Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
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Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#2I am not going to share much more than what I already have, but I think this speaks to the experience of working in big tech and the disruption caused by AI both at the level of teams/roadmaps/incentives and changing user behavior.
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#3Yikes. I see Justin posted this, and I'm sure he can't say much - but this is an absolutely insane story.
Google has gone from encouraging 20% time (to create amazing projects like this) to firing people for doing it.
There seems to be some true maliciousness going on at Google. You have this, you have the open source Gemini CLI getting replaced with a shittier closed source Antigravity CLI, etc... etc... What is going on there?
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#4Usable link for anyone else without a twitter account: https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#5Yikes. I see Justin posted this, and I'm sure he can't say much - but this is an absolutely insane story. Google has gone from encouraging 20% time (to create amazing projects like this) to firing people for doing it. There seems to be some true maliciousness going on at Google. You have this, you have the open source Gemini CLI getting replaced with a shittier closed source Antigravity CLI, etc... etc... What is goi…
its what happens when a company runs out of ideas and is mostly run by people with MBAs.
Good ideas are now risky because it steps on the toes of someone's fiefdom
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#6This is what happens when companies are run by boomers who care more about building their orgs, instead of doing hard cutting edge engineering work.
Sucks for the author. Hope they land a good gig at a frontier lab.
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#7[flagged]
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#8> getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories.
> I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted.
I normally don't defend Google - this pure Evil should not exist. Degoogling is a holy act. But it is also kind of silly to create a project, attach Google logo etc... to it while working at Google. Or perhaps it was a genius move. Either way I am not entirely certain whether the description is as clear here. If it was an internal tool only, did it need a logo? If it was external, who would use it when a Google logo is attached? That's all very strange to me.
> But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace.
That may be the case - Google lies to humans all the time. See when they killed ublock origin via fake "arguments" that were lies (killed it in the sense that the Google store crippled it: https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock%20origin?hl=... - I just tried to find the old webpage on chrome webstore but the search results no longer show it, only alternative names that are fake projects. I should have bookmarked the old link, Google is REALLY so annoying. The world wide web needs to overcome its number #1 enemy here. Which is Google.)
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#9[flagged]
It's twitter right? Ever since a billionaire bought it it went downhill.
Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI
#10Usable link for anyone else without a twitter account: https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602
Auto-redirect for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/