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Google Protest Leader Leaves

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Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#421

Post by metildaa »

quotemstr wrote: post #419
metildaa wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hardly "had to be done", and in this process that you've claimed had to be done, many of the best and brightest have escaped the large adtech behemoth. The organization is a husk of itself, unable to maintain services for more than a few dozen months, with a disinterest in improving anything that doesn't make PR headlines (eg: Google Fi RMAs, IPv6 support inside GCP, worsening search results, etc). Eventually this…

You may be right about the husk-ness. Sometimes companies can recover from this kind of cultural damage --- look at Microsoft's renaissance. But this kind of damage frequently causes talent flight and a death spiral. I still think it had to be done. The activists wanted to turn the company into a tool for advancing a fringe political agenda, even if unprofitable No leadership group can or should tolerate that kind of…

Not abusing workers and not turning Google into an extension of the DoD & Chinese Surveillance Infrastructure is a fringe political agenda? That seems fundamentally baked into Google's old motto, "Do no evil".

Microsoft's still playing their old games FYI, they have not shaken their prior reputation (esp. with their abhorent behaviour at Linuxfest Northwest 3 or 4 years ago), and they've essentially scuttled QA (hence certain Win10 updates deleting your files, among other recent bugs). There was a recent push to gut the MS Partner program's benefits, which had predictable results. IMO they are using Oracle's business model currently, albeit with a few thousand extra developers.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#422

Post by jrockway »

Aunche wrote: post #418
jrockway wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Google. My project was cancelled and I quickly found a new one. I didn't like it, and wanted to have the same 3-6 months to find a new project that everyone else on my old team had. After much back and forth with HR, I was told that I was sick and to go on medical leave. When I got back I was on the performance improvement plan, told any attempt to transfer would be blocked, and so I just stopped showing…

I don't really understand what the point of your anecdote is. You aren't entitled to switch teams after you've already chosen one just because you're a strong preformer. They understandably don't want some teams to be stacked and other teams to be understaffed. If you don't want to wait a year before you switch teams again, you can quit or get yourself fired, which you did.

Yup, that's true. All the institutional knowledge, gone. Google's competitors, better off. Good management!

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#423

Post by dang »

departure wrote: post #307
gdy wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Her work on AI ethics" What exactly was that?

Do you not know how to use google? " rel="nofollow">https://ainowinstitute.org/research.html>

Please don't cross into personal attack and snark, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. That only makes this place worse. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#424

Post by dang »

gdy wrote: post #388
KirinDave wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is the insinuation here that if she doesn't meet some arbitrary series of qualifications you put forth, it's okay for her to be illegally harassed out of her job? I'm reluctant to engage further because it seems like an absurd line of reasoning.

Nope, you've made yourself a straw man. I hope you did not do it intentionally because it's plainly disgusting. Please don't do that again. You've said that she didn't just leave Google instead of protesting because she didn't 'want to see the thing you [she] worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"'. You was asked what she actually did at Google and you've come up with 'her work on AI e…

You crossed into personal attack and name-calling in this thread. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them when posting here? Note particularly: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#425

Post by sgift »

andrewprock wrote: post #267
mondoshawan wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the beliefs of the folks that have been at Google for 5+ years hasn't changed. Source: been at google since 2006.

Something changed. Defense contracting is certainly something that many might characterize as "be evil".

And many as necessary to defend the way of life people enjoy in USA and comparable countries. Defense work = bad is not a universal position.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#426

Post by quibbler »

Afton wrote: post #410
quibbler wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it doesn't make sense to protect anybody who mentions an incident of sexual harassment from being fired. Because then everybody would be protected from being fired, because everybody can tell a story of some incident they read in the news. Presumably the law is supposed to protect people who have been harassed and report it.

So...You shouldn't be able to protest something unless you personally experienced it? Like, if my buddy was sexually harassed, and I wanted to change the culture in my company to reduce the likelihood of this happening again, I shouldn't because I didn't have it happen to me? Your argument seems to be making a lot of assumptions that I don't share.

You can protest whatever you want. But it should also be possible to fire you.

Protesting against something doesn't magically turn you into a superior person that is exempt from mundane things like being fired or being disliked.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#427

Post by quibbler »

KirinDave wrote: post #407
quibbler wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organizing the women's march is like reporting sexism? I don't think so.

Women can organize to protest sexist conditions. That's a protected activity in the US.

So just participate in a woman's march, and you can never be fired anymore?

That seems unlikely, and if true, very misguided.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#428

Post by KUcxrAVrtI »

marktani wrote: post #262
KUcxrAVrtI wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Having a company culture where _everyone_ feels safe enough to speak up and being heard (instead of getting kicked out) is not democracy. It is smart and crucial, in my opinion. I am surprised that critizing something at a company equals being a trouble maker to you.

Google is a stale big corp that has not innovated in a decade. Expecting it to listen to its workers, who are now a commodity, is at best naive.

Listening to dissenting voices only matters to small companies who will die if they make a mistake. Google could spend 20 years doing nothing but mistakes and it will still have money in the bank.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#429

Post by KUcxrAVrtI »

CydeWeys wrote: post #192
KUcxrAVrtI wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

¿Por que no los dos?

Because they were forced out after they publicly called google out on their Chinese stance. They were facing no consequences when it was merely men they were chasing out of google.
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