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Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

nytimes.com

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Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#141

Post by m0zg »

nostrademons wrote: post #128
m0zg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming there are "aggrieved parties". To the best of my knowledge nobody was "aggrieved" by Sergey at least. He probably had them sign something before the "massage" or else I'm sure we'd see some lawsuits. Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying sexual harassment in any way. But it's not "harassment" if it's wanted and consensual, and it's not _automatically_ unethical if the employee is not in his chain of…

The "aggrieved party" doesn't have to be a party within the relationship. Anyone else in the org can make a case that their career opportunities were impeded by the existence of a superior/subordinate relationship within their reporting chain. People in a romantic relationship are assumed to not be impartial when it comes to things that may affect their romantic partners, which means that it's pretty easy to make a c…

No aggrieved parties stepped forward. And you can make whatever "cases" you want, but if no one was "aggrieved" you don't really have a case.

>> you could make the case that your career was >> harmed because she's sleeping with the head of Google X

Funny how otherwise "progressive" people automatically assume that the only reason women would sleep with their boss is to advance their careers. The romantic component doesn't factor into it at all.

Thankfully, simply making a case is not enough under US law. You have to prove it as well. Best I can tell Rosenberg did not experience any meteoric career rise. Nor would there be any way to accomplish that without drawing attention: Sergey is not in charge of promotions, committees are.

In fact, as an ex-Googler, I'm not sure Sergey was in charge of _anything_ at Google for the past 15 years. He had his hobby projects, but he was as checked out as a founder can really be. He's literally probably there for the dating pool. :-)

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#142

Post by pinewurst »

loganfrederick wrote: post #79

I really liked Ben Horowitz's new book "What You Do Is Who You Are". However, the only passage that I disliked and stood out to me is when he defended David Drummond for his ability to thrive at Google for a long time despite the corporate culture changing. This was after Drummond was called out publicly for abandoning his kid he had with a subordinate: https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2018/10/25/report-alphabet-c...…

This is the same Ben Horowitz who defended illegal option price fixing and other ethically dubious behavior in his last book. I'll probably get penalized for this, but achieving success is not equivalent to being a role model.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#143

Post by rayiner »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #95
defen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is "evil" about not wanting to see a child that you presumably didn't want to begin with? The child doesn't get a choice about being brought into the world, so your desire or intent to produce a child is irrelevant. If you don't want to father a child, don't do anything that could reasonably lead to producing a child. If you father one anyway, that's on you. To deliberately alienate yourself from your child in…

And yet, we generally accept that women have the right to an abortion regardless of their willfully chosen actions prior. How do you square the two positions? Note that I'm not arguing that the man has a right to absolve himself of financial responsibility.

There is nothing that needs to be squared. People are responsible for the predictable consequences of their actions. We hold women and men equally accountable when their having sex produces a child.

The fact that women, by virtue of their right to control their own bodies, can abort a baby before it is born, doesn’t change the analysis for either. Both are still responsible for a baby that is born. The fact that the woman has additional options to avoid the consequence doesn’t absolve the man of responsibility (both to provide financial support and to be a father). Women may have many reasons for not aborting a baby. (Maybe they even believe it’s morally wrong!) But if you take action that predictably may result in an outcome, you don’t get off the hook because someone else had the power to avert the outcome at a later stage and chose not to. Both people are responsible.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#144

Post by tmpz22 »

loganfrederick wrote: post #79

I really liked Ben Horowitz's new book "What You Do Is Who You Are". However, the only passage that I disliked and stood out to me is when he defended David Drummond for his ability to thrive at Google for a long time despite the corporate culture changing. This was after Drummond was called out publicly for abandoning his kid he had with a subordinate: https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2018/10/25/report-alphabet-c...…

> "HR told me that Sergey's response to it was, 'Why not? They're my employees,'" Ayers said. "But you don't have employees for f---ing! That's not what the job is."

Ooooof. That shatters the "Early on Google's culture was great!" narrative...

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-sergey-brin-employees...

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#145

Post by rayiner »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #133
defen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An abortion doesn't result in a person so it's not really comparable. My understanding is that the vast majority of surgical or medical abortions occur due to either 1) grave risk to the mother's life 2) serious genetic defects or malformities in the fetus or 3) well before viability (during a time when spontaneous abortions are also common)

Basing a principle of rights or duties based on contingencies (live birth or not) seems dubious. If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal). Granted, all things aren't equal, but the financial obligation seems sufficient to fulfill a duty to the living child. Besides, why should we force contact when the father doesn't want it? I don't see tha…

> If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal).

This is your false premise. Nothing about fairness requires the law to give someone additional rights to offset someone else’s intrinsic advantages. Neither men nor women have a “legal right to decide against the burden of a child.” If either has a child, they’re on the hook for it. The law doesn’t need to give men an additional legal right to “make up” for the fact that women can terminate a pregnancy by exercising their natural right to control their own pregnancies.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#146

Post by nostrademons »

m0zg wrote: post #141
nostrademons wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "aggrieved party" doesn't have to be a party within the relationship. Anyone else in the org can make a case that their career opportunities were impeded by the existence of a superior/subordinate relationship within their reporting chain. People in a romantic relationship are assumed to not be impartial when it comes to things that may affect their romantic partners, which means that it's pretty easy to make a c…

No aggrieved parties stepped forward. And you can make whatever "cases" you want, but if no one was "aggrieved" you don't really have a case. >> you could make the case that your career was >> harmed because she's sleeping with the head of Google X Funny how otherwise "progressive" people automatically assume that the only reason women would sleep with their boss is to advance their careers. The romantic component do…

I'm also an ex-Googler, and was at Google when the Rosenberg affair broke. Sergey was nominally head of Google X (the reporting org that Google Glass was in) at the time. Whether he was actively doing anything other than boning his employees is another matter; I had a number of friends in X (including in Glass) and his job largely seemed to be to cheerlead various X initiatives at the time.

And the role of HR and legal is to minimize the company's risk. Just because the risk doesn't materalize doesn't mean the risk wasn't there. The way sexual harassment claims usually play out (if both parties have competent lawyers) is that the company pays out a significant sum of money and then both sides sign non-disclosure agreements and waivers to further liability. The point isn't to go to trial, the point is that the threat of facing a sympathetic jury incentivizes both parties to work out a settlement.

There was one very obvious aggrieved party in to the Brin/Rosenberg affair in Hugo Barra, Android's VP and spokeperson and Rosenberg's ex-boyfriend who quit to head Xiaomi's international efforts right as the affair broke. Presumably Google gave him a generous severance package to not disparage or sue the company, which is why you haven't heard him disparage or sue the company.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#147

Post by rayiner »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #65
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, then maybe you read the story but did not understand it. That's fine with me, but I did read the story and that is not my takeaway at all. For starters, there is a clear abuse of power here with one party being the senior person at the company suggesting that things will be 'ok' when clearly there was a plan all along to create a situation of asymmetry and dependency, followed up with a lot of very mean and man…

I don't get this "abuse of power" angle at all. Having a relationship with a subordinate is not an abuse of power. Insisting that your job rests on a relationship is an abuse of power, but without evidence that happened (and it seems like it didnt), there's no abuse. This idea that a power differential invalidates a relationship is nonsense. The fact is, people spend half or more of their waking hours at work. You sp…

> This idea that a power differential invalidates a relationship is nonsense.

Why? Seems pretty sound to me.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#148

Post by GhettoMaestro »

seibelj wrote: post #119
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that business cares only about profit is just plain wrong. The law people think of is almost never relevant. Each year, millions of business decisions are made knowing full well that it will cost a bit of money, not bring in any (or even good PR), but is the decent thing to do. As but one example: Google once gave us money for a non-profit event, in no way related to their business, with explicit instruction…

If your anecdote is true then how do you know that?

On the basis of your extreme pedantry, please consider killing yourself. You would be doing the world a massive favor.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#149

Post by hackinthebochs »

rayiner wrote: post #143
hackinthebochs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, we generally accept that women have the right to an abortion regardless of their willfully chosen actions prior. How do you square the two positions? Note that I'm not arguing that the man has a right to absolve himself of financial responsibility.

There is nothing that needs to be squared. People are responsible for the predictable consequences of their actions. We hold women and men equally accountable when their having sex produces a child. The fact that women, by virtue of their right to control their own bodies, can abort a baby before it is born, doesn’t change the analysis for either. Both are still responsible for a baby that is born. The fact that the…

>The fact that the woman has additional options to avoid the consequence doesn’t absolve the man of responsibility

I disagree. Having more options does in fact alter the level of responsibility.

Re: Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

#150

Post by hackinthebochs »

rayiner wrote: post #145
hackinthebochs wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basing a principle of rights or duties based on contingencies (live birth or not) seems dubious. If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal). Granted, all things aren't equal, but the financial obligation seems sufficient to fulfill a duty to the living child. Besides, why should we force contact when the father doesn't want it? I don't see tha…

> If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal). This is your false premise. Nothing about fairness requires the law to give someone additional rights to offset someone else’s intrinsic advantages. Neither men nor women have a “legal right to decide against the burden of a child.” If either has a child, they’re on the hook for it. The law doesn’t…

I'm talking about what should be the case, i.e. what is a moral right or duty. Legal concerns just add extra complication that are tangential to my claims.
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