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I have a feeling Amazon would not tolerate this level of push back to products and business strategy (and they have the corresponding "don't care" reputation!).

I have a feeling Amazon would not tolerate this level of push back to products and business strategy (and they have the corresponding "don't care" reputation!). Google management seems to give in so much and if you are a GOOG shareholder you could have a real case here (re the Maven project). [Disclosure: I am not a GOOG shareholder]. Management has to keep the interests of the company at heart - they are legally bound to do whats best for the company. One could argue that getting involved in AI+Warfare is bad for the image of the company, but the revenue it brings in as well as getting an entry into defense dollars would be a huge benefit for its nascent cloud division. Whether you like it or not, employees will have personal opinions and it is great to accommodate their expression of such opinions. However, as a public company, GOOG management has legal obligations too. As conflicts with and demands of management increase, and it impacts revenue, we shall see top level management excuse themselves from interacting this openly with employees. Unfortunately, more open and liberal companies are also more susceptible to such attacks and lawsuits when compared to a corp that is more authoritarian.

compiler-guy 7y ago
For a company like Google, which is highly dependent on getting and keeping highly skilled tech workers, "What is good for the company" often involves keeping employees happy. Google got to where it is by aspiring to have the best working conditions available, and much of its talent came for that reason. You can build companies other ways--just like Amazon did--but changing that deal out from under the employees who came based on that deal would be quite disruptive and result in turmoil during the transition. Would things be better for the company coming out the other side of such a transition? Hard to say, but the costs would be quite high.
- mrzacarias 7y ago
  Yup, I think that summarizes what is happening there
Despegar 7y ago
Google is effectively controlled by Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt through their voting shares. In fact the stated reason for having a dual class of shares was so they can "manage the company for the long run".
skybrian 7y ago
The supposed legal requirement to do "what is best for the company" is overrated. All sorts of things can be justified as best for the company. It's not really anything that company lawyers worry about. There is company training to make sure nobody does illegal things, but it's not focused on shareholder value. Shareholder value is more of a pervasive cultural thing. Most people and certainly everyone in charge has stock or stock options, so naturally everyone wants the stock to go up. People are also rewarded for increasing revenue. There are OKR's. And this is all justified as aligning the interests of the employees with the shareholders. However, just because you have incentives to be pro-business doesn't prevent you from putting other considerations first when that's what's important to you. The pro-business bias is often not that strong, but it's persistent and pervasive. It would be interesting to compare how this plays out in different companies.

compiler-guy 7y ago

For a company like Google, which is highly dependent on getting and keeping highly skilled tech workers, "What is good for the company" often involves keeping employees happy. Google got to where it is by aspiring to have the best working conditions available, and much of its talent came for that reason. You can build companies other ways--just like Amazon did--but changing that deal out from under the employees who came based on that deal would be quite disruptive and result in turmoil during the transition. Would things be better for the company coming out the other side of such a transition? Hard to say, but the costs would be quite high.

mrzacarias 7y ago
Yup, I think that summarizes what is happening there

Despegar 7y ago

Google is effectively controlled by Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt through their voting shares. In fact the stated reason for having a dual class of shares was so they can "manage the company for the long run".

skybrian 7y ago

The supposed legal requirement to do "what is best for the company" is overrated. All sorts of things can be justified as best for the company. It's not really anything that company lawyers worry about. There is company training to make sure nobody does illegal things, but it's not focused on shareholder value. Shareholder value is more of a pervasive cultural thing. Most people and certainly everyone in charge has stock or stock options, so naturally everyone wants the stock to go up. People are also rewarded for increasing revenue. There are OKR's. And this is all justified as aligning the interests of the employees with the shareholders. However, just because you have incentives to be pro-business doesn't prevent you from putting other considerations first when that's what's important to you. The pro-business bias is often not that strong, but it's persistent and pervasive. It would be interesting to compare how this plays out in different companies.