71–80 of 472 posts
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Google is worth $4+ TRILLION. There is natural and needed bureaucracy in preserving that. This type of probably well-meaning, but cowboy activity is not worth the risk to Google.
Unlikely that the bureaucracy is what will keep them valuable in the long-term.
But in the long term, we are all dead
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It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".
To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/... , but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...
Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is someone who has huge wildcard risk in the future. I would expect significant disciplinary action if they didn't follow procedure, and termination if they were directly warned at any point.
Yeah that's kind of the impression that I had.. should have ran it past his superiors. Hope he learns something from this instead of deflecting like he seems to be doing.
Looks like a textbook example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy .[a] People like the OP, Justin Poehnelt, who build cool things out of self-motivation that others find interesting and want to use, are now at the mercy of those inside Google who care more about the company's internal bureaucracy and their own role and importance within it. To them, the fact that the OP's project was an instant github hit meant no…
Google is worth $4+ TRILLION. There is natural and needed bureaucracy in preserving that. This type of probably well-meaning, but cowboy activity is not worth the risk to Google.
I like the law because you can quite easily formulate it without bias.
Large enough orgs will indeed get people whose job is more closely aligned with the goal vs people whose job is more closely aligned with the existence of the org. _Because_ you need to keep investing energy to keep the org in existence. You can’t just do the goal only.
But being responsible for keeping the org in existence is not the same as responsible for the goals that the org was created for in the first place.
_and_ I can see how the people whose job it is to ensure the org keeps existing will gain the majority vote.
It’s like a law of nature: the way things fall out if you’re not consciously working to have them fall out differently.
(So it can be good for google to fire them from a “let’s keep existing standpoint” even though it might be contrary to having the easiest/optimal to use product. And if that is so, the keep existing vote will have the power) I don’t use google products really that much so I can’t speak to the merits of this example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".
To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/... , but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...
Hence many people are wondering if you released this without approval (that's my guess), if you used a Google repo to do it (from what I can tell you did use a google repo, but not an officially supported one, and other teams at google use this repo to publish code), and whether there were other extenuating circumstances, or if it was "the workspace SVP called my division's VP and told him to fire me" (just a guess for another firing mechanism).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".
To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/... , but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...
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That would be dumb but I don’t think it should result in firing still
2 months later, I think we can assume some kind of process behind that didnt go well for our friend here.
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20% time project != able to just launch it YOLO style I suspect the core issue here is that he launched it with Google logos without following any sort of process
That would be dumb but I don’t think it should result in firing still