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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

#311

Post by Suppafly »

Arainach wrote: post #183
financltravsty wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ethos doesn't gel with the old ethos and that's where the disconnect comes from. At one point Google was there to build cool shit and enable people to do it; not extract maximal amount of value and "being Evil" by the values of its time.

Build cool shit and follow the proper release procedures for it . There is a huge difference between something unrelated to your employer on a personal repo, youremployerrepo/api-samples, and calling something "Employer Majorproduct CLI" on an official employer repo which is bound to be confused for an official release. I would have been fired from every employer I've ever worked for of any size for doing something l…

>Build cool shit and follow the proper release procedures for it.

By all reasonable measures, they did.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#312

Post by pydry »

whstl wrote: post #296
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Plus there are 57 projects in that workspace from the same team, most using the same API, in quite a few the fired dev is participating. On top of that, the CLI project wasn't even deleted. If there were/are real problems there, Google hasn't acted on them in any proper manner, and has not communicated properly with any of the parts involved, which is natural when legal/HR is involved.

This is definitely helps make the case that it was a spiteful exec primarily concerned with their own fiefdom that got the guy canned.

I did think when the guy released the tool that it seemed a bit out of character for google to be that responsive to customer feedback.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#314

Post by n6242 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #228
gerdesj wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage this sort of thing in my company. I'm not google. I'm not legally beholden to anyone except myself and my business partners ... and my own sense (which is worryingly odd!) Google can never be exciting or interesting evermore by design and intent. They dived on in and went "money" full on. They exist to generate revenue for their shareholders. They dumped the "Don't be evil" thing without blushing.

I think your encouragement is admirable but could be interpreted as naive. For one thing, the author of this tool used Google trademarks (the logo) to represent the project. If you are even slightly larger than a mom and pop small business you pretty much have to defend that trademark or else you risk losing it. But, okay, fine, you can just tell them not to use your trademark and have them say it's not an official t…

In a modest 25 people company you absolutely can just go and do this of your own initiative and it will be tolerated or encouraged. Any company that size where it's not possible will close in 18 months when it runs out of investor money without having accomplished anything. You should still mention you're doing it beforehand, though.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#315

Post by rpigab »

bonsai_bar wrote: post #159
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…

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.…

Obviously a Hackernews thread on Google internal policy is related to Google (your employer).

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#317

Post by subscribed »

eranation wrote: post #267

Put aside whether this was justified or not, or the potential Streisand effect or PR damage (or vice versa). What signal is this sending to the young Google engineer who wants to build the next Gmail? Even if this violated every internal policy, firing someone who created something that people actually want is sending a very disturbing message (internally and externally). Also, is this somehow relate to Addy Osmani’s…

I support your opinion but if you think Google is concerned about the image you've been in the coma for the last 15 years :)

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#319

Post by IshKebab »

tlogan wrote: post #278

I never worked for Google, but I do have fairly extensive experience with these kinds of situations. From that perspective, I assume there has to be more to the story for it to lead to a firing. In general, when a talented employee (like OP) does something like this, the response is usually something like: “We appreciate and love your initiative, and we want to encourage you to keep doing this kind of work. However,…

My guess is he didn't say "ok sorry I'll double check in future" but got into an argument with them about how he was right.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#320

Post by zipy124 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #177
pydry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems pretty plausible. This tool probably did threaten some product line or other with cannibalisation.

Is it plausible? Imagine any leader that is not sundar trying to get this person fired. At some point, that leader would need to justify to either their leader, or a similarly leveled peer why they budgeted x SWE-years(where x is probably > 25) for a project that took this person far less than 1 SWE-year.

It's pretty easy to justify that sort of thing off the notion that doing something "properly" requires more man hours.

There are truths to both sides of the argument.

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