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I'm really surprised that they don't avoid these sorts of political conflicts at work. It makes me really curious what the company culture is like

lallysingh 9y ago
The culture is senior year / early grad school for CS majors.
xienze 9y ago
It used to be the prevailing wisdom in corporate America that discussions about religion and politics have no place in the office. It can only lead to conflict and furthermore, WTF does it have to do with the task at hand? I mean, pretty obvious stuff, right? But somewhere along the way the inmates started running the asylum, so to speak, and political discourse and activism became an integral part of the work place (although I’d argue this is more of a Bay Area/startup phenomenon, you obviously see very little of this in stuffy corporate gigs). Who knows the exact underlying reason for this, but it is what it is. My understanding from the Damore case is that Google has internal message boards that discuss all sorts of political topics and things predictably get quite heated and has lead to people being blacklisted and fired. Nasty stuff, other companies should pay attention to what’s happening at Google.
- darepublic 9y ago
  But didn't Damore have to attend compulsory diversity classes, that solicited feedback from its attendees? So you are supposed to take your medicine and say it tastes wonderful eh.
  - gizmo686 9y ago
    Its wasn't exactly compulsory; but if you wanted to advance in the company you pretty much had to attend. Even this statement might be over stating it, as we here much more from the employees who feel like they have to attend (and might then complain about it), then the ones who don't and would have no reason to ever bring it up.
    - asfasgasg 9y ago
      > Its wasn't exactly compulsory; but if you wanted to advance in the company you pretty much had to attend. Even that seems unlikely. Certainly, managers have to be trained about compliance and inclusiveness, but was JD a manager? I guess not.
- zasz 9y ago
  I mean, if you work at a paperclip factory, sure, it doesn't matter, but if you work at Palantir, it certainly could. And if you work at Facebook? Right now, you'd better be thinking about the wider political context of your work.
- jlebar 9y ago
  It also used to be the prevailing practice in America that professionals were nearly exclusively male and not reflective of the broader racial makeup of the country. This still is the case in Google's industry. I claim that not talking about politics at work and having a predominately privileged workforce are closely related. Heterosexual etc. white men like myself have less that we need to talk about, less support we need to ask for from our company and coworkers on "political" topics.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  I would guess that a rich constellation of distinctive blends of political and social opinions populate the favored perspective list at various companies. Imagine which political views an employee might want to avoid voicing while on the job at companies like: * An oil refinery in Louisiana * An ice cream maker in Vermont * A defense contractor that makes unmanned aerial vehicles for the US Air Force in Southern California * A film studio in Atlanta * A slaughterhouse in East Texas
- disposable467 9y ago
  Google is a global company with employees from many, many different countries working in offices all over the world. Many different social norms. "Corporate America"'s prevailing wisdom can not be blanket applied to all these people in all these countries (both in a cultural "it ain't gonna work" sense but also legally things are different elsewhere too)
nice_byte 9y ago
It really depends on whether you choose to participate. If you don't waste time on email groups and intranet social media, very little of this sludge actually seeps into the day-to-day work, or at least that has been my experience.
- badlucklottery 9y ago
  Yup. It's there if you go looking for it but it's 100% invisible if you don't.
  - V-eHGsd_ 9y ago
    except when it makes it to the front page of hn.
    - amarkov 9y ago
      But isn't that the problem? When we see the news media blasting articles about internal disputes most Googlers hadn't heard of, that could mean the internal culture is secretly toxic and the employees are too brainwashed to notice. Or it could mean that people are selectively leaking a misleading picture of the company.
      - V-eHGsd_ 9y ago
        Google has 80k employees. If just 10k employees have heard of some kerfuffle before it winds up on tech crunch, that's still a _lot_ of people. But maybe the specifics of some individual disputes aren't widely known as the events are unfolding; still, lots of the stuff described did get wider airtime internally before being 'leaked'.
- disposable467 9y ago
  +1 to this. I've been there 6 years and it has had essentially zero impact on me. I usually only find out about it when people are making fun of it on memegen.
rifung 9y ago
I work at Google. For a company of this size, the culture is extremely dependent on your specific team/org. I think I probably hear more about politics at Google from HN than from actually working at Google.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  Exactly. Google has become the demon for the right suspect partially because the Clinton's are gone. In the US you rarely even know who the gal in the cube next to you voted for.

lallysingh 9y ago

The culture is senior year / early grad school for CS majors.

xienze 9y ago

It used to be the prevailing wisdom in corporate America that discussions about religion and politics have no place in the office. It can only lead to conflict and furthermore, WTF does it have to do with the task at hand? I mean, pretty obvious stuff, right? But somewhere along the way the inmates started running the asylum, so to speak, and political discourse and activism became an integral part of the work place (although I’d argue this is more of a Bay Area/startup phenomenon, you obviously see very little of this in stuffy corporate gigs). Who knows the exact underlying reason for this, but it is what it is. My understanding from the Damore case is that Google has internal message boards that discuss all sorts of political topics and things predictably get quite heated and has lead to people being blacklisted and fired. Nasty stuff, other companies should pay attention to what’s happening at Google.

darepublic 9y ago
But didn't Damore have to attend compulsory diversity classes, that solicited feedback from its attendees? So you are supposed to take your medicine and say it tastes wonderful eh.
- gizmo686 9y ago
  Its wasn't exactly compulsory; but if you wanted to advance in the company you pretty much had to attend. Even this statement might be over stating it, as we here much more from the employees who feel like they have to attend (and might then complain about it), then the ones who don't and would have no reason to ever bring it up.
  - asfasgasg 9y ago
    > Its wasn't exactly compulsory; but if you wanted to advance in the company you pretty much had to attend. Even that seems unlikely. Certainly, managers have to be trained about compliance and inclusiveness, but was JD a manager? I guess not.
zasz 9y ago
I mean, if you work at a paperclip factory, sure, it doesn't matter, but if you work at Palantir, it certainly could. And if you work at Facebook? Right now, you'd better be thinking about the wider political context of your work.
jlebar 9y ago
It also used to be the prevailing practice in America that professionals were nearly exclusively male and not reflective of the broader racial makeup of the country. This still is the case in Google's industry. I claim that not talking about politics at work and having a predominately privileged workforce are closely related. Heterosexual etc. white men like myself have less that we need to talk about, less support we need to ask for from our company and coworkers on "political" topics.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
HillaryBriss 9y ago
I would guess that a rich constellation of distinctive blends of political and social opinions populate the favored perspective list at various companies. Imagine which political views an employee might want to avoid voicing while on the job at companies like: * An oil refinery in Louisiana * An ice cream maker in Vermont * A defense contractor that makes unmanned aerial vehicles for the US Air Force in Southern California * A film studio in Atlanta * A slaughterhouse in East Texas
disposable467 9y ago
Google is a global company with employees from many, many different countries working in offices all over the world. Many different social norms. "Corporate America"'s prevailing wisdom can not be blanket applied to all these people in all these countries (both in a cultural "it ain't gonna work" sense but also legally things are different elsewhere too)

nice_byte 9y ago

It really depends on whether you choose to participate. If you don't waste time on email groups and intranet social media, very little of this sludge actually seeps into the day-to-day work, or at least that has been my experience.

badlucklottery 9y ago
Yup. It's there if you go looking for it but it's 100% invisible if you don't.
- V-eHGsd_ 9y ago
  except when it makes it to the front page of hn.
  - amarkov 9y ago
    But isn't that the problem? When we see the news media blasting articles about internal disputes most Googlers hadn't heard of, that could mean the internal culture is secretly toxic and the employees are too brainwashed to notice. Or it could mean that people are selectively leaking a misleading picture of the company.
    - V-eHGsd_ 9y ago
      Google has 80k employees. If just 10k employees have heard of some kerfuffle before it winds up on tech crunch, that's still a _lot_ of people. But maybe the specifics of some individual disputes aren't widely known as the events are unfolding; still, lots of the stuff described did get wider airtime internally before being 'leaked'.
disposable467 9y ago
+1 to this. I've been there 6 years and it has had essentially zero impact on me. I usually only find out about it when people are making fun of it on memegen.

rifung 9y ago

I work at Google. For a company of this size, the culture is extremely dependent on your specific team/org. I think I probably hear more about politics at Google from HN than from actually working at Google.

jacksmith21006 9y ago
Exactly. Google has become the demon for the right suspect partially because the Clinton's are gone. In the US you rarely even know who the gal in the cube next to you voted for.