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It seems that the protesters believe that Google erred too much in favor of Andy Rubin (and other protected execs). A protest makes these concerns known to Goog

by danso 8y ago

It seems that the protesters believe that Google erred too much in favor of Andy Rubin (and other protected execs). A protest makes these concerns known to Google -- and just as importantly, to the public -- and ostensibly reduces the chances that Google will have a different mindset when a similar situation arises in the future. In any case, the article describes this particular walkout as part of an ongoing/emerging movement: > Employees participating in this movement for increased transparency and ethics within Google have presented management with petitions, made demands for greater employee oversight into product decisions made by management, and even quit their jobs in protest of Google’s decisions. Increasingly, employees have been signing their names to a spreadsheet, refusing to participate in screening interviews for potential new hires at Google as a form of protest.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Increasingly, employees have been signing their names to a spreadsheet, refusing to participate in screening interviews for potential new hires at Google as a form of protest. That last seems particularly counterproductive.
- munchbunny 8y ago
  How so? In general protests involve some amount of inflicting inconvenience or pain. Google is short on interviewer bandwidth, so bottlenecking it more is certainly a way to get management to feel the pain.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    It's protesting culture by forgoing an opportunity to shape it. I do see your point it this is a real resource constraint, but though.
    - munchbunny 8y ago
      Do you mean forgoing an opportunity to shape it through choosing who gets hired? Google's process is engineered in such a way that individuals will not be able to individually skew cultural selection for new hires, so I don't think they would even see hiring as such an opportunity. Or were you talking about the more classic issue of whether it's more effective to be an insider vs. an outsider to affect change?
- danso 8y ago
  I think the general reasoning behind that type of protest is to weaken the legitimacy of the function (screening interviews) by refusing to either help perform or tacitly endorse it.
roenxi 8y ago
That paragraph you quote from the article is extremely vague though, is that what the protesters have actually said? 'Greater employee oversight into product decisions' is particularly .. what is that? The employees have veto power by majority vote? An individual employee can delay the project for a 3 month review? The project team chooses their own manager? If they want a measurable change they need an articulation of what that change is that a corporate structure can handle. The boys and girls of Google are usually pretty clever, they 'll have figured that out. I don't like their chances either way, management will persist in making management decisions even if they need to fire people to do so, but having a walk out to raise awareness would be silly. Google has internal message boards and isn't that big a company - they can talk to people directly.
- geofft 8y ago
  > I don't like their chances either way, management will persist in making management decisions even if they need to fire people to do so I'm not sure this is true - Google's legendarily high salaries and retention incentives are high because management has high demand for good people and specifically for people who have been at the company for a while. They might fire people, yes, but they won't do so casually. They might give in to the protesters out of rational self-interest. So I think the protestors' chances are better with this approach than with politely trying to change management's mind by debate. (I also suspect that there are plenty of other Rubins in management, and rational debate that Google was too nice to Rubin is not ever going to be convincing to other rich abusers.)
  - roenxi 8y ago
    Anything is possible. But there is a world of difference between an employee getting a lot of compensation and an employee who won't work on something the company thinks is important. This could be an existential challenge to the company's owners being in control. The reason employees don't get % share of the profits is literally because they don't control what the company does. If employees seriously can control what the company does, like turning down military projects for moral reasons or circumstances around making hiring/firing decisions, they become something like shareholders and the question becomes why aren't they exposed to the financial implications of their decisions in the same way shareholders are. Ie, why are they being paid a wage if not to have their decisions subsumed by a management structure?

by danso 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Increasingly, employees have been signing their names to a spreadsheet, refusing to participate in screening interviews for potential new hires at Google as a form of protest. That last seems particularly counterproductive.

munchbunny 8y ago
How so? In general protests involve some amount of inflicting inconvenience or pain. Google is short on interviewer bandwidth, so bottlenecking it more is certainly a way to get management to feel the pain.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  It's protesting culture by forgoing an opportunity to shape it. I do see your point it this is a real resource constraint, but though.
  - munchbunny 8y ago
    Do you mean forgoing an opportunity to shape it through choosing who gets hired? Google's process is engineered in such a way that individuals will not be able to individually skew cultural selection for new hires, so I don't think they would even see hiring as such an opportunity. Or were you talking about the more classic issue of whether it's more effective to be an insider vs. an outsider to affect change?
danso 8y ago
I think the general reasoning behind that type of protest is to weaken the legitimacy of the function (screening interviews) by refusing to either help perform or tacitly endorse it.

roenxi 8y ago

That paragraph you quote from the article is extremely vague though, is that what the protesters have actually said? 'Greater employee oversight into product decisions' is particularly .. what is that? The employees have veto power by majority vote? An individual employee can delay the project for a 3 month review? The project team chooses their own manager? If they want a measurable change they need an articulation of what that change is that a corporate structure can handle. The boys and girls of Google are usually pretty clever, they 'll have figured that out. I don't like their chances either way, management will persist in making management decisions even if they need to fire people to do so, but having a walk out to raise awareness would be silly. Google has internal message boards and isn't that big a company - they can talk to people directly.

geofft 8y ago
> I don't like their chances either way, management will persist in making management decisions even if they need to fire people to do so I'm not sure this is true - Google's legendarily high salaries and retention incentives are high because management has high demand for good people and specifically for people who have been at the company for a while. They might fire people, yes, but they won't do so casually. They might give in to the protesters out of rational self-interest. So I think the protestors' chances are better with this approach than with politely trying to change management's mind by debate. (I also suspect that there are plenty of other Rubins in management, and rational debate that Google was too nice to Rubin is not ever going to be convincing to other rich abusers.)
- roenxi 8y ago
  Anything is possible. But there is a world of difference between an employee getting a lot of compensation and an employee who won't work on something the company thinks is important. This could be an existential challenge to the company's owners being in control. The reason employees don't get % share of the profits is literally because they don't control what the company does. If employees seriously can control what the company does, like turning down military projects for moral reasons or circumstances around making hiring/firing decisions, they become something like shareholders and the question becomes why aren't they exposed to the financial implications of their decisions in the same way shareholders are. Ie, why are they being paid a wage if not to have their decisions subsumed by a management structure?