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Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

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Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#111

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway23597 wrote: post #62
echoangle wrote: post #53

Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?

I tend to agree with you here. This is the equivalent of that scene in Better Call Saul where Jimmy makes a commercial without getting sign-off from the partners. It doesn't matter whether the thing worked - this is essentially a mutiny from the product roadmap.

[deleted]

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#112

Post by Stevvo »

djeastm wrote: post #110
echoangle wrote: post #53

Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?

He seems to be a good coder with poor judgment. But I think it would be wiser to manage him better than to fire him so long as he recognizes what he did was wrong. I'm a bit of a softie for the clueless, brilliant coders, though.

He doesn't recognize it. He claims in the post he was fired because certain leaders were afraid of being disrupted.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#113

Post by BLKNSLVR »

xnx wrote: post #45
cs702 wrote: post #34

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.

Sounds like exactly why they're now a lumbering ineffectual beast, rather than the center for innovation that they used to be.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#114

Post by justinwp »

xnx wrote: post #40

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.

You are assuming that it was "personally" releasing something and that the process wasn't followed.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#115

Post by gerdesj »

xnx wrote: post #40

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.

The real problem is that OP is or wants to be an old school disruptor working at what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker).

OP crank out a pretty decent and well received, by the community, product and get absolutely canned because they are well out of touch of how Google now works. You don't do risk (without reward) at Google and you certainly don't show a bit of ankle or look exciting. Google are well out of the market for being interesting (outside of the balance sheet and P&L for those who fetishise in accountancy.

Unfortunately: going viral isn't always a good thing as anyone who has experienced a nasty virus will attest.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#116

Post by woadwarrior01 »

ex-aws-dude wrote: post #42
nickv wrote: post #3

Yikes. 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…

Maybe the policy is that you can’t just release 20% time projects publically?

You're absolutely allowed to release 20% time projects publicly. As in any large bureaucracy, there's a process for that which is taught during onboarding. What you're not allowed to do is skip the process. There's nothing Google specific about it and I've seen similar firings at other companies too. Skipping legal and corp comms review on any external public communication is grounds for termination.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#117

Post by cmeacham98 »

justinwp wrote: post #114
xnx wrote: post #40

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.

You are assuming that it was "personally" releasing something and that the process wasn't followed.

You continue to dance around this question on this post - did you or did you not follow Google's open source approval process[1]? Did you have an approved Ariane/Launcher2 entry?

1: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/...

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#118

Post by dwroberts »

danudey wrote: post #102
nickv wrote: post #3

Yikes. 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…

It sounds like a big part of why he was let go is that he created a work-related product, possibly using his '20% time' meaning he created it while at work, and then released it with Google branding and logos, all of which without clearing it with anyone at the company, while his name is attached to the company. In other words, he created an extremely official-looking product and released it in a way that made it loo…

The branding and logo on the embed comes from the org it is attached to, which is an official GitHub organisation owned by Google and contains many other open source repositories.

I think there is probably way more to this story - maybe he was told about the upcoming official use/variant and was asked to not preempt it before the cloud next conference with his one?

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#119

Post by teraflop »

echoangle wrote: post #53

Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?

Where are you getting the information that this project hadn't been cleared? That seems like a big assumption, and I don't see anything in the linked tweet, or the replies, or any of the linked pages that supports it. Unless I missed something?

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#120

Post by free652 »

justinwp wrote: post #114
xnx wrote: post #40

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.

You are assuming that it was "personally" releasing something and that the process wasn't followed.

Did you have your launch approved? So did you follow the process?
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