5 ms·
From the story on Andy Rubin, > In Silicon Valley, it is widely known that Mr. Page had dated Marissa Mayer, one of the company’s first engineers who later bec
by econner 8y ago
From the story on Andy Rubin,
> In Silicon Valley, it is widely known that Mr. Page had dated Marissa Mayer, one of the company’s first engineers who later became chief executive of Yahoo. (Both were single.) Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive, once retained a mistress to work as a company consultant, according to four people with knowledge of the relationship. And Mr. Brin, who along with Mr. Page owns the majority of voting shares in Google’s parent, Alphabet, had a consensual extramarital affair with an employee in 2014, said three employees with knowledge of the relationship.
> David C. Drummond, who joined as general counsel in 2002, had an extramarital relationship with Jennifer Blakely, a senior contract manager in the legal department who reported to one of his deputies, she and other Google employees said. They began dating in 2004, discussed having children and had a son in 2007, after which Mr. Drummond disclosed their relationship to the company, she said.
I was once talking to a retired guy who told me starting companies is hard because "your employees won't stop having sex with each other and your customers are never satisfied." Seems to be true for not only the employees, but also the founders of these companies and, if that weren't enough, it often strays into sexual harassment. It is good that Google is apparently taking a harder line on this, but they should've done more sooner.
- everdev 8y ago> your employees won't stop having sex with each other Haven't there been studies indicating that our environment and physical proximity to a person greatly factors into our sexual attraction? It is a little paradoxical that companies try to bring everyone together after work for fun and bonding but then discourage workplace relationships. Many lasting relationships I know of share some type of polarity or power dynamic, so it's not too surprising how the recipe is there for consensual intimacy. Harassment, goes without saying, but even consensual relationships with business power dynamics can be a legal and ethical disaster for the parties involved and the business. Might be a good case for remote workforces.
- Uhhrrr 8y agoEmployees having sex with each other sounds like a case against remote workforces to me.
- osrec 8y agoWhy so? If people are physically further away from each other, I would say the probability of romantic relationships forming is less.
- simonsarris 8y agoI think the parent is implying that, given how hard it is to stop employees from having sex with each other, it seems that employees want to have sex with each other, so remote work is in this sense a downside.
- osrec 8y agoAh, so it's more of a downside from the perspective of the employee, not the employer (which was the perspective of the original quote).
- munk-a 8y agoI agree with that assessment, which I think is a pretty toxic view to have. Everyone is going to work to do work, get paid and go home. Two coworkers might be open to a relationship, but if someone is walking in with the assumption that work is a good way to find a partner then their presence is just going to degrade the working environment for everyone else. (And yes we're all just human and such and such but we've got social contracts around maintaining a decorum so what you feel doesn't have to be openly expressed)
- rhacker 8y agoI don't know if that's so much a "view" that people carry and are like - who can I have sex with today? I think it's more like, damn life is lonely and I have a hard time finding a partner. I'm not in school anymore and I don't meet anyone else.
- thadjo 8y agoSundar's letter unsatisfactory here. Isn't the real scandal that the company weighed the risk of terminating Rubin without compensation and decided not to. If I were a Google employee I'd be wondering when it will be expedient for Google to do the right thing in cases of gross misconduct, and when they'll take a calculated risk like they did here. I'm guessing the 13 execs sacked probably didn't have ~$100m compensation packages at stake. https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1055539381958668288 https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1055539381958668288
- panarky 8y ago> your employees won't stop having sex with each other This is normal, legal and by itself it is not harassment. I hope that never changes.
- munk-a 8y agoIt is very difficult for relationships in a workplace to not involve some sort of power differential. I'm speaking specifically of your working group so if the context is a programmer dating a researcher in a 20k employee company the tie between you might be so distant to basically be irrelevant, but in most other cases a soured relationship can always cause problems to employees and employers.
- sidlls 8y agoIt's normal for a small fraction to have sexual relationships with each other, not for enough of them to be doing so to make it surface as a problem in starting a company.
- simonsarris 8y ago> your employees won't stop having sex with each other The Onion covered this of course, curiously using Mountain View in their story: https://www.theonion.com/waitstaff-tired-of-sleeping-with-each-other-1819567701 https://www.theonion.com/waitstaff-tired-of-sleeping-with-ea...