that), thrown to the wolves by the company (who will attempt to portray you as a rogue actor) or criminal prosecution. Now if the company is doing something unethical and it's why you're leaving, then sure write that down as long as you're not ad…

Pardon my French, but you're either a coward or bootlicker. There won't be any criminal prosecution for raising legitimate issues internally & putting those in writing, no matter what company lawyers tell you. And if the most privileged and job-secure people on the planet can't take the risk of undermining their FAANG overlords for the sake of humanity, who will?

History suggests otherwise. The legal protections exist because they've been repeatedly proved necessary.

https://whistleblowersblog.org/opinion/a-history-of-corporat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#317

Post by LandR » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

ctvo wrote: post #293

throwawaycuriou wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binary trees during the hiring process for software engineers is not a part of the entire industry. I'd be surprised if it was even the majority. But it is prevalent, and posts pop up here regularly disparaging it. Places lean into Google's way of doing things by default without demonstrating that it leads to positive outcomes _for their business_. Google themselves do it due to no small part to compensate for the pi…

> Binary trees during the hiring process for software engineers is not a part of the entire industry. I'd be surprised if it was even the majority. But it is prevalent, and posts pop up here regularly disparaging it. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Apple, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Snap, RobinHood, Walmart, Twilio, Uber, DoorDash, ... (we can continue down the list of US / western technology companies here for…

These sort of silly interview questions seems to be a US thing. Never been asked to whiteboard anything in interviews, I'm in Scotland. Also never been asked anything ds&a related.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#318

Post by sonofhans » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

MandieD wrote: post #201

bsenftner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment I saw "Don't be evil" as their motto/slogan back in the 90's. I rolled my eyes and said out loud "What a load of shit, I bet they are evil incarnate."

As my (devout but quietly Baptist) boss at my childhood town’s local ISP told me, “if you ever run into a businessman who is eager to tell you what a strong [Christian] believer he is, or has a [Jesus] fish on his signs or business cards, watch your wallet!” (Things in [square braces] as added context for people who didn’t grow up as Evangelicals in the South)

William S Burroughs: "When doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. He's word isn't worth shit, not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal."

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#319

Post by jarjoura » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #134

heavyset_go wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google from 12 to 16 years ago was found guilty[1] in an antitrust suit of colluding with other industry leaders to keep tech employee compensation artificially low. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Yeah I don’t think people understand the extent to which public relations influences our beliefs. Google was able to maintain a polished image in well known areas while silently behaving poorly in others and we believed it for a long time. I remember about ten years ago meetings Eric Schmidt had with US military generals. That didn’t even register on mass media so most people probably never heard of it. I wonder how…

Yea I was just going to say, the only reason you think more fondly of Google's than Facebook's image is a clear example of one company having a far superior PR department than another.

It might be true at the very beginning when Google was simply a search engine that they truly were "doing no evil." It's also true at the very beginning of Facebook that they were truly trying to build a social network that made the world more open and connected by bringing grandparents closer to their grandkids thousands of miles apart.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#320

Post by tradertef » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #33

mrweasel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Microsoft, where at least some of the business units could do pretty well on their own, if the company was broken up, I doubt the same would be true for Google. Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong in the idea of breaking up Google, but I doubt it will happen.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

How about admob/adsense? The whole point of the article was about those units..