It's worth a watch if you haven't seen Joe Rogan's podcast with James Damore. I think it adds some much needed context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ1JeII0eGo
Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
211–220 of 245 posts
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#212I find it somewhat hypocritical that this article describes Google as a safe haven of dissent and open discussion, while it is pretty unanimous that expressing even slightly right-of-center opinions at Google will have you ostracized and possibly fired.
This line is a gem:
> “Everyone thought Google had an absolute right to stop you from talking about anything related to Google"
So, safe and open - as long all speech and action is completely controlled by the company.
PS - Google's corporate political line and that of most of its employees, from what it looks like, seems to have been aligned with the corporate/right-wing of the Democratic party, i.e. right of center even of US public opinion.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to say, I think the article has a very poor title. Most of the people discussed said they really liked working at Google, most of the time. They felt their jobs were interesting, did important work, and had impact. The "misery" I think is talking about the company, not the employees per se. None of the employees in the article claimed they were miserable... and as you can see the simple word "misery" has total…
> None of the employees in the article claimed they were miserable Not in so many words, but many quit for cultural reasons and (at least perceived) retaliation. Others are engaged in lawsuits, presumably not out of pure joy.
What's interesting is that the folks in the article who quit are about half on the 'right' and half on the 'left'. Does this mean Google is doing things well.... or not?
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like there are multiple OSHA violations at your work so you could report them. You could buy your own chair for work and I believe you can write it off in tax as a work expense. Given your long years of work experience you could almost certainly get into a distance learning Master’s degree in the U.K., e.g. the Queen Mary University of London MBA. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mba/ If you don’t h…
>You could buy your own chair for work and I believe you can write it off in tax as a work expense. We have one employee with their own chair, it required a doctor's note, had to meet certain specifications (I thinks he actually had to show what she was going to buy first) and of course be purchased with their own money. As far as the two sites you linked, I'm not in the United Kingdom and I doubt many employers woul…
> As far as testing for credit, most colleges still require you to take a significant percentage of your courses through them.
They generally do but there are three with extremely generous policies, Thomas Edison State University, Charter Oak and Excelsior University in New York. The last demands only one capstone credit be with them. You can transfer everything else.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree completely with this. Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive. Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.
Yes and no, some of the projects mentioned in the article, like Project Dragonfly, involved developing the kind of censorship tools necessary to prop up dictators like the ones you mentioned. That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here. We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative t…
So by that logic, US and like minded allies should ban their industries from working with China / Russia / Middle Eastern dictatorships? Are you advocating for complete trade barriers?
If not, why single out Google when Apple / Walmart / ... are allowed to benefit from Chinese market?
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#216My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, y…
My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's perfor…
My experience also aligns with this. Probably, Google's open culture was okay in the early days of internet and the company. Now that political activism has spread across all the SV companies, I sincerely wish that leadership across entire tech industry squashes the noisy vocal minority. If someone is really passionate about their political cause, they should pursue it in their personal time using their personal resources.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
> None of the employees in the article claimed they were miserable Not in so many words, but many quit for cultural reasons and (at least perceived) retaliation. Others are engaged in lawsuits, presumably not out of pure joy.
What's interesting is that the folks in the article who quit are about half on the 'right' and half on the 'left'. Does this mean Google is doing things well.... or not?
Reading the article, I got a sense that the ones who quit seem to be the outliers who were more interested in pursuing non-work related goals rather than focusing on work. Good for Google, it seems!
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that it's not possible someone could have a miserable experience at Google? I think that. Google employees are at the top of the pyramid, so if the article was true, they would have left for an almost identical salary nearby. The fact that they don't means that either google pays way above its direct competitors (it doesnt) or these people are outright lying, and their actions speak louder than 12k words
Fong-Jones, Whittaker, and Stapleton did resign as per this story.
hi, I'm at honeycomb.io now, and having a blast! :)
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#219Notice, this is long article. Around 12 000 words or 30 pages.
Does Wired even have editors? Any editor who's not incompetent beyond belief would have told Nitasha Tiku that it's not necessary to include every single detail from three years' worth of notes. In fact, the excess verbiage makes it less impactful than it could have been. A good editor would have trimmed this to one half or even one third of its current length, and it would have been better without the bloat.
Don't be ridiculous. The New Yorker regularly has articles of this length if not longer. It's ordinary longform journalism.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#220I find it somewhat hypocritical that this article describes Google as a safe haven of dissent and open discussion, while it is pretty unanimous that expressing even slightly right-of-center opinions at Google will have you ostracized and possibly fired.
This line is a gem: > “Everyone thought Google had an absolute right to stop you from talking about anything related to Google" So, safe and open - as long all speech and action is completely controlled by the company. PS - Google's corporate political line and that of most of its employees, from what it looks like, seems to have been aligned with the corporate/right-wing of the Democratic party, i.e. right of center…
"Completely controlled" is not accurate, but yes, not talking about Google outside work was the deal. It was a good deal. That's what made it work, up until the company started leaking like a sieve.
Have you ever worked under those conditions? It's incredibly distracting.
The alternative to trustworthiness and self-control is Apple-level secrecy. (And even they are leaking a lot these days.)