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Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

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Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#91

Post by [deleted] »

lokar wrote: post #34
throwa356262 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a crazy period when Google first fired him, then fired people criticising him, and then fired people criticising the people that just got fired. But let's be honest, the guy was kind of unhinged. I would not have fired him, but neither would I have kept him in my team.

I agree, internally, looking at a fuller picture of his activity, he was off. Constantly bringing the subject up out of context, starting fights, etc. but they should have just warned him.

[deleted]

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#92

Post by annzabelle »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #50
JuniperMesos wrote: post #12

[flagged]

In my experience, Big Tech's billboard to "bring your best self" was just to get super eager people with great skills into their ranks to help accelerate business. Once you're on the inside, it's quite clear that's a farce and in fact, you should keep your mouth shut and your head down. Alas.

Had a coworker at a bank that was trying to emulate Tech (Capital One - all in on AWS and PIPs) who bought into it. Ended up PIPed and then is doing a PhD in a completely unrelated field.

We had a mental health slack channel, and a racial politics one that rehashed Israel/Palestine daily.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#93

Post by sgentle »

socalgal2 wrote: post #72
danpalmer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sounds like you're responding to incorrect summaries? He was not intolerant of woman in the workplace. His memo was specifically in support of women in the workplace. https://web.archive.org/web/20170813080340/https://www.theat...

Would the National Labor Review Board's legal opinion count as an incorrect summary?

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4380791-NLRB-Advice-...

> statements about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding effort to cloak comments with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#94

Post by zerobees »

localhoster wrote: post #33

Not that I care in particular But claiming that google lost it's "moral compass" just now is a claim only rich people can make because they retire, not quit. Google is literally the largest, most organized, tracking and profiling company in the world. Which they tend to grow even larger with the rise of LLMs. Turning a blind eye of that for the opportunity or whatever, and than claim that _just now_ they lost their m…

Right. I have respect for Rene, but going by the "HN quitting manifestos" like this, Google has lost its moral compass at least 50 times at various points in the last 20 years.

The company is constantly changing, but also hasn't changed all that much. It always talked the talk and was eager to tell others how to behave, but was almost never willing to give up any real revenue to do the right thing. The usual justification was that if Google doesn't do it, someone else will (and that someone else is obviously not as moral as Googlers are).

If you're old enough, you might remember that they vocally opposed privacy-violating, disruptive display ads. That was their whole schtick. But that was before they realized there's a lot of money to be made by acquiring Doubleclick.

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#95

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

I do find it amusing when I see these LinkedIn fodder posts saying “I left [Meta/Google/OtherGiantCorp] because the company I joined 10 years ago doesn’t hold the same values anymore” as if these companies weren’t already fucked up evil pieces of shit many years before you joined. People are always trying to justify that they aren’t working for something purely evil. I guess you have to try to feel like that giant pile of cash on offer isn’t dirty money and you need validation from others to sleep at night

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#97

Post by pryce »

asadotzler wrote: post #29
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #26

I refused an interview from google in 2010ish, because it was already dubious with all the tracking and advertising they were doing, as well as the rising censorship. So if you decided to go in 2017 with all that happened since, your moral compass was already broken with google's. Snowden already revealed what all that data was used for with program like PRISM. You already seen the total lack of interest in preventin…

This take I can get behind. Google's leadership has been total garbage for at least 15 years. My experience as an employee of one of Google's closest business partners was that it started going south in 2008-ish and was certifiable by 2010. These people who act like it's all suddenly gone down hill weren't there or weren't paying attention. If someone believes Goog's only turned to shit since about 2017, they were mi…

would you allow that it was bad enough to be fairly labeled garbage in 2011, yet could you still concede it has degraded significantly further since then? Or are you arguing that not only was it bad in 2011, but you are contending it hasn't (also) become worse?

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#99

Post by mempko »

zerobees wrote: post #94
localhoster wrote: post #33

Not that I care in particular But claiming that google lost it's "moral compass" just now is a claim only rich people can make because they retire, not quit. Google is literally the largest, most organized, tracking and profiling company in the world. Which they tend to grow even larger with the rise of LLMs. Turning a blind eye of that for the opportunity or whatever, and than claim that _just now_ they lost their m…

Right. I have respect for Rene, but going by the "HN quitting manifestos" like this, Google has lost its moral compass at least 50 times at various points in the last 20 years. The company is constantly changing, but also hasn't changed all that much. It always talked the talk and was eager to tell others how to behave, but was almost never willing to give up any real revenue to do the right thing. The usual justific…

Why do you have respect for Rene?

Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass

#100

Post by jensensbutton »

3adk1a wrote: post #38
throwa356262 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a crazy period when Google first fired him, then fired people criticising him, and then fired people criticising the people that just got fired. But let's be honest, the guy was kind of unhinged. I would not have fired him, but neither would I have kept him in my team.

He wasn't unhinged, he somewhat clumsily posted evolutionary biology literature fragments on a channel where it would offend parts of the readers. In response to a "let a thousand flowers bloom and speak your mind" request from Google management snakes. The problem is that some tech people take these requests seriously. Google of course has identified itself as Trump sycophants and hypocrites by now. Maybe they shoul…

No he was kind of unhinged. That wasn't the first weird thing he did. Should've been fired.
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