6 ms·

Google CEO Sundar Pichai warns employees: Don't get too political

17 points by mike22223333 8y ago

w_t_payne 8y ago
If a Google employee changes the search algorithm without the knowledge of his manager, how would we ever know?
- bertil 8y ago
  I don’t think that you can do that without attracting the attention of other programmers: - You have to ask for a review. - Even if you find a like-minded programmer, most key parts of the code are flagged by senior programmers who get alerted where there is a significant change. - Assuming this goes through, any significant change in which websites get listed, clicked on, etc. will be flagged by an anomaly-detection tool. Changing anything impactful requires to pass through a lot of internal radars, certainly far more sensitive, informed and exhaustive than anything external.
  - w_t_payne 8y ago
    Do you think that this is enough to convince a hostile sceptic?
- grigjd3 8y ago
  The commit log in the repo.
- pipingdog 8y ago
  I don't work for Google, but in my shop, my code has to have 2 ship-its or I can't even get it into the build stage of the pipeline.
emayljames 8y ago
It seems to be okay for google to get political, lobbying politicians and writing them cheques in the premise of getting backhand favours.
- ttonkytonk 8y ago
  .. Which is accepted practice for companies in general. But why?
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Because the Supreme Court decided that the legal fiction that corporations are people extends giving them free speech rights. Tellingly, money counts as speech in America.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    Would they qualify for freedom of the press if they renamed themselves to The Google Times?
prolikewh0a 8y ago
Google is showing the hands of private government. How authoritarian will Americans let their employers become?
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. This gives employers the ability to be as authoritarian as they want, more or less. Toe the line or be out of a job (and lose health insurance, possibly risk homelessness, etc.) is a powerful coercive mechanism. In many states, people can be fired for political activity outside of work.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    > Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. Yeah, but probably not all those Googlers that feel like they need to be both activists and work in Silicon Valley.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    Chomsky points this out in this [1] interview. >Incidentally, there’s an interesting book that just came out finally, says some of the obvious things about this, by a woman named Elizabeth Anderson. She’s a philosopher and an economist. It’s called Private Government or some name like that, but her point is that, which is a major point, yes, there is a government, but governments can be repressive. But most of our lives are under private government, which she says are indistinguishable from communist dictatorships. >Any business, for example. If you subject yourself to it, you become essentially a slave of the institution with no rights, give away your liberty, and so on. >....And when the Industrial Revolution came along, everything changed. You could only survive by being subordinate to a major corporate structure, and wage labor became the norm. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam...
    - pmiller2 8y ago
      Specifically, the concept of being so beholden to an employer as to be essentially forced to obey their (nearly) every whim is called “wage slavery”[0]. While it’s not nearly as bad as the days of the “company town,” [1], when workers could be paid in company scrip good only at company stores[2], while renting company living quarters, more people are wage slaves today than will admit it, and they get angry when you suggest they are! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
avmich 8y ago
> "The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. If any Googler ever undermines that trust, we will hold them accountable." I'd always assume the server farm to handle my search request would be stateless. Whom in Google should Sundar hold accountable if that's not the case?
grigjd3 8y ago
So this article is being blown out of proportion. Pichai's letter is just saying that Google employees should act in a professional manner, not that they shouldn't have political views or be involved in politics.
sunstone 8y ago
Finger wagging Google's super smart employees is unlikely to work out well.

17 points by mike22223333 8y ago

w_t_payne 8y ago

If a Google employee changes the search algorithm without the knowledge of his manager, how would we ever know?

bertil 8y ago
I don’t think that you can do that without attracting the attention of other programmers: - You have to ask for a review. - Even if you find a like-minded programmer, most key parts of the code are flagged by senior programmers who get alerted where there is a significant change. - Assuming this goes through, any significant change in which websites get listed, clicked on, etc. will be flagged by an anomaly-detection tool. Changing anything impactful requires to pass through a lot of internal radars, certainly far more sensitive, informed and exhaustive than anything external.
- w_t_payne 8y ago
  Do you think that this is enough to convince a hostile sceptic?
grigjd3 8y ago
The commit log in the repo.
pipingdog 8y ago
I don't work for Google, but in my shop, my code has to have 2 ship-its or I can't even get it into the build stage of the pipeline.

emayljames 8y ago

It seems to be okay for google to get political, lobbying politicians and writing them cheques in the premise of getting backhand favours.

ttonkytonk 8y ago
.. Which is accepted practice for companies in general. But why?
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Because the Supreme Court decided that the legal fiction that corporations are people extends giving them free speech rights. Tellingly, money counts as speech in America.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  Would they qualify for freedom of the press if they renamed themselves to The Google Times?

prolikewh0a 8y ago

Google is showing the hands of private government. How authoritarian will Americans let their employers become?

pmiller2 8y ago
Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. This gives employers the ability to be as authoritarian as they want, more or less. Toe the line or be out of a job (and lose health insurance, possibly risk homelessness, etc.) is a powerful coercive mechanism. In many states, people can be fired for political activity outside of work.
- zeroname 8y ago
  > Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. Yeah, but probably not all those Googlers that feel like they need to be both activists and work in Silicon Valley.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Chomsky points this out in this [1] interview. >Incidentally, there’s an interesting book that just came out finally, says some of the obvious things about this, by a woman named Elizabeth Anderson. She’s a philosopher and an economist. It’s called Private Government or some name like that, but her point is that, which is a major point, yes, there is a government, but governments can be repressive. But most of our lives are under private government, which she says are indistinguishable from communist dictatorships. >Any business, for example. If you subject yourself to it, you become essentially a slave of the institution with no rights, give away your liberty, and so on. >....And when the Industrial Revolution came along, everything changed. You could only survive by being subordinate to a major corporate structure, and wage labor became the norm. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam...
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Specifically, the concept of being so beholden to an employer as to be essentially forced to obey their (nearly) every whim is called “wage slavery”[0]. While it’s not nearly as bad as the days of the “company town,” [1], when workers could be paid in company scrip good only at company stores[2], while renting company living quarters, more people are wage slaves today than will admit it, and they get angry when you suggest they are! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store

avmich 8y ago

> "The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. If any Googler ever undermines that trust, we will hold them accountable." I'd always assume the server farm to handle my search request would be stateless. Whom in Google should Sundar hold accountable if that's not the case?

grigjd3 8y ago

So this article is being blown out of proportion. Pichai's letter is just saying that Google employees should act in a professional manner, not that they shouldn't have political views or be involved in politics.

sunstone 8y ago

Finger wagging Google's super smart employees is unlikely to work out well.