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Google Protest Leader Leaves

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Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#171

Post by pvg »

dmix wrote: post #151
pvg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

incredibly politicized concept as "equal compensation" (which doesn't exist [...] Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_pay_for_equal_work

Way to chop off my sentence at the perfect point for you to counter it, while ignoring the rest of the context it was said. I’ve edited it now so it won’t be.

Well, you edited it a bit now but my point is, you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what "equal compensation" is about. If it's the former, the linked page is a good place to start.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#172

Post by oldmanhorton »

dmurdoch wrote: post #19
ulfw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many great people are hired not necessarily to move Google forward, but so that they don’t move a Google-competitor forward.

This makes me think about something. I don't work at a FAANG company, nor have I ever been to SV, nor do I know anyone who works at one of the many enormous tech companies around SV. In the TV show Silicon Valley they have characters who sit around unassigned doing nothing at the Google-like company in the show. Does this actually happen? Are there people hired at these companies who just don't have a project? Its en…

Google has been implicated in this in the past (though I disagree that fuschia is solely a retention program): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569631

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#173

Post by KirinDave »

user17843 wrote: post #126
KirinDave wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They organized the woman's walkout, so it seems relevant to mention that they were women facing retaliation for protesting the treatment of women.

Imho it isn't relevant. The implication of OP is that the fact that they are female paints Google in a bad light, not that they were protest leaders. Corporations do not care about gender, it's all about power and control, and they do not care about the gender of those who they have to dismantle to keep it. The Canadian Documentary "The Corporation" is a good example of how corporations behave: https://www.youtube.co…

If a set of powerful men use the interests to said corporation to enrich themselves at the expense of women who are there, then it is definitely a sexism issue.

I appreciate the economic arguments you are hinting at, but they are not incompatible with the notion that sexism was at play. We know, factually, that executives Google broke the law and then we're paid large sums of money to leave.

You cannot easily disentangle these power dynamics. Nor should you, because corporations are just large groups of people with special legal permissions from the government. The idea that interpersonal conflict would go away and such an environment seems to contradict the facts and hand.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#174

Post by hangonhn »

dannykwells wrote: post #134

It stories like these that make me wonder, is it better to take an adversarial/external approach to change (like Meredith) or to work slowly inside an org and change it from the inside? Of course the external/adversarial approach can generate huge changes quickly by relatively junior folks, but always comes at a huge cost and is not sustainable (see: most of the people who did these protests have left). So you get on…

Change from inside has a very poor track record. People who say that are usually rationalizing their involvement. Even non-violent protests are adversarial. The history of the world seems to suggest that is the one tried and known method for change is adversarial confrontation. If you look at it from a game theory/economics point of view, there is little incentive for people to change unless you change the landscape and the factors that compel their behavior. Change from inside really doesn't have that because organizations/organisms/nature are resistant to change -- if it is working why risk it? Very few organizations have the ability to disrupt itself.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#175

Post by 0815test »

KirinDave wrote: post #87
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks good for Google to me. These protests were getting out of hand, and their demands were showing some major entitlement.

You don't understand Google culture if you think this line would fly with anyone there. Entitlement for full time employees is baked into the charter, along with transparency. That's a good thing and a bad thing, in different ways. It gave bad actors a lot of autonomy, but it also exposed them to scrutiny and pushback from good actors. What's surprising is that now these reprisals are trying to push that back to make…

> It gave bad actors a lot of autonomy, but it also exposed them to scrutiny and pushback from good actors.

So far, we've seen quite a bit of the former and very little of the latter. Google's work culture seems to have become politically divisive to a rather surprising extent - if this is what "entitlement" boils down to, surely a more "normal" structure (though I'd settle for just a marginal increase in professionalism, similar to what we see in other "grassroots-led" organizations) can't be all that bad!

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#176

Post by geofft »

el_nahual wrote: post #163
qntty wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Google employees do the work that keeps the company going. There's no law that says that people can't refuse to do certain kinds of work. You take a job that you expect to give you work that you find acceptable and if that expectation is violated, you resist.

s/resist/quit

Nope, you negotiate the terms of your employment first. This is just negotiation.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#177

Post by SolaceQuantum »

KUcxrAVrtI wrote: post #162
CydeWeys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad to retaliate against workers who organize against sexual harassment and gender compensation disparity in the workplace. It looks bad because it is bad.

Sounds like getting rid of troublemakers who bite the hand that feeds them. If anything this will make googles stock price go up.

Protesting a lack of good general harassment handling shouldn't be considered trouble making behavior. The sexual harassment is trouble making and it was rewarded with hush money.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#178

Post by majani »

whatshisface wrote: post #5

Google works like crazy to hire all of the smartest and the best people, but do they really need them? Billions and billions in shareholder value could be extracted by hiring a bunch of mid-tier Java programmers and having them farm Ad Words for the next decade, until the first competition shows up.

Google's stock price would drop sharply if they went into maintenance mode right now. One of the main reasons they command the crazy high valuation they do today is because they remain on the cutting edge of the latest technology, which demonstrates an ability to adapt to the ever changing winds in their sector.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#179

Post by anonuser123456 »

KirinDave wrote: post #173
user17843 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho it isn't relevant. The implication of OP is that the fact that they are female paints Google in a bad light, not that they were protest leaders. Corporations do not care about gender, it's all about power and control, and they do not care about the gender of those who they have to dismantle to keep it. The Canadian Documentary "The Corporation" is a good example of how corporations behave: https://www.youtube.co…

If a set of powerful men use the interests to said corporation to enrich themselves at the expense of women who are there, then it is definitely a sexism issue. I appreciate the economic arguments you are hinting at, but they are not incompatible with the notion that sexism was at play. We know, factually, that executives Google broke the law and then we're paid large sums of money to leave. You cannot easily disenta…

Evidence over supposition.

I have no problem with the claim in the face of evidence. I just don't see any here.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#180

Post by KUcxrAVrtI »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #177
KUcxrAVrtI wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like getting rid of troublemakers who bite the hand that feeds them. If anything this will make googles stock price go up.

Protesting a lack of good general harassment handling shouldn't be considered trouble making behavior. The sexual harassment is trouble making and it was rewarded with hush money.

They are specifically being targeted for forcing google out of China according to the article. It was fine as long as they were merely targeting social issues within google.
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