5 ms·

Realize Meredith and her crew are a minority of employees. We are talking < 10% of employees shared all her views. Majority of googlers wanted maven. They want

Realize Meredith and her crew are a minority of employees. We are talking < 10% of employees shared all her views. Majority of googlers wanted maven. They wanted search in China. Biggest change to culture is people getting tired of SJW outrage. And a focus back on our users and business

ulfw 7y ago
The majority wanted Project Maven and search in China?
- icxa 7y ago
  Rephrased slightly differently: The majority want opportunities that will advance their careers, increase their stock values, and keep the company doing well (which usually means bigger bonuses)
  - coliveira 7y ago
    Rephrasing even more: there is a number of rats that are capable of doing anything to advance their careers and to make more money. When a few people appear that value their conscience more than money, these rats will fight them.
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines? They ask you not to take HN threads further into flamewar and not to call ante-upping names like "rats". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
spamizbad 7y ago
"Helping the Chinese to own the libs" is a new one for me.
geofft 7y ago
> Majority of googlers wanted maven. They wanted search in China. Genuinely curious about this - was there a poll or something?
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> Majority of googlers wanted maven. They wanted search in China. Source, please.
- cobookman 7y ago
  https://www.teamblind.com/blog/index.php/2018/08/16/65-percent-of-google-employees-are-in-favor-of-censored-search/ https://www.teamblind.com/blog/index.php/2018/08/16/65-perce...
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    Self-selected (those who choose to answer the poll in their app) sample (7k of 100k) of the population.
    - fourthark 7y ago
      More so: 7k replied, 64% against the censored search engine. Of those 7k a smaller number were Google employees (it does not say the number) and among them 65% approved of censored search.
      - cobookman 7y ago
        The 64% against includes entire blind community. Of those working at Google who replied it was majority for it. Put another way, even though the macro blind community was against. Googlers in said group were for it. Showing googlers are more likely to be for than against
        fourthark 7y ago
        As the GGP said, it's a small sample, and self selected. You could be right, but this evidence is not conclusive.
quotemstr 7y ago
The trouble is that Google's internal culture war did tremendous damage to the company's norms, especially after both sides developed rhetorical "nukes" like targeted press leaks. Now, in many places, where there was one fascinating discussion, one sees only find a few remaining lonely activists talking with each other and the void. There's a certain hypersensitivity to perceived offense. Large areas of the company are now in information silos. Live questions at TGIF no longer happen. Internal social media is no longer funny or interesting. Ever discuso forum of meaningful size is getting "community standards moderation". Yes, it looks like the activists are slowly and steadily losing the war. I wish they'd admit defeat. At this point, they're prolonging the inevitable. But still, they're going to lose, one exercise of soft power at a time. But what's left behin? A waste. Silence. A desert where nothing grows. It's unfortunate. It's sad. But it had to be done.
- metildaa 7y ago
  It hardly "had to be done", and in this process that you've claimed had to be done, many of the best and brightest have escaped the large adtech behemoth. The organization is a husk of itself, unable to maintain services for more than a few dozen months, with a disinterest in improving anything that doesn't make PR headlines (eg: Google Fi RMAs, IPv6 support inside GCP, worsening search results, etc). Eventually this will cause Google to join AOL & Yahoo, though Android & Search should provide sizable staying power.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    You may be right about the husk-ness. Sometimes companies can recover from this kind of cultural damage --- look at Microsoft's renaissance. But this kind of damage frequently causes talent flight and a death spiral. I still think it had to be done. The activists wanted to turn the company into a tool for advancing a fringe political agenda, even if unprofitable No leadership group can or should tolerate that kind of hijacking. It'd have been better for this culture war not to have started at all. But once the activists started it, it became an existential imperative for Google to finish it --- which it did.

ulfw 7y ago

The majority wanted Project Maven and search in China?

icxa 7y ago
Rephrased slightly differently: The majority want opportunities that will advance their careers, increase their stock values, and keep the company doing well (which usually means bigger bonuses)
- coliveira 7y ago
  Rephrasing even more: there is a number of rats that are capable of doing anything to advance their careers and to make more money. When a few people appear that value their conscience more than money, these rats will fight them.
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines? They ask you not to take HN threads further into flamewar and not to call ante-upping names like "rats". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

spamizbad 7y ago

"Helping the Chinese to own the libs" is a new one for me.

geofft 7y ago

> Majority of googlers wanted maven. They wanted search in China. Genuinely curious about this - was there a poll or something?

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

> Majority of googlers wanted maven. They wanted search in China. Source, please.

cobookman 7y ago
https://www.teamblind.com/blog/index.php/2018/08/16/65-percent-of-google-employees-are-in-favor-of-censored-search/ https://www.teamblind.com/blog/index.php/2018/08/16/65-perce...
- lallysingh 7y ago
  Self-selected (those who choose to answer the poll in their app) sample (7k of 100k) of the population.
  - fourthark 7y ago
    More so: 7k replied, 64% against the censored search engine. Of those 7k a smaller number were Google employees (it does not say the number) and among them 65% approved of censored search.
    - cobookman 7y ago
      The 64% against includes entire blind community. Of those working at Google who replied it was majority for it. Put another way, even though the macro blind community was against. Googlers in said group were for it. Showing googlers are more likely to be for than against
      - fourthark 7y ago
        As the GGP said, it's a small sample, and self selected. You could be right, but this evidence is not conclusive.

quotemstr 7y ago

The trouble is that Google's internal culture war did tremendous damage to the company's norms, especially after both sides developed rhetorical "nukes" like targeted press leaks. Now, in many places, where there was one fascinating discussion, one sees only find a few remaining lonely activists talking with each other and the void. There's a certain hypersensitivity to perceived offense. Large areas of the company are now in information silos. Live questions at TGIF no longer happen. Internal social media is no longer funny or interesting. Ever discuso forum of meaningful size is getting "community standards moderation". Yes, it looks like the activists are slowly and steadily losing the war. I wish they'd admit defeat. At this point, they're prolonging the inevitable. But still, they're going to lose, one exercise of soft power at a time. But what's left behin? A waste. Silence. A desert where nothing grows. It's unfortunate. It's sad. But it had to be done.

metildaa 7y ago
It hardly "had to be done", and in this process that you've claimed had to be done, many of the best and brightest have escaped the large adtech behemoth. The organization is a husk of itself, unable to maintain services for more than a few dozen months, with a disinterest in improving anything that doesn't make PR headlines (eg: Google Fi RMAs, IPv6 support inside GCP, worsening search results, etc). Eventually this will cause Google to join AOL & Yahoo, though Android & Search should provide sizable staying power.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  You may be right about the husk-ness. Sometimes companies can recover from this kind of cultural damage --- look at Microsoft's renaissance. But this kind of damage frequently causes talent flight and a death spiral. I still think it had to be done. The activists wanted to turn the company into a tool for advancing a fringe political agenda, even if unprofitable No leadership group can or should tolerate that kind of hijacking. It'd have been better for this culture war not to have started at all. But once the activists started it, it became an existential imperative for Google to finish it --- which it did.