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Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

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Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#491

Post by natecavanaugh »

laughinghan wrote: post #448
throwaway6833 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway time.. The minefield about trying to predict what's going to be politically correct in the future is so true--you nailed it. You might carefully self-censor your discussions to things that are politically allowed today but everything lives forever, so something you say may fall out of fashion and years from now it could get you in hot HR water. The only solution is to just stick to work topics, really. The…

Genuine question: (you're on a throwaway, what's the harm in answering me, right?) What is there to buy into about pronouns? If my first name is Stan, named after my dad also named Stan, and my middle name is Jason, and my dad abandoned my family when I was young so I prefer people to call me Jason, you'd have no problem calling me Jason and be understanding that calling me Stan is a sore point, right? What if I don'…

I think the “buy into” aspect is possibly buying into the importance of it all. In the current climate, it’s a charged issue, because for one side it’s a matter of respect, dignity, and honoring a persons agency, and for the other it’s about coercive speech and toeing closer to coercive thought.

And then there’s the the third side that can perhaps see that both sides have valid points, except that none of it matters in the long run. If words are so empty that they can be bent to call a woman a man, a man a woman, blue as red, 50 as 1,000, depending on a person’s internal emotional state, then whatever we choose to say is as valid as anything else.

And if one person refuses to comply with social niceties, it doesn’t necessarily indicate anything other than, at worst, said person is a dick.

So I think right now, it’s a social crusade for both parties, and not everyone wants to get sucked into feeling passionate about everyone else's fights. And that doesn’t mean you’re choosing sides.

But somehow, less than 100% virtue signaling in either direction means you’re implicitly supporting “them”.

But, my approach is, when dealing with people, I’m not going to be a dick, and I’ll happily call them a preferred pronoun, within reason, even though it’s really not that important to me. But I’m also not going to go out of my way to try to fix everyone who is a dick either, even when it is something important to me.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#492

Post by djohnston »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #328
hgytr wrote: post #305

First. Thanks to HN for not demanding phone numbers: anonymity allows to say things that cannot be said. Second. Many googlers read HN. In some sense, HN is the extension of the internal forums. CNBC made a good summary and I can comment on each bullet point. Larry and Brin probably stopped attending because nothing important is said on TGIFs. More people -> more leaks -> less interesting information -> less attenden…

> Don't get me wrong. Google is still the best workplace with top notch pay, but as it's got big, it's also morphed into a typical big corporation with typical corporate politics. Sorry but I cannot stand that level of internal koolaid. I guess you also think that Google got the "smartest" people? There are literally thousands of companies working on problems way more interesting and with more stakes and upsides for…

Woahhhh there, don't fall off that horse! You might hurt yourself from a height so high.

Your qualification of what makes a company's problems more interesting or beneficial to humanity is certainly debatable, but if you think people at Google are "taking it easy" talentless slobs you are quite objectively wrong

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#493

Post by djohnston »

techie128 wrote: post #455
mav3rick wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay is well above average. Regardless of what HN spews, Google foundationally made search and mobile more accessible around the world. I don't know what "great" company you work for but it's hard to top that for impact.

Yes Google did make search and mobile more accessible while helping itself to a big pile of money. Stop pretending that they did it out of the goodness of their hearts. Hate to break it to you but Google is just like any other business.

How on Earth is that a criticism?

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#494

Post by djohnston »

fooker wrote: post #202

RIP I'm one of those people who go work at Google once every few years. The transformation of culture from about 2013 onwards has been somewhat sad to experience. Interestingly, most people who have been continuously employed there have not felt the very slight gradient. However, the changes in culture, freedom, food quality, etc are fairly obvious when one returns after ..say.. 18 months. Here are some semi-concrete…

I think this is basically par for the course as a company becomes massive. A small percentage of employees will abuse perks, and once the absolute number hits some threshold the financial cost of that abuse requires revision. Same thing happened at a company I watched from from about 100 to 5000, albeit on a smaller scale.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#495

Post by Infinitesimus »

Aeolun wrote: post #284
summerlight wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1195130656042496007 I don't think the number is a major factor but the media environment getting hostile against the tech sector in general. Sundar also mentioned about "a coordinated effort to share our conversations", which aligns with my observation.

Theoretically that would be fine if you weren’t discussing skeevy things.

That reads like "you don't need privacy/encryption/locked doors if you have nothing to hide!", which I assume is not the point you're trying to make?

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#496

Post by sabas123 »

buzzkillington wrote: post #489
thibautg wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300k is average? That’s more than the ceiling for CEOs of public companies in my country. Tech salaries in the US really seem out of proportions.

If you value your work little, expect to be paid little. I see no reason why I should get paid less than a CEO, when most of their job is similar to that of a kindergarten teacher.

It also is much more than most politicians and ministers. Especially the latter are typically way more influential imo.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#497

Post by drewg123 »

chance_state wrote: post #230
drewg123 wrote: post #107

As an Xoogler (left in 2015) I find that news highly disappointing. I think that without honest, regular Q&A at events like TGIF, the company will become more and more out of touch. When I was there, TGIF was watered down, but we still asked uncomfortable questions of management. I remember asking a question of Sundar when he was head of Android when the Nexus 6 came out questioning our chasing Apple into the high en…

Do you remember other "uncomfortable" or probing questions that were asked? Just out of curiosity. I work for a company that holds similar "town halls" where employees are able to ask anonymous questions of management and they can get pretty brutal sometimes ("why is turnover so high?", "why is upper management's compensation so much higher than others?", etc).

It has been nearly 5 years, so I don't remember specifics. But I do recall people asking the same kinds of questions that would come up on HN around controversial product decisions. Eg, product cancellations, etc. I also recall people asking about differing working conditions between the core Google and acquired consumer products companies..

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#498

Post by drenvuk »

WAHa_06x36 wrote: post #460
hgytr wrote: post #305

First. Thanks to HN for not demanding phone numbers: anonymity allows to say things that cannot be said. Second. Many googlers read HN. In some sense, HN is the extension of the internal forums. CNBC made a good summary and I can comment on each bullet point. Larry and Brin probably stopped attending because nothing important is said on TGIFs. More people -> more leaks -> less interesting information -> less attenden…

> Today you post a memegen where you state that triangles are better than squares, tomorrow you get fired because squares have become the symbol of some protected class. This is not how anything works. What actually happens is, today you post something insensitive and disparaging because you can get away with it as a "joke", tomorrow, people will actually stand up for themselves and tell you it's not ok to say that,…

That's not how humor works.

People who see it the way you do are pitiable, to say the least. The perfect joke is forever a shifting target and us being the humans we are can only approach it by trying repeatedly and through different tacks. One of those is being an asshole which can be funny and is funny to pretty much everyone under different circumstances and environments - but it is offensive and will always be offensive. You can look at nearly any stand up comic and see that's the case. I think you and your ilk need to lay off and relax.

Just give it some thought. You take one joke but change the audience, the time, the place, the delivery, the intonation, possibly the surrounding comments around the joke itself and everything changes. As an example If I make a joke about drowning and some person's brother who's in the same group I'm in died five years ago because a random orca dragged him under suddenly I'm the asshole. Maybe you're laughing because you didn't know either. But maybe next year there's a rash of orca attacks and someone finds a youtube recording of me making a joke about people drowning. I'm screwed now. I'm never becoming a CEO. Sounds pretty outlandish right? I bet all of those people who did blackface probably thought the same thing back in the 60s or whenever.

I think you guys need to have some empathy for people who just want to make a joke. Attempts at humor are ok but Statutes of limitations should be applicable.

I'm not going to put my ethnicity or sexual orientation on here right now but I feel no distaste for those people who wore black face or made jokes about people with different sexual orientations or whatever you might think is super bad because I know that they were acting within the boundaries of acceptability back then yet trying to have fun. If they're still doing those things at a time and place when it's not acceptable it's a different story but copping some 'Holier Than Thou' attitude over things that happen in the past when IT REALLY WAS OK TO SAY THOSE THINGS really rubs me the wrong way. It's as if they'd never said anything at the wrong time to the wrong person or in the wrong company. You might as well not say anything at all and give up all attempts at humor.

We are human. We try to laugh. Try not to hold it against us in the future.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#499

Post by bborud »

I'll repost what I posted on my Facebook timeline since it seems relevant to this discussion. One thing I'd like to add though: given how things have changed over the past decade, the culture at Google is no longer just a shareholder or employee concern: it is a societal concern. Companies like Google and Facebook own our lives and it is in humanity's interest that the company be under proper leadership. The alternative is more regulation on these kinds of companies (which probably isn't a bad thing in any case).

It has been a decade since I worked at Google, but this makes me really sad.

To be fair, the Google culture had its fair share of problems with whiny, entitled little shits and "brogrammers". And it has had its some spectacularly bad executives who are probably irredeemable assholes as well as executives who are too weak to keep their colleagues in line.

But even at around 30.000 employees it was a fundamentally good place to work.

Yes, it was competitive as fuck, but that's what happens when you have a high density of talent and ambition in one place. Much of the internal competitiveness was good. At least the way I saw it. I haven't worked many places where you start to work on something, only to discover that someone else is working on the same thing and this becomes a positive. You can collaborate and/or compete. And both can, and did, lead to better outcomes.

Of course, occasionally you'd have deadbeats that would game the system and use the efforts of others to promote themselves unfairly, but largely I think people deserved their success.

A few friends of mine still at Google have told me that the company I worked for is gone. It is a different company now. More corporate. Less open. Less creative. Less fun. Most don't really talk about Google anymore. Be it in positive or negative terms.

TGIF was among the things that set Google apart. That even inspired other companies and led them to understand that it is important to bring the top and bottom of the company in contact with each other on a regular basis.

I don't buy that Google has outgrown TGIF. I think the problem is that top management simply haven't been capable of evolving. I suspect Sundar Pichai simply isn't able to lead the company in a manner that can preserve what was good about Google. If "only" 25% of employees follow TGIF (which would be a great turnout for most companies) that's on Sundar. That is his failure as a leader. It isn't that the company has outgrown it.

And that's sad, because when the soul of a company dies, eventually, so will its ability to attract talent and perform. It'll be a slow decline. But this is nonetheless a clear symptom of decline.

Sundar needs to get his act together or Larry needs to find a more suitable CEO.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#500

Post by xiphias2 »

zestyping wrote: post #463
fooker wrote: post #202

RIP I'm one of those people who go work at Google once every few years. The transformation of culture from about 2013 onwards has been somewhat sad to experience. Interestingly, most people who have been continuously employed there have not felt the very slight gradient. However, the changes in culture, freedom, food quality, etc are fairly obvious when one returns after ..say.. 18 months. Here are some semi-concrete…

The dismantling of Google.org in 2015. We were once an engineering and product team that used Google's unique reach, resources, infrastructure, and technology to create tools and services purely for good. We reunited survivors of disasters, helped them find shelter, alerted people to keep them safe, built technology to help MSF fight Ebola, and predicted flu epidemics. We worked to lift the most vulnerable among us.…

I (an Eastern European software engineer who was working at Google Switzerland) can't forget the Christmas gift I got from Google that I donated Chromebooks to students in U.S.

It was the weirdest Christmas present that I got in my life, and believe me I got some very weird clothes from my mum when I was young.

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