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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

#281

Post by neya »

cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

> First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives.

I've never ever seen anyone, especially Apple shareholders disclose this here whenever they brush off something Apple did with malice - Eg. slowing down users' phones, spying on their siri recordings, etc.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#282

Post by radishingr »

jameslk wrote: post #178
cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

Most big companies attract rule followers. They err on the side of avoiding taking risks like this, which is why they work there (and why there’s so many in this thread talking about rules). It benefits big companies to have mostly rule followers because you can’t have a too many people going in different directions. You need stability and a unified direction, that usually comes from the rulers making the rules. The…

Corporations have money and money attracts lawyers. Some discipline would have been required for the trademark stuff because you have to be very careful about it or lose your job.

Now, did something cause other issues that converted this from formal "don't do that, use the official process" and nothing more? Sounds like something caused this to escalate. It could be toes were stepped on, could be a bad reaction to the warning, or could just be wanting to cut employee numbers in a shortsighted way.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#283

Post by crawshaw »

This is the nature of large institutions: they have to distrust their own people. You cannot be relied on to act well, you must be checked first.

There is a good reason for this! In a large group of people, there are bad people.

This is also why I am done working at large companies. I learned a lot, met some great people, but am uninterested in a low trust environment. I like relying on my colleagues. When they do something unexpected, I am surprised and study it to learn, not lambast.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#284

Post by LoganDark »

neya wrote: post #281
cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

> First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. I've never ever seen anyone, especially Apple shareholders disclose this here whenever they brush off something Apple did with malice - Eg. slowing down users' phones, spying on their siri recordings, etc.

Throttling is to avoid overloading degraded batteries. Replacing the battery alleviates the slowdowns. Apple didn't want your phone to shut off at 15% when the battery can't supply enough current to sustain full performance.

Siri recordings are only ever stored to improve Siri. Apple does not share personal data or recordings with advertisers. There was a lawsuit based on coincidence alone.

I am not an Apple shareholder.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#285

Post by khazhoux »

justinwp wrote: post #274
khazhoux wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's other people on this thread that had questions, more than me. I'm not really implying -- I'm stating that I don't think his management chain was "afraid of being disrupted", but that they were pissed that one of their own team members released a product with Google branding that was the same thing they were about to announce in 2 weeks. It was poor judgement. Not worth a firing, though, in my opinion.

> they were about to announce in 2 weeks Market validation can change roadmaps. As I stated on Twitter/X, CLIs for agents was not a very interesting thing outside a small group earlier in 2026.

Thanks for the reply.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#286

Post by whstl »

nailer wrote: post #226
whstl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not released under his name. It is in Google's own googleworkspace Github Organization, alongside 57 other similar projects that consume from the same API. The organization hosts repos shown here: https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/samples > Google spends countless of man-hours to make sure whatever product they put out is as good as possible That's 100% not true for those kinds of projects. The…

Not complaining about the downvoting but everything in this comment is verifiable from the links you provided.

People are making a crazy amount of assumptions in those threads only to defend Google and dunk on someone who was just fired.

The repo belongs to Google, the organization belongs to Google, the job of the fired dev was to produce code just like the one he was fired for, and there's 56 other repos with similar code in there, a lot of them using the same API.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#288

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ashdksnndck wrote: post #247
bonsai_bar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so extreme? If you work at Google, there's a very clear policy for doing any outside "work" (volunteering, an open source side project, a business, being on a board, etc.): if it's related to your day-to-day work and/or related to Google's business (which virtually anything software is), you need to fill out a disclosure form and get a go-ahead from legal. Obviously a Google Workspace CLI is related to Google.…

It seems like the guy believed he was just doing his job for Google, not moonlighting? He released the project on Google’s own GitHub. It seems more like he misunderstood the necessary steps before making that release.

> It seems more like he misunderstood the necessary steps before making that release.

Dude worked there for 7 years. Saying "oh, he just didn't understand the policy for going through legal/management approval" just does absolutely not pass the sniff test.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#290

Post by izacus »

cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

Did you consider that the person might be just outright withholding information and not telling the whole story?
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