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Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
171–180 of 290 posts
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> So was being a concentration camp guard. What the hell. We are talking about ads on the computer.
So we have established that "just a job" is not unpolitical?
It's just that you draw the line somewhere between enabling mass surveillance and being a concentration camp guard.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#173I came to Google via acquisition end of 2011 and left end of 2021. Google bought my employer so it could further cement its display ads monopoly. They never had a moral compass, they just wore one in a costume so that nobody would dig too closely into their business practices. We got to wave pitchforks and ask tough questions at TGIF for a while, and march in pride parades under a Google banner, and get fed nice trea…
I could see some of that in 2011 (I started before the ipo), but it was almost all from ads. People in other parts of the company had a very different experience.
Oh absolutely, I transferred out of ads as soon as I could and of course it all seemed different.
The reality is that ads was 95% of the company revenue though, so it was all fantasy.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#174> Google was a different company 9 years ago. No it wasn’t.
The article clearly lists at least two ways they are significantly different now.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I cannot imagine actively working towards what one believes would be a worse world. It's just regular politics, no identity involved. Everything is political - including our careers.
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I don't disagree on the second part. It's just that we disagree who the bad guys are, that's the problem, isn't it?
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
While transparency is admirable, I don’t find the “why I left Google” blog posts to be particularly interesting content to be posted to HN. They happen relatively frequently and there are a number of things about them that feel distasteful: - The authors are in the literal 1%, so for the 99% of us who are doing far worse it feels a bit like a tiny violin exercise. “Sorry you worked for an unethical company, my compan…
I imagine many Google people are interested, and they get voted up. You don’t have to read and engage with everything on the front page. And you certainly don’t have to come make snarky criticisms of others.
I don’t feel like I was being “snarky.” I also have no problem with the articles being upvoted.
I don’t think it’s very fair to tell people who want to constructively criticize articles to just not engage with them. That feels like a deflection of my points rather than addressing the merit of what I actually said.
Instead of saying “here’s what was wrong with your idea” you said “you’re not supposed to be here.”
I genuinely think the author could read comments like mine and get something out of them.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only stated reason for his resignation is that Google is no longer adhering to their promise to not use AI for weapons. I was surprised that the reasoning was so one-dimensional.
While I don't agree with the author exactly, I do admire someone sticking to their guns (no pun intended). Like Oscar Wild said, "Morality, like art requires drawing a line somewhere". One of my favorite 80's movies was Real Genius with Val Kilmer. He accidentally helps develop a weapon and then goes to extreme measures to prevent its use. For some people creating weapons is a line they wont cross and that's not a ba…
Go through enough pattern recognition and you'll realize it's often not someone sticking to their guns.
Would the author have left if they didn't have another job lined up? Definitely not. Then, how strong are their principles?
That's not remarkable to many.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#178I came to Google via acquisition end of 2011 and left end of 2021. Google bought my employer so it could further cement its display ads monopoly. They never had a moral compass, they just wore one in a costume so that nobody would dig too closely into their business practices. We got to wave pitchforks and ask tough questions at TGIF for a while, and march in pride parades under a Google banner, and get fed nice trea…
> It's not possible for a corporate entity to have one. Is it really not possible? Lots of corps are controlled by one or two people. They can decide what the company espouses, no?
If you want profits, the market tells you what to do.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s quite a bit different from helping to kill people. Let’s not lump every ethical issue into one. And not conflate SEO sleaze with aiding murder.
Except Google works with the Pentagon and the Israeli government so yes they are helping kill people.
...which is one of the changes that prompted the author to resign.
Re: Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
#180"Enough of my equity has vested, virtue signal engage."
There is some weird psychology going where the most morality posting is from people quitting Google or being unemployed.
Au contraire, Googlers have always been strangely academic brained and stuck in niche moral echo chambers.
This is par for the course.