I don't think there's a particular reason to believe this is significantly worse in tech than it is elsewhere (although if this I'm wrong, I'd definitely appreciate being corrected on this). But there are a few things I'd say:
- Tech has this particular weird cultural self-view that we all see ourselves and each other as middle-school nerds emerging victorious, as people who got past the bullies and the ills of "normal people" society, as people who were friendless (and dateless) in school but have found our own little environment now where we can be accepted as we are. So there's a tendency to think that we're not capable of the same sort of awfulness, and that we're better people than the other industries. There's a tendency, subconsciously, to think that if someone's saying something bad about any of our people, they're no better than our middle school bullies. We need to get over that and admit that the tech industry is like any other industry.
- On a different and simpler note, tech is our industry. I don't have nearly as much say about the culture of, say, big law firms or furniture design studios, than I do about the culture of companies where I work and where I might consider working.
Regarding Google, did you see this discussion, which was on the HN home page yesterday? https://plus.google.com/+KellyEllis/posts/L4wawXpNt25