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Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

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Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#551

Post by smsm42 »

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…

So somebody likes the workplace they work at. No need to be all up in arms against it. There are certainly places as good or better than google, and there are certainly people that like it at Google anyway. There's tons of ethical work you can do at Google, not everybody works for Project Dragonfly. Before you ask, no, I don't work for Google, don't want work for Google, never interviewed to work for Google, and don't particularly like Google. But that's not the reason to hate all people for whom it works.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#552

Post by smsm42 »

somatic wrote: post #429
buzzkillington wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to know a guy, I met mine when I was running a 3d printing course for an astronomy group of all things.

I'll be on the lookout, but quite frankly I despair. I've always wanted to be in a spooky line of work. Oh well.

If I were in a spooky business, I'd never hire somebody who's too eager to work in this line of work. Too easy to hire a Snowden this way. And I have no idea how they solve this problem... must be tough to be a spook.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#553

Post by clairity »

scarmig wrote: post #365
rainyMammoth wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Google throws away obscene amounts of money on non-adtech things. Some of those are pretty interesting and useful for humanity. You can say, well, those don't count, because Google isn't making money from them! But if you take that route, you also have to exclude all the startups working on "interesting" problems that don't and won't make money. You're left with a very small set of companies. I wouldn't be surprised…

> "At Google, though, you're going to have both better average financial outcomes and lower risk."

this is a classic misaligned incentive problem though. getting more pay for lower risk just makes the google workers risk-averse, so their success rate will be lower than startup founders who put more on the line (and who are therefore incentivized to make tougher decisions faster/earlier). a former founder-turned-googler friend admitted as much to me in casual conversation.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#554

Post by drenvuk »

WAHa_06x36 wrote: post #550
drenvuk wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a strawman. Good jokes that haven't been said before are hard to find and many times lie on the edge of what's acceptable and isn't acceptable or is a combination of nearly unrelated ideas delivered through a multitude of different comedic devices. There's a reason that workplace humor is so repetitive and soul deadening.

None of that is actually true.

Your missing sense of humor is noted.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#555

Post by perl4ever »

vonmoltke wrote: post #532
perl4ever wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also huge federal contractors (defense, etc.) that the average consumer can't name because they aren't on anything the public comes in contact with.

Yeah, but their total comp is shit compared to the tech industry.

It depends on whether you restrict "tech" to FAANG/bay area. There are tech companies that pay ~40K for entry level programmer/analyst positions that said contractors pay $80+, or did ~5 years ago.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#556

Post by manigandham »

joshuamorton wrote: post #394
manigandham wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Surely you can see the difference between topics? Politics are not relevant to work. Office policies are. You can discuss and protest the latter if you want, but not the former. I'm sure you don't discuss porn habits and drug usage with your coworkers, do you? But of course it's fine to discuss working from home or new laptops. There is no paradox here. 2) I would prefer any feedback and protests be in private whe…

> Office policies are Perfect, so questions of what companies we contract with, how we do hiring and diversity, and what bathrooms people are allowed to use are all office policies and reasonable work discussion topics. Can you give examples of the kinds of things you object to then? Fwiw, I've known people who discuss their porn and drug habits at work. Hell I've known people who do drugs with their co-workers. > I…

This is again conflating politics with office policies. A workplace is not the state. You don't have carte blanche to act how you want, especially when it will clearly create chaos at the company's expense. And it's not specific views but entire topics.

Since you want it explicit:

1) Contracts are not office policy. Objecting because of politics is political.

2) Hiring is about getting the best people for the job. Discussing that is fine. Using quotas for race and gender instead of character and competence is identity politics, and thus political.

3) Bathrooms are by sex. Anyone with different needs can negotiate themselves or use single-person bathrooms if available. Discussing it is political.

None of that is relevant to the business doing work. It's political BS, and you're free to start your own company and discuss all you want there to see how that goes.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#557

Post by joshuamorton »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #538
joshuamorton wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think forced political expression is entirely a boogeyman. Sure, someone complained that people weren't knowledgable and up for debating an issue that was important to him. But notably, no one was forced to express anything, he was simply disappointed that they weren't willing to discuss the issue. Actually it wasn't even that, he was disappointed that, instead of expressing concern over the death of a blac…

Maybe I'm misreading the argument. It sounds like the petition claims merely hearing her out is wrong; that because she disagrees on some hot-button political issues, nothing she says can possibly be valuable, and listening to her thoughts on AI ethics would constitute pandering to her side on those political issues. If so, that's a core example of the kind of toxic political wrangling that I'm opposed to in the work…

Personally, I think there's a difference between hearing someone out and elevating someone to be on an ethics council. And the only reason she was included was that she's a notable Republican, and Google was concerned that conservatives would complain if there wasn't a notable conservative in the group. In other words, she was included only for (partisan) political reasons. Calling that out isn't introducing politics, it's recognizing them.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#558

Post by d1zzy »

dredmorbius wrote: post #146
manigandham wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it absolutely isn't. Adding an arbitrary and incendiary meaning to what others say is a major problem. You can create as many enemies as you want that way and it just fuels more division.

Pointing out the inherent privilege-preserving effects of discouraging challenge to the status quo is not adding an incendiary meaning. It's lifting a latent consequence to the level of manifest evidence. This understandably makes some people uncomfortable. It challenges beliefs, it challenges self-worth, it challenges value systems, it challenges worldviews. None of these invalidate the underlying concept that shelt…

Bringing these issues to the workplace you risk finding more than you want to know about your coworkers. Will you still be able to be professional and unbiased in your relationships at work if you find out what opinions your coworkers have about political issues you care about? Probably not, so who wins in that case? Nobody, you lose as your motivation drops, company loses as productivity drops.

It's the same argument as not wanting to find everything there is to know about your neighbor, a dose of ignorance is healthy to maintaining most relationships in life. You don't need nor is it healthy, to apply the same standard of knowledge to your coworkers as to your significant other.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#559

Post by joshuamorton »

manigandham wrote: post #556
joshuamorton wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Office policies are Perfect, so questions of what companies we contract with, how we do hiring and diversity, and what bathrooms people are allowed to use are all office policies and reasonable work discussion topics. Can you give examples of the kinds of things you object to then? Fwiw, I've known people who discuss their porn and drug habits at work. Hell I've known people who do drugs with their co-workers. > I…

This is again conflating politics with office policies. A workplace is not the state. You don't have carte blanche to act how you want, especially when it will clearly create chaos at the company's expense. And it's not specific views but entire topics. Since you want it explicit: 1) Contracts are not office policy. Objecting because of politics is political. 2) Hiring is about getting the best people for the job. Di…

> 1) Contracts are not office policy. Objecting because of politics is political.

You're the one claiming the objection is political. I claim the objections are ethical. Again, if you are the arbiter of what is or is not political (which it seems you are trying to be), all this ends up is "objections to things I dislike are political and forbidden".

> Hiring is about getting the best people for the job. Discussing that is fine. Using quotas for race and gender instead of character and competence is identity politics, and thus political.

Great! Racial or gender based hiring quotas are illegal in the US. I don't support them. So which companies do you think are actively and brazenly breaking the law by using illegal hiring quotas? Or are you perhaps just saying that hiring policies you personally disagree with are "political"?

> Bathrooms are by sex.

This may be office policy where you work, but it is not always office policy. Are you saying that it can't be discussed? Because you just said that discussing office policies are relevant to work.

> You can discuss and protest the latter if you want, but not the former.

Now you seem to be walking back that statement. Which is is? Again, it seems that "political" things are just things you disagree with, this is an intellectually dishonest position and one that I'm asking that you reconsider.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#560

Post by scarmig »

clairity wrote: post #553
scarmig wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google throws away obscene amounts of money on non-adtech things. Some of those are pretty interesting and useful for humanity. You can say, well, those don't count, because Google isn't making money from them! But if you take that route, you also have to exclude all the startups working on "interesting" problems that don't and won't make money. You're left with a very small set of companies. I wouldn't be surprised…

> "At Google, though, you're going to have both better average financial outcomes and lower risk." this is a classic misaligned incentive problem though. getting more pay for lower risk just makes the google workers risk-averse, so their success rate will be lower than startup founders who put more on the line (and who are therefore incentivized to make tougher decisions faster/earlier). a former founder-turned-googl…

Likely true. The average worker, though, doesn't want exposure to risk. The risk is almost purely downside for the average worker. Even "making tougher decisions faster and earlier" is a pretty shitty deal for a worker, in that they're going to be cast aside on a whim. And startups come with little to no upside risk to compensate for the downside risk (I say this as someone who's been bitten by shitty startup shenanigans).

Probably if Google were broken up we'd see many more and more successful startups, for reasons of funding and talent (and the end of the tendency for Google to make some halting inroad into a niche only to abandon it because of internal politics). That doesn't translate into a better experience for workers though.

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