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I don't really understand why it's surprising to anyone that they would face "internal retaliation" after exposing their employer as evil and boycott worthy to

I don't really understand why it's surprising to anyone that they would face "internal retaliation" after exposing their employer as evil and boycott worthy to the entire world. By publicizing it to the degree that they did and attaching their name to it, they were putting their interests over the company. If my company started doing business practices that I didn't approve of, I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize. I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them.

Jasper_ 7y ago
It sounds like she did step 1 (try to change from the inside, first privately, then through employee protest), and now she's doing step 2 in your program. What would you do differently?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- charliesharding 7y ago
  I wouldn't have led highly publicized protests against a company that I was accepting paychecks from
  - darkwater 7y ago
    So if the company were you are working at, treats you badly, you would resign over going on strike to force a change and then stay at the company, for example?
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      I would (and have). Trying to change the company hurts you and helps the company (that was treating you bad). Just leave. Save your energy, don't put any information public that will make you look like a bad employee and find a better job. The best revenge is living well.
- awakeasleep 7y ago
  Most people would keep taking the check while convincing themselves they're not responsible. When the somewhat immoral nature of that intrudes on people's thoughts, they can sort of silence it by finding fault with the person who IS following their conscience.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  Nothing. But more or less https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3fD5YyN3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3fD5YyN3g She lost, so she's moving to the next company with an * to her name no doubt.
KirinDave 7y ago
It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising. > I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a different mission and sometimes the leadership forgets it, and needs to be reminded.
- kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  What laws? Source for that please.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    Are you perhaps forgetting that this person was involved in organizing the women's march? Do I actually need to find a source for US law suggesting that retaliation against women reporting sexism is in fact illegal? This is basic compliance training for any US employment, and the EU has similar laws. Where do you live and work that you don't know this?
    - quibbler 7y ago
      Organizing the women's march is like reporting sexism? I don't think so.
      - KirinDave 7y ago
        Women can organize to protest sexist conditions. That's a protected activity in the US.
        quibbler 7y ago
        So just participate in a woman's march, and you can never be fired anymore? That seems unlikely, and if true, very misguided.
peteey 7y ago
I believe the strong term "evil" is only used because Google's motto is "don't be evil". Not everyone has the freedom to instantly change jobs. The world might be a better place if employees had the right to whistle blow without being threatened with homelessness or fleeing to Russia. Unions striking and protesting against their companies for better wages seems acceptable. Why is protesting for ethical reasons without quitting faux pas?
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Didn't they drop that motto like 3 years ago?
  - iamtheworstdev 7y ago
    I'd argue they quit practicing it when they IPOd, but technically the removal of the phrase from their Code of Conduct was more recent. https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
  - mondoshawan 7y ago
    Yes, but the beliefs of the folks that have been at Google for 5+ years hasn't changed. Source: been at google since 2006.
    - andrewprock 7y ago
      Something changed. Defense contracting is certainly something that many might characterize as "be evil".
      - sgift 7y ago
        And many as necessary to defend the way of life people enjoy in USA and comparable countries. Defense work = bad is not a universal position.
- KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago
gizmo686 7y ago
Large coorporations look a lot like governments. Normally, I bring this up from the perspective of regulations (eg. we should be willing to restrict the power of large private actors in the same ways we restrict the power of governments). However, I think it is applicable here too. If you don't like something the US government is doing, you generally aren't going to leave. You are either going to ignore it, or try to change it. Even if your employer is the Federal government, few people would expect you to quit. If your problem is with the exact portion of the government where you are working, then some might expect you to quit but few would bat an eye if your next job happened to also be with the federal government. What is happening here is akin to being forced out of government work for critizing the government; and we do not accept that behaviour.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Google is (thank god) not the government and this analogy is bogus.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  One issue is that while internal behaviors may mirror the situation isn't that comparable. Starting a new government in competition with your own another's borders is generally known sedition. Governments are defined by their monopoly on the use of force. Not so for even large corporations.
snvzz 7y ago
This should be obvious to anyone, but people are for some reason having trouble understanding it. It's completely expected for a company to get rid of individuals on the payroll who are badmouthing the company they work for. Why would anyone willfully employ people to work against the company's interest?
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  Retaliating against whistleblowers is illegal. Therefore, I strongly advise you stop treating it as “obvious” and “expected”.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Explaining it and condoning it aren't the same thing.
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      Explaining it is an uninteresting answer to an unasked question. The reason whistleblowers *(edit: or protestors) are protected is because everybody already understands why. Justifying it interesting. It's obvious why you would fire someone for trying to start a union, or for turning down your sexual advances.
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    Are they whistleblowers? Or simply protesters? I'm honestly not sure where the line is.
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    Is really illegal? I think, at least in the US, you will be surprised by the answer if you look into what legal protections are available whistleblowers at private employers.
  - DannyBee 7y ago
    So, just to point out - the person is talking about badmouthing, you are talking about whistleblowing. These are not the same thing at all. In the US, talking about improving working conditions is also protected, but it's also not whistleblowing, either. As a lawyer, i can tell you a lot of people badly misunderstand what "protected concerted activity" covers. It is not about your individual complaints. Explicitly not. See, e.g., https://www.employerlaborrelations.com/2019/04/30/nlrb-publishes-advice-memo-finding-that-company-maintained-unlawfully-overbroad-work-rules-but-did-not-violate-nlra-by-discharging-employee-for-facebook-video-or-filing-defamation-suit-against-two-for/ https://www.employerlaborrelations.com/2019/04/30/nlrb-publi... "Charging Party 2 posted a 23-minute live video on Facebook during work hours and while in uniform talking about the discipline for wearing improper shoes and the confidentiality provision in the disciplinary notice, referencing the wage-and-hour lawsuits, making crude and disparaging jokes and comments about a supervisor, and stating that by asking Charging Party 2 to sign something interfering with free speech, the conduct of the company’s officials was “against the United States Constitution and you need to be shot on sight.” As far as i can discern, hacker news would consider this protected because it complains, somewhere, about their working condition, and was in fact done as a direct response to being disciplined. However, NLRB says "The Division of Advice found that although Charging Party 2 referred to subjects in the video that could have been relevant to employees’ mutual aid or protection, the comments were entirely individual complaints and there was no indication that Charging Party 2 was speaking for other employees or seeking to act in concert with others. ... " (They found it okay to fire this person) In fact, the company had filed defamation lawsuits against the charging parties over the facebook videos, and the NLRB found that was okay too, because they weren't for protected activity.
lm28469 7y ago
Yep, and doing the "right thing" doesn't mean everyone will be cool with it (Snowden &c.), especially in highly hierarchical institutions like google. You don't get to light a dumpster fire in your own office without inhaling some of the smoke. At that scale any move outside of what you're allowed to think/do is a workplace suicide. I wouldn't be surprised if these people end up in other renowned tech companies though, google is losing on all fronts.
hacknat 7y ago
> I don't really understand why it's surprising I don't think anyone is that surprised, but that doesn't mean that it's right. > I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize. I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Good for you, but they decided to do something else. I don't think they were denouncing Google as heartily as you seem to suggest. They obviously had hope that they could change things. We're also talking about old veterans of the company. How do you know that they didn't do everything that they could internally before escalating things publicly?
303space 7y ago
I think it’s actually a very savvy strategy to protest from within. It’s too easy for Google to shrug off or ignore public criticism. They’ve done this for decades with virtually no repercussions because they hold a monopoly on their core business - very few people are going to ‘delete Google’ no matter how much you disagree with their policies. They do not have a monopoly on talent and they are actually fearful of being no longer seen as the #1 workplace option for top candidates. Protesting as a Google employee gives you much more leverage than an outsider will ever have (unless you have the $$ to buy off a handful of senators).
- wmeredith 7y ago
  It certainly helps that they've protected themselves from the ability to "delete Google" with an embrace, extend (or buy), extinguish[0] strategy when it comes to the technologies at the core of the modern web. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- kortilla 7y ago
  What? Protesting from within perfectly sends the signal that it’s still the best place to work despite egregious offenses.
  - CodeMage 7y ago
    Why must that -- and nothing else -- be the signal they're sending? People have a variety of motivations. For example, I left my country 20 years ago because I wanted a better future and I had no desire nor conviction to stay and try to make that future happen there. Of those who stayed, most had no other choice. However, there's a non-negligible number of people who stayed despite having opportunities to leave, precisely because they are willing to fight to make things better.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Moving in general is difficult, but leaving a country and permanently moving to another one is infinitely more difficult than finding another job for someone who works at Google.
BonesJustice 7y ago
> I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. I do not understand why it should be preferable to say "oh well, nothing to be done, time to quit" rather than be a force for change. The former is easy, but it does little to correct systemic problems that affect many of your peers. Also, you make "accept paychecks" sound like you're accepting some sort of favor. Paychecks are not charity; they are compensation. You produce something of value, and you receive something of value in return.
- gfo 7y ago
  You can influence change from the outside. And in tech where talent acquisition is a fierce game, employees leaving due to ethics would be the greatest show of force.
  - marktani 7y ago
    You don't have to leave to influence, being on the inside often gives you better access, knowledge and opportunity to influence change.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
The question how surprising something is is useless. Ask what makes a good person, not what makes a person a good predictor of the human potential to be rotten. > If my company started doing business practices that I didn't approve of, I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize Or maybe you'd stay, and maybe you'd retaliate against whistleblowers. There is no way to know, it's moot speculation. What we do know is that if the people who retaliated against the whistleblower had acted like you say you would have acted, they wouldn't have been around to retaliate.
bougalou 7y ago
The things is, those paychecks are very large. A Program Manager (Meredith's role) averages about $125k/year, and one with Meredith's tenure might make as much as double with stock and bonus. Google has been paying her salary the last two years even though most of her work is at AI Now. Going forward as an NYU employee, as a university researcher without an advanced degree, she will be lucky to clear $60k/year. In New York. Doing the exact same work she has been doing for the last two years

Jasper_ 7y ago

It sounds like she did step 1 (try to change from the inside, first privately, then through employee protest), and now she's doing step 2 in your program. What would you do differently?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
charliesharding 7y ago
I wouldn't have led highly publicized protests against a company that I was accepting paychecks from
- darkwater 7y ago
  So if the company were you are working at, treats you badly, you would resign over going on strike to force a change and then stay at the company, for example?
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    I would (and have). Trying to change the company hurts you and helps the company (that was treating you bad). Just leave. Save your energy, don't put any information public that will make you look like a bad employee and find a better job. The best revenge is living well.
awakeasleep 7y ago
Most people would keep taking the check while convincing themselves they're not responsible. When the somewhat immoral nature of that intrudes on people's thoughts, they can sort of silence it by finding fault with the person who IS following their conscience.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Nothing. But more or less https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3fD5YyN3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3fD5YyN3g She lost, so she's moving to the next company with an * to her name no doubt.

KirinDave 7y ago

It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising. > I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a different mission and sometimes the leadership forgets it, and needs to be reminded.

kpU8efre7r 7y ago
What laws? Source for that please.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  Are you perhaps forgetting that this person was involved in organizing the women's march? Do I actually need to find a source for US law suggesting that retaliation against women reporting sexism is in fact illegal? This is basic compliance training for any US employment, and the EU has similar laws. Where do you live and work that you don't know this?
  - quibbler 7y ago
    Organizing the women's march is like reporting sexism? I don't think so.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      Women can organize to protest sexist conditions. That's a protected activity in the US.
      - quibbler 7y ago
        So just participate in a woman's march, and you can never be fired anymore? That seems unlikely, and if true, very misguided.

peteey 7y ago

I believe the strong term "evil" is only used because Google's motto is "don't be evil". Not everyone has the freedom to instantly change jobs. The world might be a better place if employees had the right to whistle blow without being threatened with homelessness or fleeing to Russia. Unions striking and protesting against their companies for better wages seems acceptable. Why is protesting for ethical reasons without quitting faux pas?

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Didn't they drop that motto like 3 years ago?
- iamtheworstdev 7y ago
  I'd argue they quit practicing it when they IPOd, but technically the removal of the phrase from their Code of Conduct was more recent. https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  Yes, but the beliefs of the folks that have been at Google for 5+ years hasn't changed. Source: been at google since 2006.
  - andrewprock 7y ago
    Something changed. Defense contracting is certainly something that many might characterize as "be evil".
    - sgift 7y ago
      And many as necessary to defend the way of life people enjoy in USA and comparable countries. Defense work = bad is not a universal position.
KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago

gizmo686 7y ago

Large coorporations look a lot like governments. Normally, I bring this up from the perspective of regulations (eg. we should be willing to restrict the power of large private actors in the same ways we restrict the power of governments). However, I think it is applicable here too. If you don't like something the US government is doing, you generally aren't going to leave. You are either going to ignore it, or try to change it. Even if your employer is the Federal government, few people would expect you to quit. If your problem is with the exact portion of the government where you are working, then some might expect you to quit but few would bat an eye if your next job happened to also be with the federal government. What is happening here is akin to being forced out of government work for critizing the government; and we do not accept that behaviour.

ForHackernews 7y ago
Google is (thank god) not the government and this analogy is bogus.
Nasrudith 7y ago
One issue is that while internal behaviors may mirror the situation isn't that comparable. Starting a new government in competition with your own another's borders is generally known sedition. Governments are defined by their monopoly on the use of force. Not so for even large corporations.

snvzz 7y ago

This should be obvious to anyone, but people are for some reason having trouble understanding it. It's completely expected for a company to get rid of individuals on the payroll who are badmouthing the company they work for. Why would anyone willfully employ people to work against the company's interest?

enraged_camel 7y ago
Retaliating against whistleblowers is illegal. Therefore, I strongly advise you stop treating it as “obvious” and “expected”.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Explaining it and condoning it aren't the same thing.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    Explaining it is an uninteresting answer to an unasked question. The reason whistleblowers *(edit: or protestors) are protected is because everybody already understands why. Justifying it interesting. It's obvious why you would fire someone for trying to start a union, or for turning down your sexual advances.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  Are they whistleblowers? Or simply protesters? I'm honestly not sure where the line is.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Is really illegal? I think, at least in the US, you will be surprised by the answer if you look into what legal protections are available whistleblowers at private employers.
- DannyBee 7y ago
  So, just to point out - the person is talking about badmouthing, you are talking about whistleblowing. These are not the same thing at all. In the US, talking about improving working conditions is also protected, but it's also not whistleblowing, either. As a lawyer, i can tell you a lot of people badly misunderstand what "protected concerted activity" covers. It is not about your individual complaints. Explicitly not. See, e.g., https://www.employerlaborrelations.com/2019/04/30/nlrb-publishes-advice-memo-finding-that-company-maintained-unlawfully-overbroad-work-rules-but-did-not-violate-nlra-by-discharging-employee-for-facebook-video-or-filing-defamation-suit-against-two-for/ https://www.employerlaborrelations.com/2019/04/30/nlrb-publi... "Charging Party 2 posted a 23-minute live video on Facebook during work hours and while in uniform talking about the discipline for wearing improper shoes and the confidentiality provision in the disciplinary notice, referencing the wage-and-hour lawsuits, making crude and disparaging jokes and comments about a supervisor, and stating that by asking Charging Party 2 to sign something interfering with free speech, the conduct of the company’s officials was “against the United States Constitution and you need to be shot on sight.” As far as i can discern, hacker news would consider this protected because it complains, somewhere, about their working condition, and was in fact done as a direct response to being disciplined. However, NLRB says "The Division of Advice found that although Charging Party 2 referred to subjects in the video that could have been relevant to employees’ mutual aid or protection, the comments were entirely individual complaints and there was no indication that Charging Party 2 was speaking for other employees or seeking to act in concert with others. ... " (They found it okay to fire this person) In fact, the company had filed defamation lawsuits against the charging parties over the facebook videos, and the NLRB found that was okay too, because they weren't for protected activity.

lm28469 7y ago

Yep, and doing the "right thing" doesn't mean everyone will be cool with it (Snowden &c.), especially in highly hierarchical institutions like google. You don't get to light a dumpster fire in your own office without inhaling some of the smoke. At that scale any move outside of what you're allowed to think/do is a workplace suicide. I wouldn't be surprised if these people end up in other renowned tech companies though, google is losing on all fronts.

hacknat 7y ago

> I don't really understand why it's surprising I don't think anyone is that surprised, but that doesn't mean that it's right. > I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize. I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. Good for you, but they decided to do something else. I don't think they were denouncing Google as heartily as you seem to suggest. They obviously had hope that they could change things. We're also talking about old veterans of the company. How do you know that they didn't do everything that they could internally before escalating things publicly?

303space 7y ago

I think it’s actually a very savvy strategy to protest from within. It’s too easy for Google to shrug off or ignore public criticism. They’ve done this for decades with virtually no repercussions because they hold a monopoly on their core business - very few people are going to ‘delete Google’ no matter how much you disagree with their policies. They do not have a monopoly on talent and they are actually fearful of being no longer seen as the #1 workplace option for top candidates. Protesting as a Google employee gives you much more leverage than an outsider will ever have (unless you have the $$ to buy off a handful of senators).

wmeredith 7y ago
It certainly helps that they've protected themselves from the ability to "delete Google" with an embrace, extend (or buy), extinguish[0] strategy when it comes to the technologies at the core of the modern web. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
kortilla 7y ago
What? Protesting from within perfectly sends the signal that it’s still the best place to work despite egregious offenses.
- CodeMage 7y ago
  Why must that -- and nothing else -- be the signal they're sending? People have a variety of motivations. For example, I left my country 20 years ago because I wanted a better future and I had no desire nor conviction to stay and try to make that future happen there. Of those who stayed, most had no other choice. However, there's a non-negligible number of people who stayed despite having opportunities to leave, precisely because they are willing to fight to make things better.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Moving in general is difficult, but leaving a country and permanently moving to another one is infinitely more difficult than finding another job for someone who works at Google.

BonesJustice 7y ago

> I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them. I do not understand why it should be preferable to say "oh well, nothing to be done, time to quit" rather than be a force for change. The former is easy, but it does little to correct systemic problems that affect many of your peers. Also, you make "accept paychecks" sound like you're accepting some sort of favor. Paychecks are not charity; they are compensation. You produce something of value, and you receive something of value in return.

gfo 7y ago
You can influence change from the outside. And in tech where talent acquisition is a fierce game, employees leaving due to ethics would be the greatest show of force.
- marktani 7y ago
  You don't have to leave to influence, being on the inside often gives you better access, knowledge and opportunity to influence change.

PavlovsCat 7y ago

The question how surprising something is is useless. Ask what makes a good person, not what makes a person a good predictor of the human potential to be rotten. > If my company started doing business practices that I didn't approve of, I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize Or maybe you'd stay, and maybe you'd retaliate against whistleblowers. There is no way to know, it's moot speculation. What we do know is that if the people who retaliated against the whistleblower had acted like you say you would have acted, they wouldn't have been around to retaliate.

bougalou 7y ago

The things is, those paychecks are very large. A Program Manager (Meredith's role) averages about $125k/year, and one with Meredith's tenure might make as much as double with stock and bonus. Google has been paying her salary the last two years even though most of her work is at AI Now. Going forward as an NYU employee, as a university researcher without an advanced degree, she will be lucky to clear $60k/year. In New York. Doing the exact same work she has been doing for the last two years