Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#711

Post by einhverfr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #566

nostrademons wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the Founder's Letter included with Google's IPO in 2004 - "Google is not a traditional company. We do not intend to become one." It looks like they became one. The other interesting takeaway for me is how long-term equilibria can leave holes that may be exploited by short-term-focused actors . When Google was young, it's say-anything culture was a big competitive advantage: it let them hire people who were…

Google was also smaller, which both makes political discussions feel more personal and allows maintaining a political bias in recruiting/hiring because you don't need to fill headcount as urgently. I would absolutely believe that a company of 100 SJWs bringing their whole self to work contracting with a company of 100 MAGA hat wearers bringing their whole self to work would be more productive than putting all 200 of…

The larger issue is that if we accept a correct scope of work to be including someone's sense of social justice, then what happens when you now have a lot of people from very different cultures perhaps with very different views of cultural topics such as gender.

If we accept that culture influences politics, then cultural diversity means necessarily political diversity does it not?

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#712

Post by ghaff » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

mgleason_3 wrote: post #589

retbull wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional doesn't mean terrible. You can use cultural queues from previous versions without taking the toxic parts.

“Traditional doesn't mean terrible.“ This. Worked at HP for years. It was a pretty great company for the most part. Until Carly Fiorina joined. Amazing how one person can so transform a company - in a bad way. It started almost immediately. But buying Compaq really accelerated it. Companies like Compaq that have been in a slow death spiral throw off good employees. That leaves low performing politically focused who p…

HP was on a downward trajectory before that. Which is why Fiorina ended up on board. As a colleague of mine notes at the time "Bring back Lew Platt" was not really a strategy either. I do think the big computer companies of the era reached a certain ceiling beyond which it was challenging to grow.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#713

Post by crooked-v » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #70

19ylram49 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I find it quite bizarre when some folks suggest divorcing from politics as if the possibility exists. Everything is political. Even this very conversation is political.

> Everything is political. Math is not political.

Consider the difference between a culture that uses base 10 and a culture that uses base 25. They're going to have different conceptions of "manageable amounts", which could have all kinds of knock-on effects when it comes to the management of political entities.

In other words, math doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#714

Post by einhverfr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

justforyou wrote: post #634

Consultant32452 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true anymore. Even war doesn't impact my life. We've been at war almost 20 years now and the only difference it's made in my life is airport trips are more annoying. And even if war did impact my life more directly, I don't see how discussing it at work would be helpful in any way.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Why on earth are we at war with Estonia???

Oh wait. Nevermind.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#715

Post by einhverfr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #708

einhverfr wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that the US has developed for various reasons (including a lack of discussing politics) a series of echo chambers and people don't connect politically beyond their echo chambers. In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most, and these represent a small racial and class-based cross-section of urban California. The first of…

> In urban California, among software developers, you are likely to have one or two political views represented at most Centrist neoliberals, progressives, libertarians, and “I need active government support because private parties are not actively supporting me” anti-SJW meninists, among other political cliques, all seem to be vocally present in significant numbers among urban California developers. I'm not sure whi…

Fair enough but it still does not reach a fair cross-section of society.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#716

Post by Koshkin » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

justinmeiners wrote: post #632

Koshkin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything is political. Math is not political.

This is just not true. Math is neither objective or apolitical. I recommend reading "Descartes Dream."

It is in their mathematical expression that the laws of nature find their most precise form. Math, therefore, is the single most objective kind of knowledge. But, at the same time, that also means that Math cannot be political. (I am not talking about the impact of mathematics on the society, which is what the book is about.)

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#717

Post by einhverfr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #707

einhverfr wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up WL Gore and Associates. They have thrived on a very different company power structure. Or maybe their founder was right and the power structure wasn't different (he thought official power structures were not where the power was held, and therefore dispensed with them in order for unofficial power structures to more easily come to the fore). The problem is that you have to have some forms of effort in coordina…

>But I still look to Gore's insight that the real decisions are made around the water cooler and in the carpool van, and that is helpful. So it assumes a very in-person culture for one thing. Which is fine. But it basically excludes models based on people communicating in a more distributed way. And that probably strictly limits size and geographic diversity. Nothing wrong with that. I can say I'm building a company…

I am not sure that's the assumption behind it, but I do agree these things are products of assumptions.

I have ideas for how I would organize a company if I had a blank slate. However, usually if you start getting investment, the discussions get more restricted.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#718

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #355

stcredzero wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Google for quite a while, 2005-2013, and even then, the internal political discussion was pretty toxic, but a lot smaller in scope since there are far fewer people. It sounds like the work culture at Google has rediscovered the emergent factors which gave rise to the traditional cultural strictures against talking about money, politics, and religion. Good science is repeatable. Given that Google is arguab…

I remember the Founder's Letter included with Google's IPO in 2004 - "Google is not a traditional company. We do not intend to become one." It looks like they became one. The other interesting takeaway for me is how long-term equilibria can leave holes that may be exploited by short-term-focused actors . When Google was young, it's say-anything culture was a big competitive advantage: it let them hire people who were…

> It looks like they became one.

It's the same way in every endeavor. People get used to doing things a certain way, and forget the reason why. Try a different way, and relearn the reason why :-)

It's a reason why hiring some older people is worthwhile. They can tell you why things are done in way X, so you can avoid costly mistakes.

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#719

Post by concordDance » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #698

nailer wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes that's the point: if data perpetuates sex stereotypes then is it immoral to discuss the data?

The answer is yes when the data is cherry picked to fit a narrative.

Maybe you should be editting the wikipedia page on human sex differences? Because currently it strongly gives the impression that those differences are real and substantial

Re: Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore

#720

Post by cowmoo728 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

fromthestart wrote: post #624

fortran77 wrote: post #553

This is an eye opener. > [Google] employees discussed at length [on internal message boards] whether Trump’s win meant it’s time for a violent revolution. “How do people cope with this?” one employee wrote. “I’ve never been part of a military or war effort before. … I don’t know how useful I’ll be.” It's about time Google tells people to take their political revolution talk somewhere else other than company internal…

People are rabidly dismissive of the project veritas expose, but articles with quotes like this repeteadly show pervasive bias among Google staff which aligns exactly with the accusations and candid management recordings within the video [1]. The video is admittedly obnoxious and overly dramatic, but the candid clips with exec Jen Gennai strongly suggest that these political biases are leaking into technical work wit…

Even if google doesn't have a political bias, there's no way for them to avoid allegations of unfair political treatment. They're in an unenviable position as the arbiter of global popularity and visibility, and there are thousands of mostly far-right groups that are flooding google with garbage. Just by virtue of taking down clearly false, misleading, or violent content, they're already "biased" against one political ideology.