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I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, h

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stale way that felt like death.

cromwellian 9y ago
To be fair, a lot of people were upset over the election, and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their coworkers verbally over the coals.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I don't think an executive should ever complain about an election. They should focus on making their company successful and a good work place.
  - mulletbum 9y ago
    Why not? When the election is making their company have a difficult time becoming a more successful work place? I think it's a company, people can say what they like, if Google doesn't like it as a whole, they can fire said employee.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      They have all the tools to make their company a better place no matter who is elected. Complaining is just a cheap way to excuse not doing anything.
      - alex_hitchins 9y ago
        I'd say their access to the White House would be considered one of those tools. The removal of which could give cause for upset. https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white-house-meetings https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white...
      - cromwellian 9y ago
        The purpose is Google's company wide meetings with the executives is not for the Executives to complain, but for the employees to complain and the executives to respond with a plan of action. In the meeting in question, employees were asking Google how they're going to help stranded employees, how Google is going to protect them, how they can still travel outside the US if their job requires it (e.g. You're a British/Iranian citizen) Google executives did not get up on stage and given an anti-Trump rant. In fact, as far as I recall, they've never directly insulted Trump the way you can see in major news media, because who wants to make an enemy of the US government and what use would it be to give a political speech? What they did is respond to the concerns of employees, and some of them are immigrants, and got a little choked up with emotion in their voice, because they were shocked too. My extended family has a lot of first generation immigrants. None of them understand American racism and xenophobia like a native, and they thought it was just focused on Mexicans. The travel bans were the first hammer, the attacks on legal immigration (greencards and bringing family members), Bannon's "There's too many Asian CEOS" hail back to the attitudes of the Chinese exclusion act, and finally Charlottesville, all show the danger of playing around with xenophobia. It doesn't stay contained the way you think, and many educated, elite immigrants were suddenly shocked that they might be affected too.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      Nobody is arguing Google's right to express political opinions, but the fact that their culture does so is counterproductive to a meritocratic structure. They seem to be more concerned about virtue signalling than creating an environment that focuses on professional and economic growth.
      - fixermark 9y ago
        It's like the culture was shaped by having a "Don't Be Evil" motto or something. (Also, it's interesting that you separate politics and meritocratic structure. It is by politics that the things that are merit-worthy are decided---you can be the best developer in the world, but if you're developing the wrong thing, you're not adding value).
  - untog 9y ago
    What if the result of an election hinders their ability to be successful and create a good work place? I think there is a fair debate to be had about where the line should be drawn, but pretending that politics doesn't exist if you don't talk about it is deluded. For example, Google employs a good number of immigrants. After the election many of them would have been worried about their future in the country. Wouldn't a good workplace try to address those concerns?
    - gsich 9y ago
      Still no need to cry. One day after the election there is no way to tell for sure what will happen.
      - steve_musk 9y ago
        For those who were paying attention it was pretty clear what was happening...
        fwn 9y ago
        You might consider a career in policy or finance. Those guys are desperate for people with such knowledge about the future.
        steve_musk 9y ago
        Haha, by pay attention I mean pay attention to what Trump was saying when he was off script at his rallies and such. If you only heard him talk through scripted speeches/prepared debates and soundbites from the media you were getting a very different impression of Trump than how he actually is. It was pretty clear who we had elected; a narcissistic and selfish dick with no self control who was willing to do anything to make himself look good.
    - alexanat 9y ago
      It is still not appropriate to complain (or rather cry...) about in a professional setting, imo. How can you expect to have confidence in an executive when they put on an act like that? Nothing says "I don't know what to do" more. Yes, you are now facing some additional hardships in your job of creating a good workplace where employees can succeed. Those concerns should be addressed within the scope of what the company can or cannot do. It seems like priorities would shift into protecting immigrant employees and that's okay - that is a hardship that the position entails and is something that should've been addressed long in advance as immigration reform was and probably always will be a controversial topic in the USA.
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    Executives are people at the end of the day, they will have emotions and feelings (hopefully). I'd hazard a guess it wasn't the fact a Republican won, rather than who won. However that is total conjecture on my part.
    - cromwellian 9y ago
      Most people who dislike Trump don't dislike him because he's Republican, most don't even believe he's a true Republican, or conservative, or evangelical. He was a New York Democrat in the past, supported gun control, abortion, etc, therefore his ideological core is questionable to say the least. What people dislike, beyond the sheer incompetence and pathological lying and bragging, is a tendency to play to the worst aspects of the crowd, for narcissistic reasons. That is, people are upset because they believe Trump is a person who will stoke up division for no reason other than it gets applause and attention, and often, the "heel" in WWE Wrestling parlance that Trump uses turns out to be the least powerful.
      - alex_hitchins 9y ago
        Agreed, my comment was intended to reflect your statement exactly. It's the fact someone so abhorrent with no respect for anything other than himself is in charge.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      I agree that executives are people, but we regard lots of normal, human behaviors as "unprofessional", and our standards for professionalism are traditionally higher for higher ranking employees. In particular, I think there's already a lot of negative misinformation circulating about conservatives generally and Trump supporters specifically (mind you, I'm neither), and no one is helped by executives propping up these rumors.
      - cromwellian 9y ago
        In what way did the executives "prop up rumors"? They were responding to employees and their families who got trapped outside the country by the travel ban executive order. What's rumor about that?
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Sundar Pichai had to deal with dozens of Google Employees who were away on holiday visiting family who were being blocked by Trump's executive order from returning to the country, like a dual-nationality Canadian/Iranian scientist. Did it ever occur to you that in a company with a huge immigrant population, or 2nd generation immigrants with family, many of whom were impacted by this wave of xenophobia and nationalism in this last election, that they felt under attack? That people who immigrated here and fell in love with America, suddenly were shocked into reality when they discover that so many of their fellow Americans were easily manipulated by the politics of Steve Bannon into voting for xenophobia and scapegoating? Damn right people were legitimately upset at the social fabric coming undone.
    - trgv 9y ago
      So Trump is objectively bad and it's important for business executives and higher-ups to openly acknowledge this. In the workplace. Got it.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - kp1234321 9y ago
        I think the argument being made is that Trump being elected president immediately and negatively affected business; therefor, it was a business decision to acknowledge the negative impacts his presidency had on business.
      - komali2 9y ago
        Since this is a Bay Area Tech Company Bashing Thread, let's throw in a Texas Oil Company perspective, from the Obama era 1. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "working with the Saudis" to "tank oil prices locally." 2. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "forcing premiums up for the contractor's insurance." 3. Complaints about liberals in general for "forcing us to have men in our girls restrooms" despite the fact that this never happened. General complaints about how it'll be impossible to get an oil platform bathroom in line with "retarded liberal standards." 4. Complaints from engineers making 250/k/year untaxed in the UAE about all the "damn Indians" taking jobs from hardworking Americans. General blaming of the Democrats. 5. Directions from management to not submit resumes with "foreign" last names. 6. Refusal on the part of a major EPC engineering manager to hire the perfect candidate for the job because he was Mexican origin (US citizen via green card route), despite the fact that he had unsuccessfully searched for a good candidate for 3 months. So let's not pretend that politics don't invade business.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    I remember many executives complaining about Obama being elected. Hell, I remember many telling their employees they had to vote against him otherwise they could "lose their jobs". (In the metaphorical sense, not that the executive would find out who they voted for and fire them).
    - weberc2 9y ago
      If this happened, that's bad and it should be stopped, the same as in this election. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a politician to say "politician X supports policy Y which will negatively impact our profit by $Z".
    - FeepingCreature 9y ago
      And That Is Also Wrong.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Do you support overturning Citizen's United? Because now everything is political, whether we like it or not.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  You can probably create a positive company culture with a cheerful atmosphere without primary school aesthetics.
  - menerva 9y ago
    why should they change the brand for your delicate sensibilities? the whole point of google is that its an incredibly complicated piece of technology simplified into a search bar. a simple, fun brand - makes sense to have a playful work enviornment.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    I fail to comprehend what about bright colors means they are primary school aesthetics. Why should adults only have drab shades of gray?
  - asdfaefasdf 9y ago
    I'm genuinely amazed that some people can have such strong feelings about something so trivial as what color a bikeshed is.
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
      I'm genuinely amazed that you divined strong feelings from my neutrally flat statement.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Given that a bunch of current and former Googlers have claimed that employees all the way up to the executive level keep and share lists of people they won't work with, there are alleged witch hunts, and people have made the statement they will quit the company if someone else isn't fired, it's hard to see how Google's culture has grown out of kindergarten. (Sources: Various internal G+ leaks during the Damore thing, Breitbart[0] interviewed a bunch of current/former Googlers, etc.) [0]Yes, I know Breitbart sucks and is massively biased, though AFAIK, nobody has even suggested those interviews are fictional or even factually inaccurate.
  - mulletbum 9y ago
    Was this one of those times Breitbart suddenly felt anonymous sources weren't fake news?
  - yahna 9y ago
    > Yes, I know Breitbart sucks and is massively biased but you still used them. I'm forced to assume everything you said is fake news.
  - waisbrot 9y ago
    Why should anyone have to tell you that a Breitbart story is untrue when you already know that they lie constantly?
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      They don't lie constantly. Not about that anyway. I used to work at Google. I even recognised the names of some of the people who were quoted in those interviews. Every single detail was exactly as I remembered it. Lots of denial in this thread about the contents of those interviews, as they're pretty damning. But it's all true ...
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Mostly bullshit in my opinion. I've been at Google since 2009. Never heard of so-called blacklists, but in a company with tens of thousands of employees, you can probably find a few people who hold grudges against other people. What's your point? You don't think at other companies, corporate politics doesn't create animosity of people who don't want to work with others? I previously worked at IBM and Oracle for years and I can tell you, that kind of behavior is exponentially worse, complete with engineered backstabbing and deliberate sabotage against coworkes. So if that's Kindergarten behavior, Google is college by comparison.
- rising-sky 9y ago
  Couldn't have said it better myself. Every company has it's unique issues of course, but what is a perfect company? It's pretty painful to hear tales of 'woe is me' and under appreciation when there are people who would sacrifice a lot to get into the position you're are in. Not saying don't critique things you find unpalatable, but at the very least offer up a way you think might be a better path or a 'solution' to the 'problem', don't just complain, and then walk away. If you're not a part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.
- jerf 9y ago
  I work at a Silicon Valley company where nobody cried about the election (even if they were upset), and we don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. You're definitely positing a false dichotomy here and I'm not even sure how you came up with "either people are crying over Trump xor they are assholes to each other every day".
  - EasyTiger_ 9y ago
    As a non-American I'm so glad I don't work in an country where politics seems to create such hysteria in the workplace. I know Trump was a big unexpected shock to many but come on... crying executives, I mean what the hell
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      >"As a non-American I'm so glad I don't work in an country where politics seems to create such hysteria in the workplace." Your America bashing is completely uncalled for and unwarranted. It's pretty sad that you don't realize that executives getting on stage and crying in front of employees the day after an election is a complete aberration. This was was not and is not commonplace.
      - pc86 9y ago
        I'm an American and I can say without hesitation that in most of the companies I've worked for, executive leadership has been uncomfortably political on both sides of the aisle. Even from the non-partisan side, I worked for a company where the owner decided it was now required that you vote. He didn't care what party you were registered or who you voted for, but if you didn't vote it would be brought up in a review. And as someone who quite frequently rolls his eyes at the inevitable "As a European.." comments on every American politics or healthcare article posted on HN, I didn't see the GP as America bashing at all.
        Spooky23 9y ago
        That's why I've avoided small business like the plague. That's an extreme position -- even political hacks aren't usually that political in their appointed positions!
- greggarious 9y ago
  >But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their coworkers verbally over the coals. The idea that as long as you aren't yelling, swearing, or actively insulting someone you are not treating them poorly is one of the biggest failures of Google (and other Bay Area companies') internal culture. Verbal abuse is not ok, but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment. And let me be clear: I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable. But it's really easy to slip into an echo chamber, especially when a lot of what Bay Area companies work on is qualitative. (E.g. pretty much anything related to UX, policy)
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Google has lots of polite disagreement internally, just look at Steve Yegge's memos.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      This isn't evidence against the echo chamber claim. An example of valid evidence might be rational debate about a conservative memo, as opposed to censorship, demonization, slander, etc.
      - cromwellian 9y ago
        Google has internal Republican and Libertarian newsgroups and has had them for years. Damore's central issues have been debated for a long time on those kinds of lists and never censored. What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion.
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago
  > and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. Its called losing, thats what it feels like, you are missing that there are A LOT of winners. Your sentiment is reinforced by presidential faux pas but thats a total sideshow to how people are successfully navigating this political environment, using it as a catalyst even for trade and commerce outcomes that will long outlast this administration.
  - rblatz 9y ago
    When you treat everything like a zero sum game like this administration does you do create a lot of winners, but you also have to make losers. Turns out it's easier to just take those that already weren't doing well and make them even worse off. And yes this administration looks to make huge changes that will severely disadvantage the US energy sector for decades while they try to prop up the failing coal industry while trying to kick the ladder out from under energy sources like solar and wind.
    - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      There are other sectors. The point is that the feelings aren't justified for everyone. So for the parent poster to present that as a canonical reinforcement of how one should feel, or how one's executives should feel, or how all the employees at a multinational company might feel, is completely disingenuous.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  What a blatant false dichotomy.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Ugh. Please.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  What are the things that have actually happened in the last 10 months that justify an executive crying? The country today is 99.9999% the same as far as I can tell. (as long as you ignore twitter).
- emsy 9y ago
  You're sarcasm is not exactly benign either.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Your
    - emsy 9y ago
      Well thank you there!
- dang 9y ago
  > god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten This kind of thing breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to "please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Your interpretation was far from the strongest plausible. As a result, we got a weak and ranty subthread terminating in such hellpoints as "Your America bashing is completely uncalled for". Avoiding that is why we have the guidelines, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them more carefully from now on?
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    LOL - "hellpoints"
    - dang 9y ago
      For some reason I had the image of one of those scenic highway stops, except it's the highway to hell.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    It seems silly to upvote dang, but, yeah.
  - waterhouse 9y ago
    > please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize Ooh, steelmanning as official policy. Excellent.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  That's your take? Using bright-colored paint and giving out candy is how you avoid having everyone be jerks to each other? And at every company that doesn't do that, everyone are jerks to each other I suppose? And kindergarteners are kind and pleasant while mature people are frustrated, abusive and cruel? (From experience I'd say if mature people are frustrated it's from dealing with the tyrannical outsized self-centeredness of the kindergarteners, but I digress.) Good guys don't always wear white hats, and there's no reliable correlation between Google-style trappings, and a good place to work. I don't have a citation for you, but I've seen great creativity in grey Dilbert cubicles, and I've seen rank despair in brightly-colored factories of the happy-happy. A shiny thing could be a nugget of true gold, or it could've been placed there to distract you from the fact that you're standing in a bucket of shit. And to contradict and invalidate your true realization that standing in shit makes you feel shitty. And that -- in and of itself, and totally aside from your co-workers' behavior -- is a subtle way of being a jerk to you. A workplace should be neutral. Let me put the life there, like paint on a canvas.
ianai 9y ago
Wait are you saying politics as in D/R covered everything or politics as in the usual workplace sense?
- jrs95 9y ago
  Probably both, if my experiences in this industry in the Midwest are any indicator of how things are at Google...
  - ianai 9y ago
    Agree. I work in IT on the LV strip and intracompany politics are everything.
vkou 9y ago
As someone who was deeply disturbed by the United States electing a jingoistic, misogynistic racist and abuser, I really appreciated that I got some fucking emotional support from my colleagues. Never mind that he ran on a platform of throwing a significant portion of the company out of the country. Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  I'm friends with someone who's entire department (Disney IT) was laid off in exchange for bringing over H1Bs from India, where the people who had worked there for decades had to train their (much lower salary) replacements in order to get their severance pay. I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other shoes you can step into on the H1B issue.
  - vkou 9y ago
    > I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other shoes you can step into on the H1B issue. Yes, and given Trump's demonstrated understanding of nuanced issues, nobody was expecting him to magically come up with a solution that deals with the abuse, without collateral damage. That is exactly the time when you want your boss to say that yes, they will have your back.
- georgiedown 9y ago
  If you need emotional support from your work colleagues because the country has elected a president you don't like, you have a problem.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    There's a HUGE difference between "a president you don't like" and "a president who's entire platform was removing people like you from the country".
jondubois 9y ago
I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and the jealousy in the eyes of my colleagues brings me profound life satisfaction.
- nejenendn 9y ago
  Jealous after bailing after six months? Are you sure it’s not pity? How many times have you quit in a row?
  - jondubois 9y ago
    I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed. I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change jobs; they all think they're special and so you'll stick around for them... They all think that they're the next unicorn... Funny thing is that if they were actually a unicorn, I would stay. If my employer is a visionary genius, I make money. If my employer is a delusional fool, I make money. 6 months is a good amount of time to figure out which one it is.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      Is your username your real name? Just asking for your future employer.
      - jondubois 9y ago
        I don't care. I enjoy being able to express my opinions and I only want to work for companies who support that.
hsod 9y ago
I've noticed a TON of conversation on HN lately about how emotional/hysterical anti-Trump people are. Aside from the obvious fallacy (being emotional doesn't make you wrong), I think it's part of the anti-anti-Trump phenomenon: most people can't bring themselves to actually defend Trump but they are so annoyed by liberals that they devote their political energy to mocking and minimizing his critics. My take: bad things are bad, and other people overstating their badness does not make them good.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Well said
- pc86 9y ago
  No, but overstating their badness is itself bad. That is the issue. I didn't vote for Trump, I don't agree with the vast majority of things he's done, and I will vote for anyone running against him. But the astoundingly lengths of hyperbole people will go to would lead you to believe he is literally a reincarnation of Stalin and that if we don't act now the US will sink into a sea of flames, such as this gem[0] from someone who won't even use their real account, but uses a throwaway: "You might need a little emotional maturity. Crying isn't there[sic] end of the world, an idiot with nukes is." I don't know how much more hyperbolic you can get than saying Trump is literally going to end the world. There is plenty of real things to criticize him about, you gain nothing by overstating things to the state of idiocy. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493189
- trgv 9y ago
  It's not always "anti-anti-Trump." I'm anti-Trump but I'm also anti-politics-at-work. There's no contradiction there.
- forgottenpass 9y ago
  The phenomenon you describe is something I see in multiple different political directions depending on the context. It's basically just frustration that the status-quo opinion is held to less rigor. -- I don't mean that the positions are bad, but the way people voice them assume that more and more is solved "offscreen." Trump might be president, but in the Valley tech bubble, Anti-Trump is status quo. And politics in a bubble isn't like doing math homework, you only have to show how you got your answer if you want to disagree with the "obviously" correct positions. The anti-Trump rhetoric is stronger than the old anti-Republician rhetoric. So the people annoyed by empty arguments are going to be louder too.
trgv 9y ago
It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by something to the point where you're unable to hide it, then you shouldn't come into work.
- gkya 9y ago
  Google is all about emotions. Their PR&ads feel like they're trying to humanise the AI behemoth the company is.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  I totally agree. Regardless of how you personally feel, your employees likely include people on all sides of the political spectrum. If I were an employee, I would assume the grief is primarily about increased costs to the employer.
  - dhimes 9y ago
    With the possible exception of the case of an election of someone who may do direct harm to your business, it's way better to leave politics at the polls.
- dudul 9y ago
  That's really something that surprised me a lot after moving to the US. In my culture, politics is very much like religion, it is unthinkable to talk about it openly in a place of work.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    I think it depends on the office. When I worked in the South, but in a liberal area, you might talk about it with coworkers you trust, privately, but no one of any authority would get up and say anything. The 100+ person company I worked at during the last election, there were statements by the senior executives as well as emails. Yes, the office had people openly crying, or absent, and the mood was like a funeral but I also don't think it's the place for especially C-level people to make those type of statements even if 99% of the office felt the same way. There was also much hubbub around the (one) Women's March, solicitations, emails, etc. I'm happy for the women and men that marched for themselves but I wonder if they might've done some actual justice by asking the higher ups if internally women and men were being treated the same in terms of pay and opportunities, a conversation that I had with more than one female colleague in private.
hw 9y ago
It's almost impossible to have a company with the scale of Google to have good culture. Good perks and you get spoilt in that aspect for sure, but I doubt culture is an important aspect of any company's hiring practice once you get to Google's scale and needing to hire as many people as possible to grow. Where there's diversity, there's also diverse opinions and political leanings and personalities, which leads to conflict, misunderstanding, people trying to one-up the other, and it all leads to a toxic culture (unless you're the ones coming out on top). But hey, there's always therapy (aka the internal groups) to help you along. Cultures dies as a company grows to a certain size. Feels like the best way to combat that would be to have teams that are small within the company and operate independently and with autonomy, especially when it comes to hiring. That probably isn't realistic though within a large company. Am keen on what ideas people have or if they've had experience with something that works with regards to retaining a good culture.

cromwellian 9y ago

To be fair, a lot of people were upset over the election, and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their coworkers verbally over the coals.

maxxxxx 9y ago
I don't think an executive should ever complain about an election. They should focus on making their company successful and a good work place.
- mulletbum 9y ago
  Why not? When the election is making their company have a difficult time becoming a more successful work place? I think it's a company, people can say what they like, if Google doesn't like it as a whole, they can fire said employee.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    They have all the tools to make their company a better place no matter who is elected. Complaining is just a cheap way to excuse not doing anything.
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago
      I'd say their access to the White House would be considered one of those tools. The removal of which could give cause for upset. https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white-house-meetings https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white...
    - cromwellian 9y ago
      The purpose is Google's company wide meetings with the executives is not for the Executives to complain, but for the employees to complain and the executives to respond with a plan of action. In the meeting in question, employees were asking Google how they're going to help stranded employees, how Google is going to protect them, how they can still travel outside the US if their job requires it (e.g. You're a British/Iranian citizen) Google executives did not get up on stage and given an anti-Trump rant. In fact, as far as I recall, they've never directly insulted Trump the way you can see in major news media, because who wants to make an enemy of the US government and what use would it be to give a political speech? What they did is respond to the concerns of employees, and some of them are immigrants, and got a little choked up with emotion in their voice, because they were shocked too. My extended family has a lot of first generation immigrants. None of them understand American racism and xenophobia like a native, and they thought it was just focused on Mexicans. The travel bans were the first hammer, the attacks on legal immigration (greencards and bringing family members), Bannon's "There's too many Asian CEOS" hail back to the attitudes of the Chinese exclusion act, and finally Charlottesville, all show the danger of playing around with xenophobia. It doesn't stay contained the way you think, and many educated, elite immigrants were suddenly shocked that they might be affected too.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Nobody is arguing Google's right to express political opinions, but the fact that their culture does so is counterproductive to a meritocratic structure. They seem to be more concerned about virtue signalling than creating an environment that focuses on professional and economic growth.
    - fixermark 9y ago
      It's like the culture was shaped by having a "Don't Be Evil" motto or something. (Also, it's interesting that you separate politics and meritocratic structure. It is by politics that the things that are merit-worthy are decided---you can be the best developer in the world, but if you're developing the wrong thing, you're not adding value).
- untog 9y ago
  What if the result of an election hinders their ability to be successful and create a good work place? I think there is a fair debate to be had about where the line should be drawn, but pretending that politics doesn't exist if you don't talk about it is deluded. For example, Google employs a good number of immigrants. After the election many of them would have been worried about their future in the country. Wouldn't a good workplace try to address those concerns?
  - gsich 9y ago
    Still no need to cry. One day after the election there is no way to tell for sure what will happen.
    - steve_musk 9y ago
      For those who were paying attention it was pretty clear what was happening...
      - fwn 9y ago
        You might consider a career in policy or finance. Those guys are desperate for people with such knowledge about the future.
        steve_musk 9y ago
        Haha, by pay attention I mean pay attention to what Trump was saying when he was off script at his rallies and such. If you only heard him talk through scripted speeches/prepared debates and soundbites from the media you were getting a very different impression of Trump than how he actually is. It was pretty clear who we had elected; a narcissistic and selfish dick with no self control who was willing to do anything to make himself look good.
  - alexanat 9y ago
    It is still not appropriate to complain (or rather cry...) about in a professional setting, imo. How can you expect to have confidence in an executive when they put on an act like that? Nothing says "I don't know what to do" more. Yes, you are now facing some additional hardships in your job of creating a good workplace where employees can succeed. Those concerns should be addressed within the scope of what the company can or cannot do. It seems like priorities would shift into protecting immigrant employees and that's okay - that is a hardship that the position entails and is something that should've been addressed long in advance as immigration reform was and probably always will be a controversial topic in the USA.
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  Executives are people at the end of the day, they will have emotions and feelings (hopefully). I'd hazard a guess it wasn't the fact a Republican won, rather than who won. However that is total conjecture on my part.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Most people who dislike Trump don't dislike him because he's Republican, most don't even believe he's a true Republican, or conservative, or evangelical. He was a New York Democrat in the past, supported gun control, abortion, etc, therefore his ideological core is questionable to say the least. What people dislike, beyond the sheer incompetence and pathological lying and bragging, is a tendency to play to the worst aspects of the crowd, for narcissistic reasons. That is, people are upset because they believe Trump is a person who will stoke up division for no reason other than it gets applause and attention, and often, the "heel" in WWE Wrestling parlance that Trump uses turns out to be the least powerful.
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago
      Agreed, my comment was intended to reflect your statement exactly. It's the fact someone so abhorrent with no respect for anything other than himself is in charge.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    I agree that executives are people, but we regard lots of normal, human behaviors as "unprofessional", and our standards for professionalism are traditionally higher for higher ranking employees. In particular, I think there's already a lot of negative misinformation circulating about conservatives generally and Trump supporters specifically (mind you, I'm neither), and no one is helped by executives propping up these rumors.
    - cromwellian 9y ago
      In what way did the executives "prop up rumors"? They were responding to employees and their families who got trapped outside the country by the travel ban executive order. What's rumor about that?
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Sundar Pichai had to deal with dozens of Google Employees who were away on holiday visiting family who were being blocked by Trump's executive order from returning to the country, like a dual-nationality Canadian/Iranian scientist. Did it ever occur to you that in a company with a huge immigrant population, or 2nd generation immigrants with family, many of whom were impacted by this wave of xenophobia and nationalism in this last election, that they felt under attack? That people who immigrated here and fell in love with America, suddenly were shocked into reality when they discover that so many of their fellow Americans were easily manipulated by the politics of Steve Bannon into voting for xenophobia and scapegoating? Damn right people were legitimately upset at the social fabric coming undone.
  - trgv 9y ago
    So Trump is objectively bad and it's important for business executives and higher-ups to openly acknowledge this. In the workplace. Got it.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - kp1234321 9y ago
      I think the argument being made is that Trump being elected president immediately and negatively affected business; therefor, it was a business decision to acknowledge the negative impacts his presidency had on business.
    - komali2 9y ago
      Since this is a Bay Area Tech Company Bashing Thread, let's throw in a Texas Oil Company perspective, from the Obama era 1. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "working with the Saudis" to "tank oil prices locally." 2. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "forcing premiums up for the contractor's insurance." 3. Complaints about liberals in general for "forcing us to have men in our girls restrooms" despite the fact that this never happened. General complaints about how it'll be impossible to get an oil platform bathroom in line with "retarded liberal standards." 4. Complaints from engineers making 250/k/year untaxed in the UAE about all the "damn Indians" taking jobs from hardworking Americans. General blaming of the Democrats. 5. Directions from management to not submit resumes with "foreign" last names. 6. Refusal on the part of a major EPC engineering manager to hire the perfect candidate for the job because he was Mexican origin (US citizen via green card route), despite the fact that he had unsuccessfully searched for a good candidate for 3 months. So let's not pretend that politics don't invade business.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I remember many executives complaining about Obama being elected. Hell, I remember many telling their employees they had to vote against him otherwise they could "lose their jobs". (In the metaphorical sense, not that the executive would find out who they voted for and fire them).
  - weberc2 9y ago
    If this happened, that's bad and it should be stopped, the same as in this election. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a politician to say "politician X supports policy Y which will negatively impact our profit by $Z".
  - FeepingCreature 9y ago
    And That Is Also Wrong.
- specialist 9y ago
  Do you support overturning Citizen's United? Because now everything is political, whether we like it or not.
Apocryphon 9y ago
You can probably create a positive company culture with a cheerful atmosphere without primary school aesthetics.
- menerva 9y ago
  why should they change the brand for your delicate sensibilities? the whole point of google is that its an incredibly complicated piece of technology simplified into a search bar. a simple, fun brand - makes sense to have a playful work enviornment.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I fail to comprehend what about bright colors means they are primary school aesthetics. Why should adults only have drab shades of gray?
- asdfaefasdf 9y ago
  I'm genuinely amazed that some people can have such strong feelings about something so trivial as what color a bikeshed is.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    I'm genuinely amazed that you divined strong feelings from my neutrally flat statement.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Given that a bunch of current and former Googlers have claimed that employees all the way up to the executive level keep and share lists of people they won't work with, there are alleged witch hunts, and people have made the statement they will quit the company if someone else isn't fired, it's hard to see how Google's culture has grown out of kindergarten. (Sources: Various internal G+ leaks during the Damore thing, Breitbart[0] interviewed a bunch of current/former Googlers, etc.) [0]Yes, I know Breitbart sucks and is massively biased, though AFAIK, nobody has even suggested those interviews are fictional or even factually inaccurate.
- mulletbum 9y ago
  Was this one of those times Breitbart suddenly felt anonymous sources weren't fake news?
- yahna 9y ago
  > Yes, I know Breitbart sucks and is massively biased but you still used them. I'm forced to assume everything you said is fake news.
- waisbrot 9y ago
  Why should anyone have to tell you that a Breitbart story is untrue when you already know that they lie constantly?
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    They don't lie constantly. Not about that anyway. I used to work at Google. I even recognised the names of some of the people who were quoted in those interviews. Every single detail was exactly as I remembered it. Lots of denial in this thread about the contents of those interviews, as they're pretty damning. But it's all true ...
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Mostly bullshit in my opinion. I've been at Google since 2009. Never heard of so-called blacklists, but in a company with tens of thousands of employees, you can probably find a few people who hold grudges against other people. What's your point? You don't think at other companies, corporate politics doesn't create animosity of people who don't want to work with others? I previously worked at IBM and Oracle for years and I can tell you, that kind of behavior is exponentially worse, complete with engineered backstabbing and deliberate sabotage against coworkes. So if that's Kindergarten behavior, Google is college by comparison.
rising-sky 9y ago
Couldn't have said it better myself. Every company has it's unique issues of course, but what is a perfect company? It's pretty painful to hear tales of 'woe is me' and under appreciation when there are people who would sacrifice a lot to get into the position you're are in. Not saying don't critique things you find unpalatable, but at the very least offer up a way you think might be a better path or a 'solution' to the 'problem', don't just complain, and then walk away. If you're not a part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.
jerf 9y ago
I work at a Silicon Valley company where nobody cried about the election (even if they were upset), and we don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. You're definitely positing a false dichotomy here and I'm not even sure how you came up with "either people are crying over Trump xor they are assholes to each other every day".
- EasyTiger_ 9y ago
  As a non-American I'm so glad I don't work in an country where politics seems to create such hysteria in the workplace. I know Trump was a big unexpected shock to many but come on... crying executives, I mean what the hell
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"As a non-American I'm so glad I don't work in an country where politics seems to create such hysteria in the workplace." Your America bashing is completely uncalled for and unwarranted. It's pretty sad that you don't realize that executives getting on stage and crying in front of employees the day after an election is a complete aberration. This was was not and is not commonplace.
    - pc86 9y ago
      I'm an American and I can say without hesitation that in most of the companies I've worked for, executive leadership has been uncomfortably political on both sides of the aisle. Even from the non-partisan side, I worked for a company where the owner decided it was now required that you vote. He didn't care what party you were registered or who you voted for, but if you didn't vote it would be brought up in a review. And as someone who quite frequently rolls his eyes at the inevitable "As a European.." comments on every American politics or healthcare article posted on HN, I didn't see the GP as America bashing at all.
      - Spooky23 9y ago
        That's why I've avoided small business like the plague. That's an extreme position -- even political hacks aren't usually that political in their appointed positions!
greggarious 9y ago
>But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their coworkers verbally over the coals. The idea that as long as you aren't yelling, swearing, or actively insulting someone you are not treating them poorly is one of the biggest failures of Google (and other Bay Area companies') internal culture. Verbal abuse is not ok, but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment. And let me be clear: I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable. But it's really easy to slip into an echo chamber, especially when a lot of what Bay Area companies work on is qualitative. (E.g. pretty much anything related to UX, policy)
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Google has lots of polite disagreement internally, just look at Steve Yegge's memos.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    This isn't evidence against the echo chamber claim. An example of valid evidence might be rational debate about a conservative memo, as opposed to censorship, demonization, slander, etc.
    - cromwellian 9y ago
      Google has internal Republican and Libertarian newsgroups and has had them for years. Damore's central issues have been debated for a long time on those kinds of lists and never censored. What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence. Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
> and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. Its called losing, thats what it feels like, you are missing that there are A LOT of winners. Your sentiment is reinforced by presidential faux pas but thats a total sideshow to how people are successfully navigating this political environment, using it as a catalyst even for trade and commerce outcomes that will long outlast this administration.
- rblatz 9y ago
  When you treat everything like a zero sum game like this administration does you do create a lot of winners, but you also have to make losers. Turns out it's easier to just take those that already weren't doing well and make them even worse off. And yes this administration looks to make huge changes that will severely disadvantage the US energy sector for decades while they try to prop up the failing coal industry while trying to kick the ladder out from under energy sources like solar and wind.
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
    There are other sectors. The point is that the feelings aren't justified for everyone. So for the parent poster to present that as a canonical reinforcement of how one should feel, or how one's executives should feel, or how all the employees at a multinational company might feel, is completely disingenuous.
brucephillips 9y ago
What a blatant false dichotomy.
whipoodle 9y ago
Ugh. Please.
WillPostForFood 9y ago
What are the things that have actually happened in the last 10 months that justify an executive crying? The country today is 99.9999% the same as far as I can tell. (as long as you ignore twitter).
emsy 9y ago
You're sarcasm is not exactly benign either.
- pc86 9y ago
  Your
  - emsy 9y ago
    Well thank you there!
dang 9y ago
> god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten This kind of thing breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to "please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Your interpretation was far from the strongest plausible. As a result, we got a weak and ranty subthread terminating in such hellpoints as "Your America bashing is completely uncalled for". Avoiding that is why we have the guidelines, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them more carefully from now on?
- rdiddly 9y ago
  LOL - "hellpoints"
  - dang 9y ago
    For some reason I had the image of one of those scenic highway stops, except it's the highway to hell.
- zaroth 9y ago
  It seems silly to upvote dang, but, yeah.
- waterhouse 9y ago
  > please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize Ooh, steelmanning as official policy. Excellent.
rdiddly 9y ago
That's your take? Using bright-colored paint and giving out candy is how you avoid having everyone be jerks to each other? And at every company that doesn't do that, everyone are jerks to each other I suppose? And kindergarteners are kind and pleasant while mature people are frustrated, abusive and cruel? (From experience I'd say if mature people are frustrated it's from dealing with the tyrannical outsized self-centeredness of the kindergarteners, but I digress.) Good guys don't always wear white hats, and there's no reliable correlation between Google-style trappings, and a good place to work. I don't have a citation for you, but I've seen great creativity in grey Dilbert cubicles, and I've seen rank despair in brightly-colored factories of the happy-happy. A shiny thing could be a nugget of true gold, or it could've been placed there to distract you from the fact that you're standing in a bucket of shit. And to contradict and invalidate your true realization that standing in shit makes you feel shitty. And that -- in and of itself, and totally aside from your co-workers' behavior -- is a subtle way of being a jerk to you. A workplace should be neutral. Let me put the life there, like paint on a canvas.

ianai 9y ago

Wait are you saying politics as in D/R covered everything or politics as in the usual workplace sense?

jrs95 9y ago
Probably both, if my experiences in this industry in the Midwest are any indicator of how things are at Google...
- ianai 9y ago
  Agree. I work in IT on the LV strip and intracompany politics are everything.

vkou 9y ago

As someone who was deeply disturbed by the United States electing a jingoistic, misogynistic racist and abuser, I really appreciated that I got some fucking emotional support from my colleagues. Never mind that he ran on a platform of throwing a significant portion of the company out of the country. Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I'm friends with someone who's entire department (Disney IT) was laid off in exchange for bringing over H1Bs from India, where the people who had worked there for decades had to train their (much lower salary) replacements in order to get their severance pay. I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other shoes you can step into on the H1B issue.
- vkou 9y ago
  > I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other shoes you can step into on the H1B issue. Yes, and given Trump's demonstrated understanding of nuanced issues, nobody was expecting him to magically come up with a solution that deals with the abuse, without collateral damage. That is exactly the time when you want your boss to say that yes, they will have your back.
georgiedown 9y ago
If you need emotional support from your work colleagues because the country has elected a president you don't like, you have a problem.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  There's a HUGE difference between "a president you don't like" and "a president who's entire platform was removing people like you from the country".

jondubois 9y ago

I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and the jealousy in the eyes of my colleagues brings me profound life satisfaction.

nejenendn 9y ago
Jealous after bailing after six months? Are you sure it’s not pity? How many times have you quit in a row?
- jondubois 9y ago
  I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed. I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change jobs; they all think they're special and so you'll stick around for them... They all think that they're the next unicorn... Funny thing is that if they were actually a unicorn, I would stay. If my employer is a visionary genius, I make money. If my employer is a delusional fool, I make money. 6 months is a good amount of time to figure out which one it is.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Is your username your real name? Just asking for your future employer.
    - jondubois 9y ago
      I don't care. I enjoy being able to express my opinions and I only want to work for companies who support that.

hsod 9y ago

I've noticed a TON of conversation on HN lately about how emotional/hysterical anti-Trump people are. Aside from the obvious fallacy (being emotional doesn't make you wrong), I think it's part of the anti-anti-Trump phenomenon: most people can't bring themselves to actually defend Trump but they are so annoyed by liberals that they devote their political energy to mocking and minimizing his critics. My take: bad things are bad, and other people overstating their badness does not make them good.

whipoodle 9y ago
Well said
pc86 9y ago
No, but overstating their badness is itself bad. That is the issue. I didn't vote for Trump, I don't agree with the vast majority of things he's done, and I will vote for anyone running against him. But the astoundingly lengths of hyperbole people will go to would lead you to believe he is literally a reincarnation of Stalin and that if we don't act now the US will sink into a sea of flames, such as this gem[0] from someone who won't even use their real account, but uses a throwaway: "You might need a little emotional maturity. Crying isn't there[sic] end of the world, an idiot with nukes is." I don't know how much more hyperbolic you can get than saying Trump is literally going to end the world. There is plenty of real things to criticize him about, you gain nothing by overstating things to the state of idiocy. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493189
trgv 9y ago
It's not always "anti-anti-Trump." I'm anti-Trump but I'm also anti-politics-at-work. There's no contradiction there.
forgottenpass 9y ago
The phenomenon you describe is something I see in multiple different political directions depending on the context. It's basically just frustration that the status-quo opinion is held to less rigor. -- I don't mean that the positions are bad, but the way people voice them assume that more and more is solved "offscreen." Trump might be president, but in the Valley tech bubble, Anti-Trump is status quo. And politics in a bubble isn't like doing math homework, you only have to show how you got your answer if you want to disagree with the "obviously" correct positions. The anti-Trump rhetoric is stronger than the old anti-Republician rhetoric. So the people annoyed by empty arguments are going to be louder too.

trgv 9y ago

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by something to the point where you're unable to hide it, then you shouldn't come into work.

gkya 9y ago
Google is all about emotions. Their PR&ads feel like they're trying to humanise the AI behemoth the company is.
whataretensors 9y ago
I totally agree. Regardless of how you personally feel, your employees likely include people on all sides of the political spectrum. If I were an employee, I would assume the grief is primarily about increased costs to the employer.
- dhimes 9y ago
  With the possible exception of the case of an election of someone who may do direct harm to your business, it's way better to leave politics at the polls.
dudul 9y ago
That's really something that surprised me a lot after moving to the US. In my culture, politics is very much like religion, it is unthinkable to talk about it openly in a place of work.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  I think it depends on the office. When I worked in the South, but in a liberal area, you might talk about it with coworkers you trust, privately, but no one of any authority would get up and say anything. The 100+ person company I worked at during the last election, there were statements by the senior executives as well as emails. Yes, the office had people openly crying, or absent, and the mood was like a funeral but I also don't think it's the place for especially C-level people to make those type of statements even if 99% of the office felt the same way. There was also much hubbub around the (one) Women's March, solicitations, emails, etc. I'm happy for the women and men that marched for themselves but I wonder if they might've done some actual justice by asking the higher ups if internally women and men were being treated the same in terms of pay and opportunities, a conversation that I had with more than one female colleague in private.

hw 9y ago

It's almost impossible to have a company with the scale of Google to have good culture. Good perks and you get spoilt in that aspect for sure, but I doubt culture is an important aspect of any company's hiring practice once you get to Google's scale and needing to hire as many people as possible to grow. Where there's diversity, there's also diverse opinions and political leanings and personalities, which leads to conflict, misunderstanding, people trying to one-up the other, and it all leads to a toxic culture (unless you're the ones coming out on top). But hey, there's always therapy (aka the internal groups) to help you along. Cultures dies as a company grows to a certain size. Feels like the best way to combat that would be to have teams that are small within the company and operate independently and with autonomy, especially when it comes to hiring. That probably isn't realistic though within a large company. Am keen on what ideas people have or if they've had experience with something that works with regards to retaining a good culture.