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I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. For a long time it was common knowledge that you

I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. For a long time it was common knowledge that you would try to keep stuff like that out of the workplace. The past 10 years have been an about face to that strategy and now we're seeing more or less complete chaos internally at these previously pro-politics (some kinds of politics) workplaces. My guess is there will certainly be a shift away from other companies trying to do this in the future. Rightfully so imho.

markovbot 7y ago
To be clear, "keep politics out of the workplace" is another way of saying "I'm okay with the status quo, and if you don't like it I don't want to hear about it at work".
- ta999999171 7y ago
  It's actually another way of saying I'm okay with MY status quo. Not that that's good, necessarily. Just distinct.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  The "status quo" in the workplace (at least in this rather narrow subsector of "tech") is far from politics-free, so I'm not sure that your comment makes much sense.
  - bbddg 7y ago
    I think what they mean by status quo is the political and power dynamics. Not how much "politics" is discussed.
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      Because discussing garden-variety, oppositional politics at work is how you can change "political and power dynamics" most effectively, of course. Not, e.g. by focusing on the actual policy issues you care most about, applying systems thinking and seeking plausible points of leverage (which often boils down to rejecting the oppositional game entirely and "pushing the rope sideways" in wholly unexpected ways). Seriously?
      - bbddg 7y ago
        I don't understand what you mean. I'm definitely not saying that "garden-variety, oppositional politics at work is how you can change "political and power dynamics" most effectively." The type of politics I want in the workplace is the politics of building worker power and fomenting radical labor unrest.
- deleted 7y ago
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- dmix 7y ago
  The old switcheroo: by not being in support of office political activism like me that means you just support the [insert bad guys]. Rabble rabble. This sort of logic and villianization just adds to my reasons for not wanting that in my workplace.
- zorpner 7y ago
  I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. What you're saying is absolutely true -- keeping politics out of anything is endorsement of the status quo. And even more specifically, as it relates to the workplace, anything you build with your labor is endorsement of that thing. That endorsement may be (and often is) coerced, whether by circumstance of lack of resources, H-1B visa, et cetera. But pretending that the things we build are apolitical is self-deception. If you build tools for ICE to put children in cages, you're building tools to put children in cages.
  - tpmoney 7y ago
    This is, of course, absolute nonsense. If I’m running a mini golf enthusiasts group, keeping discussion on topic and not going off on the latest Trump fail or the most recent celebrity to reveal themselves as a serial sexual assaulter is neither an endorsement of Trump nor of sexual assault. It’s recognizing that not everyone wants to spend every minute of every day in every place discussing your particular bugaboo. There are literally thousands of places to have these discussions, they don’t need to happen everywhere and you don’t need to be constantly getting confirmation from everyone around you that they agree with your political views.
  - sowbug 7y ago
    American freedom is the ability to earn a living and raise a family without paying a price for your political views. _Especially_ political views that you, zorpner, find reprehensible.
- manigandham 7y ago
  No it absolutely isn't. Adding an arbitrary and incendiary meaning to what others say is a major problem. You can create as many enemies as you want that way and it just fuels more division.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    So, should people who are inherently political, say gay, trans, or non-binary folk not exist in the workplace?
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement? And no, the vast majority of people don't consider those characteristics to be political at all and really don't care. Come in, do work, go home, and don't hurt anyone. It's not a complicated political argument.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        > Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement? Something about lying with dogs and fleas. I'm happy to listen if you elaborate on what exactly you mean by political. Though I'll caution by stating that in general, I find that most "political" issues can be phrased as consequences of ethical concerns (if there weren't underlying ethical disagreements, there wouldn't be political issues). Let's take as an example the act of a company contracting with CBP. This is "political", in the sense that it is, to many, clearly an act of protest against the current administration. On the other hand, if one has ethical objections to separating children from their parents, or any number of other things, there can be a moral (and if one is an ACM member, an organizational) imperative to escalate when you have ethical concerns. In essence, if I believe the family separation policy hurts people, and my company may enable that policy, do I have a moral imperative to escalate my concerns about the hurt we're causing? Or is doing so "political" and therefore inappropriate to mention at work?
- notadoc 7y ago
  Someones job function at work is to perform their job duties. Unless someone works directly in politics, then politics do not belong in the workplace. There are plenty of other impolite subjects that are inappropriate to discuss at work too.
  - ltrcola 7y ago
    Companies themselves are inherently political though, just by existing. They exist in the context of society and are made possible by the legal structures created by politics. And they generally advocate for themselves within the political system (a good example is lobbying). So there are certainly limits in the workplace and there is a line to toe for toleration and polite conversation, but saying "politics do not belong in the workplace" is pretty absurd.
    - username90 7y ago
      My coworker is free to march against gay rights on his free time, but if he brings it up every meeting as a topic we can't ignore then I'd call the workplace toxic and quit. The same goes for any other political topic people feel strongly for.
      - ltrcola 7y ago
        Why would someone bring it up at every meeting? That's a pretty big straw man argument. I'm sure there are outliers that do that, but they are rare. On the other hand, many gay folks are afraid to even mention their partner at all at work, even casually in the what that most people do. In that case, the belief that "gay rights are political" that some folks have are creating a toxic environment.
        username90 7y ago
        > Why would someone bring it up at every meeting? That's a pretty big straw man argument. I'm sure there are outliers that do that, but they are rare. Note that I said that someone who constantly argue against gay rights is toxic, I have met people like that (not specifically gay, but about immigrants for example) and being around them is not fun. > On the other hand, many gay folks are afraid to even mention their partner at all at work, even casually in the what that most people do. In that case it is no longer political and they can complain that people targeted them for being gay.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  To be clear, Kafkatrapping, which is what you’re doing, is the most insidious manifestation of this culture because it turns everyone who isn’t trying to out-do the next one into a potential “enemy”.
  - projektfu 7y ago
    Perhaps you’re also amping up the discussion. It’s one thing to say “you have no complaints because it works for you”. It’s another to say “you can’t say anything useful because of your white privilege and class alliance “
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      I guess that’s true to a certain extent. Unfortunately, today it is very apparent that the former example is conflated with the latter all the time. The “status quo” for the noisy people really is “white privilege and class alliance” (I’m using your terms to try to not inject any other value statements into this obviously contentious issue).
- deleted 7y ago
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- notJim 7y ago
  I'm curious about the actual arguments people are making. I could see a few, with most people arguing a mix of a couple: 1. People who politically disagree with the work the company is doing should just leave. They do not have the right to resist or organize against it. 2. Google should just go along with anything the government does. If there's an opportunity for profit, Google should pursue it. If employees disagree, they should vote. Otherwise, see #1. 3. Google should have some moral tests, but the current situation passes the test. It's not as bad as people are saying. I honestly don't see how any of these are tenable. Number one is an argument against labor organizing in general, and the cats kind of out the bag there. Number two is just a variant of number one, and number three is inherently political—it's a situation where people see things differently, and the way we resolve those is politics.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > "keep politics out of the workplace" Pretty much all of the “pro-politics at the workplace” types would demand that anybody who wore a MAGA hat be fired… so I think that the people who think politics in the workplace are OK are the ones who are actually the ones maintaining the actual status quo: you can have opinions, as long as they’re the same as mine.
  - zionic 7y ago
    Yep, quite simply they demand both the presence of politics in the workplace and their own monopoly on the politics displayed.
dionidium 7y ago
> at these previously pro-politics (some kinds of politics) workplaces There are no people who actually think it’s ok to bring politics into the workplace. There are only people who don’t think their politics are politics; it’s everybody else’s politics that’s politics.
- blowski 7y ago
  I think it’s OK to bring politics into the workplace. I discuss Brexit, elections, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump, etc, with those of my colleagues that want to discuss it when they want to discuss it. I agree with some of them, disagree with others.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    I think the key difference is, you aren't trying to paint those who disagree with you or even refuse participation in such discussions as members of some axis of evil. Unfortunately, it is only possible if the overall culture of your company is conductive to that, as opposed to the monoculture of "if you aren't as enthusiastic about this topic as me, then you are the enemy".
  - lawnchair_larry 7y ago
    If only the activists were mature enough to approach it this way.
  - aidaoftheheart 7y ago
    Yes, same here. You can discuss politics at work without making the other person seem evil because they disagree with you. You shouldn't be doing that in a work place - everyone needs to work together to make things happen, and you will be around people with obviously different viewpoints than you.
- baggy_trough 7y ago
  Totally wrong. Haven't you heard people claim "everything is political"?
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists You say that like it's a given truth - do you have anything to back up that assertion? FWIW, I don't recall Google courting "activists", though they obviously did court people who were highly invested in their education and careers, and of course there is probably a non-0 correlation with those types of people and "activists". I also wouldn't describe Google as "pro-politics". They certainly were pro-open-communication, but given their size now, and the complete change in the nature and temperature of political discussions over the past decade, it's not surprising at all that hey would be forced to change this.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  > You say that like it's a given truth - do you have anything to back up that assertion? Sure, and this is just one of many examples: https://diversity.google/ https://diversity.google/ They have been very proactive in this space for a long time.
  - triceratops 7y ago
    How is trying cast a wider net in hiring the same as "courting activists"?
  - techie128 7y ago
    I think their diversity initiatives failed miserable. They created a monoculture that is violently intolerant of diverse viewpoints.
    - darkwater 7y ago
      Yeah, absolutely! Poor little white straight men, nowadays you cannot find any of them working in Google. What a pity!
      - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
        The GP talked about a diversity of viewpoints, but you're talking about diversity of race and sexual identity. At the very least, most persons don't consider race to be a viewpoint.
jejeiloo9 7y ago
If American companies would like to provide 2-3 months vacation so the public can take time for political action, sure This is just descending deeper into “more and more of your life must be dedicated to paid speech.” Google is basically turning into that big IBM they weren’t going to be. It’s entirely social pressure to conform to business norm. There’s no reason things like cloud software and AI must be built by Google. Look at the Linux kernel. This is kowtowing to financial economics first, cause paid speech is everything to an ad company. Humanity is still emotionally transitioning away from traditional values belief in top down godhead must rule! hierarchy. We’ve seen literally for a whole now the idea of a God described by Abrahamic religion is not compatible with our physical measure of reality. But human social sensibilities take time to update as the generations of old linger The finance economy is the last big hurdle.
badrabbit 7y ago
Imagine if wikipedia courted specific types of activists. People should take sides but companies should be neutral,and get out of the way of people engaging in political discourse or activism.
- robk 7y ago
  Wikipedia is chock full of activists
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    Users,users! Not wikipedia promoted groups. Ffs,what is controversial about that?
- notadoc 7y ago
  Wikipedia is far from neutral and full of activists and people with agendas. It can sometimes be acceptable for a broad overview of a subject, but it's so full of opinion, inaccuracy, and misinformation that it should have near zero credibility for anyone who is seeking truth and bias-free knowledge. Appropriately, it has zero credibility in any credible academic environment BTW.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    There are no unbiased sources of knowledge. Wikipedia isn't special. Everything is written by humans and humans have their biases. That's why you shouldn't get all your information from a single source.
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    > The journal Nature says the open-access encyclopedia is about as accurate as the old standby. https://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/ https://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-bri...
nostrademons 7y ago
I think it's more that they actively courted assertive people with opinions and then created a culture where you can bring your whole self to work. They did this so that they could get the benefits of creativity, which inherently requires emotional engagement, which requires that you not repress your emotions. (It turns out that it's not possible to selectively repress emotions: "I've got to watch what I say about politics" subconsciously spills over into "I've got to watch what I say" which spills over into "I've got to watch what I say about anything new and controversial", and you lose the latter well before the former.) The part that's biting them is that now that they're 100,000 people, creativity is wasted anyway, because any brilliant new product idea will get killed long before launch and if it doesn't it'll probably catastrophically damage Google's brand. So the upside of this cultural decision is worthless to them, and the downside is incredibly chaotic and difficult to manage. I think we'll see a shift away from this at Google, but I think other startups will still consciously embrace it. When you're 10 people and are about to go out of business if you don't come up with a brilliant idea, your incentives are dramatically different from when you're 100,000 and make tens of billions from your existing business lines every quarter.
- nradov 7y ago
  Why do you think that creativity requires emotional engagement? I haven't found that to be the case.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Personal experience, but it's also been born out by studies: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-and-science/201909/what-emotions-help-creativity https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-a... https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creative https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creat... https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02660/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0266... TL;DR: It's not the specific emotion that matters (indeed, there's evidence that having mixed emotions, where you can synthesize aspects of them, is crucial to creativity), it's the motivational intensity behind it.
avocado4 7y ago
I'm pretty sure Google has seen an exodus of alienated top performers in the past years (who happen to be predominantly Asian and White males). So now Google is realizing that maybe demonizing their core demographic through fostering hostile identity politics inside the company is threatening their core advantage. I expect more crackdowns from the leadership in the future, including restrictions on Memegen and other toxic internal forums. I cannot stress enough how bizarre the internal politics truly were now that I left Google. It's interesting to see posts from Xoogler activists in Xoogler boards who try to introduce themselves as some sort of oppressed heroes, only to be stonewalled by the alumni community who couldn't care less about their PC agenda now that their career isn't held siege to PC whims.
siruncledrew 7y ago
It's very hard to actually have private, internal dialogues in a 'townhall setting' among an employee group so large. Recordings and videos could get leaked at any time by an employee to the media or on social media, which will further blow it up (ahem, like with Facebook) or perhaps take things out of context or cause more chaos. Google actually trying to have a serious - and not just PR/HR-bullshit - discussion about highly nuanced, opinionated, divisive topics relevant to the workplace in this type of mass-meeting setting is basically playing with fire out in the open. (This isn't a take on yes/no politics in the workplace, just an interpretation from Google/Facebook)
- asveikau 7y ago
  > Recordings and videos could get leaked at any time by an employee to the media or on social media, which will further blow it up (ahem, like with Facebook) Worth clarifying a point. The leakers didn't make Zuck say stupid things. I can understand that having scrutiny on every single communication is probably pretty hard, but people often neglect that the best PR scandal avoidance mechanism is to not do stupid things.
  - throwaway579315 7y ago
    What did Zuckerberg say in the leaked audio that was stupid?
shadowgovt 7y ago
I strongly suspect that Google can't hear the question over the sound of their stock reaching record highs, but it's an interesting question.
tanilama 7y ago
They must have. They have actively invite politics into their companies, and make a playground for them.
Animats 7y ago
Well, that's the price of expecting people to spend their whole life at work. If everybody knocks off at 5 and goes home, they can keep their politics at home. Google feeds 3 meals a day, and if you eat dinner at work, you're expected to return to work afterwards. They have lockers and showers at work. They'd have adult dorms if they could.
- tirewarehouse 7y ago
  I know you're a prolific poster on here, and you often provide valuable contributions, so it's disheartening to see how full of misinformation this comment is. I've worked at many tech companies, and Google has among the best work-life balance I've encountered. Work hours vary by team and by role, but on a whole, it's very reasonable. They serve three meals, but you're not expected to eat all three meals. Some people like to get in early and leave early, others like to get in late and stay late. The food is just a perk, there if you want it. Also, you're not obligated or expected to work longer if you eat dinner. Not sure where you heard that one. If you're at the office when dinner is served, it's considered that you've already stayed late.
  - mav3rick 7y ago
    And many companies unlike Google don't let you take food home. Or serve it very late, so you are working late. This is not the case at Google at all. The parent comment is so off the mark. These kind of posters have an image in their head from HN threads and keep propagating it in their comments.
    - tirewarehouse 7y ago
      To be fair to OP, I had the same image in my head before I joined. I probably wrote a similar comment at some point in the past, and propagated the misinformation myself. I worked for many years at an aerospace company, where we put in long hours for relatively little pay. I convinced myself that if a company offered its employees good perks, it must have a sinister motive. Of course, now there are constant stories of tech employees griping about how evil they think their employers are, how unfairly they're being treated, how little freedom they have to express their opinions. It's hard not to roll my eyes sometimes.
narrator 7y ago
This infiltration and chaos making by SJWs in the tech companies is just a continuation of Dutschke's "Long march through the institutions"[1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...
busterarm 7y ago
Also Kickstarter, who is dealing with an internal unionization fight that's pitting the employees against each other.
- thundergolfer 7y ago
  Isn’t it pitting some employees against management? I’ve seen the articles discussing dismissals of prominent members of the union fight, but haven’t seen anything about employees fighting each other because of the unionisation.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    The pro-union group within the roughly 110 person company doesn't have enough employee support required to establish collective bargaining. The pro-union group does not want unionization to go to vote because of this, so instead they've chosen the tactic of creating bad PR for the company management and the demand that company management accept unionization without employee vote. Employees who are both pro and against unionization have concerns about how the union organizers have acted and that it may be detrimental to the long term health of the company. About 20% of the company publicly, openly supports unionization but 2 people got fired. From the rest, almost 100% of them have received a raise or a promotion during the same period.
burtonator 7y ago
Interviewed at Etsy about a year or two ago and the interviewer was asking me about politically charged topics. How I would handle workplace gender complaints. How they should handle racial diversity in the work place, etc. It was really clear I was giving wrong answers. I told them flat out that I think people should be judged by the quality of their character, not the color of their skin and that the company should just try to be fair and hire the best people. I mean I get that companies want to do the right thing but you can only really do ONE thing well.
- Gunax 7y ago
  Wait... those are the wrong things to say? They are practically textbook PR cliches. They are not necessarily what people would actually do, but they sound like the correct answer in interview-speak.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Er, if the question is "How would you handle someone you manage telling you of sexual/racial discrimination," the correct cliche answer is absolutely not to say "I judge people by the content of their character and pretend the color of the skin doesn't exist," or some equivalent form like "If the behavior would be acceptable if the people in the situation had different gender/race, then it's definitely acceptable." That would count as ignoring a report of discrimination that you're legally obligated to not ignore. (We'd need to know more details about the question and the answer to be sure.)
- sailfast 7y ago
  I assume this was for a supervisory position or an HR position? These aren’t really politically charged questions but rather questions about how to manage people and the issues that come with people. While the cause of the complaint may be politically charged, how one would handle the situation should be pretty by the book.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    Even if the book is wrong?
deleted 7y ago
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SquishyPanda23 7y ago
They're not keeping it out of the workplace, or at least that's one complaints that is public. Employees have been objecting to the hiring of conservative activists into influential positions. E.g. there were objections about support for the Trump administration's extreme positions on immigration and activist positions opposed to trans people.
vkou 7y ago
> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. I am really, really tired of people framing "Hiring (mostly) from the typical tech 22-35 college graduate demographic" as "Actively courting activists." What were you expecting tech companies to do? Not hire anyone under the age of 40, or anyone who grew up, schooled, or worked in a blue state? If they did that, I suppose they'd get a largely 'activist-free' (But not politics-free!) workforce. Google's business is inherently political. Its relationship with governments and regulators across the world is inherently political. The employee-employer relationship is inherently political. Of course you're going to get employees acting on their political opinions, in those contexts.
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geofft 7y ago
Well, Google and GitHub built fantastic engineering departments with that decision, beating the pants off several companies that followed "common knowledge." It was (and still is) a cliche that you get better results by hiring like Google than by hiring like everyone used to hire. What they're now learning is that this decision is incompatible with certain forms of revenue like military or immigration-enforcement contracts. That doesn't mean that the right answer is that you should accept such forms of revenue and reject the employees who don't support it. That just means you have to choose. What they're regretting is simply that they can't have it both ways. (Also, GitHub in particular is trying to endorse a particular form of politics at work - they've been defending the practices of ICE in their internal and external communications. If opposition to ICE is political, support of ICE is political too, no?) Google and GitHub are trying to turn into IBM and Oracle. That's fine, but they should remember that they were originally trying to beat IBM and Oracle. And they shouldn't be surprised if a company that explicitly embraces activist engineers and forswears sources of revenue incompatible with that activism, a company that says "We will talk about politics at the workplace and this is our particular form of politics," one day beats the pants off them.
- bendbro 7y ago
  > And they shouldn't be surprised if a company that explicitly embraces activist engineers and forswears sources of revenue incompatible with that activism, a company that says "We will talk about politics at the workplace and this is our particular form of politics," one day beats the pants off them. They should be surprised as it hasn't ever happened before. That's not to say that it won't or shouldn't happen, it just would be surprising.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Didn't it happen with Google? Did they not build a more productive engineering department because they said "Bring your whole self to work, and bring your dog too" and not "We want your butt in a cubicle for 40 hours and this is just a job"? I suspect if a company says "Bring your whole self to work, and we're actually serious about it, only bother applying if you think you'll gel with the folks already here," they'll still be able to hire as many people as they need and they'll deliver better products because of it.
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bArray 7y ago
> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively > courted activists are now regretting their decision. I think it's fair to say that there are a large number of people who are very invested in the answer to this question, hence it will be difficult to get a serious unbiased answer. It's also quite politically hot. > For a long time it was common knowledge that you would try > to keep stuff like that out of the workplace. Activists and unions have brought many a company and Country to its knees. Companies that stay away from politics (or any statements at all) seem to be doing better, but somebody like Google or GitHub have so much financial and structural clout that they can afford to make mistakes. > My guess is there will certainly be a shift away from > other companies trying to do this in the future. > Rightfully so imho. I agree, but it's hard to fully quantify. I guess the real point is that politically companies and Countries are split approximately 50/50 between two main parties and any polarizing position a company takes will likely upset roughly half of the people. I think the only way to maintain a proper diverse structure is to not take sides.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
“Complete chaos”? For real?
m0zg 7y ago
Seems like it'd be really easy to get rid of the "activists" though: sign a few Cloud contracts with people they don't like (starting with DoD and going down the list), and if they really are activists, they'll go work elsewhere. You don't have to get rid of TGIF to do that.

markovbot 7y ago

To be clear, "keep politics out of the workplace" is another way of saying "I'm okay with the status quo, and if you don't like it I don't want to hear about it at work".

ta999999171 7y ago
It's actually another way of saying I'm okay with MY status quo. Not that that's good, necessarily. Just distinct.
zozbot234 7y ago
The "status quo" in the workplace (at least in this rather narrow subsector of "tech") is far from politics-free, so I'm not sure that your comment makes much sense.
- bbddg 7y ago
  I think what they mean by status quo is the political and power dynamics. Not how much "politics" is discussed.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Because discussing garden-variety, oppositional politics at work is how you can change "political and power dynamics" most effectively, of course. Not, e.g. by focusing on the actual policy issues you care most about, applying systems thinking and seeking plausible points of leverage (which often boils down to rejecting the oppositional game entirely and "pushing the rope sideways" in wholly unexpected ways). Seriously?
    - bbddg 7y ago
      I don't understand what you mean. I'm definitely not saying that "garden-variety, oppositional politics at work is how you can change "political and power dynamics" most effectively." The type of politics I want in the workplace is the politics of building worker power and fomenting radical labor unrest.
deleted 7y ago
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dmix 7y ago
The old switcheroo: by not being in support of office political activism like me that means you just support the [insert bad guys]. Rabble rabble. This sort of logic and villianization just adds to my reasons for not wanting that in my workplace.
zorpner 7y ago
I'm sorry you're getting downvoted. What you're saying is absolutely true -- keeping politics out of anything is endorsement of the status quo. And even more specifically, as it relates to the workplace, anything you build with your labor is endorsement of that thing. That endorsement may be (and often is) coerced, whether by circumstance of lack of resources, H-1B visa, et cetera. But pretending that the things we build are apolitical is self-deception. If you build tools for ICE to put children in cages, you're building tools to put children in cages.
- tpmoney 7y ago
  This is, of course, absolute nonsense. If I’m running a mini golf enthusiasts group, keeping discussion on topic and not going off on the latest Trump fail or the most recent celebrity to reveal themselves as a serial sexual assaulter is neither an endorsement of Trump nor of sexual assault. It’s recognizing that not everyone wants to spend every minute of every day in every place discussing your particular bugaboo. There are literally thousands of places to have these discussions, they don’t need to happen everywhere and you don’t need to be constantly getting confirmation from everyone around you that they agree with your political views.
- sowbug 7y ago
  American freedom is the ability to earn a living and raise a family without paying a price for your political views. _Especially_ political views that you, zorpner, find reprehensible.
manigandham 7y ago
No it absolutely isn't. Adding an arbitrary and incendiary meaning to what others say is a major problem. You can create as many enemies as you want that way and it just fuels more division.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  So, should people who are inherently political, say gay, trans, or non-binary folk not exist in the workplace?
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement? And no, the vast majority of people don't consider those characteristics to be political at all and really don't care. Come in, do work, go home, and don't hurt anyone. It's not a complicated political argument.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      > Again, nobody in this entire page has said anything like that. How did you come up with this statement? Something about lying with dogs and fleas. I'm happy to listen if you elaborate on what exactly you mean by political. Though I'll caution by stating that in general, I find that most "political" issues can be phrased as consequences of ethical concerns (if there weren't underlying ethical disagreements, there wouldn't be political issues). Let's take as an example the act of a company contracting with CBP. This is "political", in the sense that it is, to many, clearly an act of protest against the current administration. On the other hand, if one has ethical objections to separating children from their parents, or any number of other things, there can be a moral (and if one is an ACM member, an organizational) imperative to escalate when you have ethical concerns. In essence, if I believe the family separation policy hurts people, and my company may enable that policy, do I have a moral imperative to escalate my concerns about the hurt we're causing? Or is doing so "political" and therefore inappropriate to mention at work?
notadoc 7y ago
Someones job function at work is to perform their job duties. Unless someone works directly in politics, then politics do not belong in the workplace. There are plenty of other impolite subjects that are inappropriate to discuss at work too.
- ltrcola 7y ago
  Companies themselves are inherently political though, just by existing. They exist in the context of society and are made possible by the legal structures created by politics. And they generally advocate for themselves within the political system (a good example is lobbying). So there are certainly limits in the workplace and there is a line to toe for toleration and polite conversation, but saying "politics do not belong in the workplace" is pretty absurd.
  - username90 7y ago
    My coworker is free to march against gay rights on his free time, but if he brings it up every meeting as a topic we can't ignore then I'd call the workplace toxic and quit. The same goes for any other political topic people feel strongly for.
    - ltrcola 7y ago
      Why would someone bring it up at every meeting? That's a pretty big straw man argument. I'm sure there are outliers that do that, but they are rare. On the other hand, many gay folks are afraid to even mention their partner at all at work, even casually in the what that most people do. In that case, the belief that "gay rights are political" that some folks have are creating a toxic environment.
      - username90 7y ago
        > Why would someone bring it up at every meeting? That's a pretty big straw man argument. I'm sure there are outliers that do that, but they are rare. Note that I said that someone who constantly argue against gay rights is toxic, I have met people like that (not specifically gay, but about immigrants for example) and being around them is not fun. > On the other hand, many gay folks are afraid to even mention their partner at all at work, even casually in the what that most people do. In that case it is no longer political and they can complain that people targeted them for being gay.
remarkEon 7y ago
To be clear, Kafkatrapping, which is what you’re doing, is the most insidious manifestation of this culture because it turns everyone who isn’t trying to out-do the next one into a potential “enemy”.
- projektfu 7y ago
  Perhaps you’re also amping up the discussion. It’s one thing to say “you have no complaints because it works for you”. It’s another to say “you can’t say anything useful because of your white privilege and class alliance “
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    I guess that’s true to a certain extent. Unfortunately, today it is very apparent that the former example is conflated with the latter all the time. The “status quo” for the noisy people really is “white privilege and class alliance” (I’m using your terms to try to not inject any other value statements into this obviously contentious issue).
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notJim 7y ago
I'm curious about the actual arguments people are making. I could see a few, with most people arguing a mix of a couple: 1. People who politically disagree with the work the company is doing should just leave. They do not have the right to resist or organize against it. 2. Google should just go along with anything the government does. If there's an opportunity for profit, Google should pursue it. If employees disagree, they should vote. Otherwise, see #1. 3. Google should have some moral tests, but the current situation passes the test. It's not as bad as people are saying. I honestly don't see how any of these are tenable. Number one is an argument against labor organizing in general, and the cats kind of out the bag there. Number two is just a variant of number one, and number three is inherently political—it's a situation where people see things differently, and the way we resolve those is politics.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> "keep politics out of the workplace" Pretty much all of the “pro-politics at the workplace” types would demand that anybody who wore a MAGA hat be fired… so I think that the people who think politics in the workplace are OK are the ones who are actually the ones maintaining the actual status quo: you can have opinions, as long as they’re the same as mine.
- zionic 7y ago
  Yep, quite simply they demand both the presence of politics in the workplace and their own monopoly on the politics displayed.

dionidium 7y ago

> at these previously pro-politics (some kinds of politics) workplaces There are no people who actually think it’s ok to bring politics into the workplace. There are only people who don’t think their politics are politics; it’s everybody else’s politics that’s politics.

blowski 7y ago
I think it’s OK to bring politics into the workplace. I discuss Brexit, elections, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump, etc, with those of my colleagues that want to discuss it when they want to discuss it. I agree with some of them, disagree with others.
- filoleg 7y ago
  I think the key difference is, you aren't trying to paint those who disagree with you or even refuse participation in such discussions as members of some axis of evil. Unfortunately, it is only possible if the overall culture of your company is conductive to that, as opposed to the monoculture of "if you aren't as enthusiastic about this topic as me, then you are the enemy".
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  If only the activists were mature enough to approach it this way.
- aidaoftheheart 7y ago
  Yes, same here. You can discuss politics at work without making the other person seem evil because they disagree with you. You shouldn't be doing that in a work place - everyone needs to work together to make things happen, and you will be around people with obviously different viewpoints than you.
baggy_trough 7y ago
Totally wrong. Haven't you heard people claim "everything is political"?

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists You say that like it's a given truth - do you have anything to back up that assertion? FWIW, I don't recall Google courting "activists", though they obviously did court people who were highly invested in their education and careers, and of course there is probably a non-0 correlation with those types of people and "activists". I also wouldn't describe Google as "pro-politics". They certainly were pro-open-communication, but given their size now, and the complete change in the nature and temperature of political discussions over the past decade, it's not surprising at all that hey would be forced to change this.

malvosenior 7y ago
> You say that like it's a given truth - do you have anything to back up that assertion? Sure, and this is just one of many examples: https://diversity.google/ https://diversity.google/ They have been very proactive in this space for a long time.
- triceratops 7y ago
  How is trying cast a wider net in hiring the same as "courting activists"?
- techie128 7y ago
  I think their diversity initiatives failed miserable. They created a monoculture that is violently intolerant of diverse viewpoints.
  - darkwater 7y ago
    Yeah, absolutely! Poor little white straight men, nowadays you cannot find any of them working in Google. What a pity!
    - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
      The GP talked about a diversity of viewpoints, but you're talking about diversity of race and sexual identity. At the very least, most persons don't consider race to be a viewpoint.

jejeiloo9 7y ago

If American companies would like to provide 2-3 months vacation so the public can take time for political action, sure This is just descending deeper into “more and more of your life must be dedicated to paid speech.” Google is basically turning into that big IBM they weren’t going to be. It’s entirely social pressure to conform to business norm. There’s no reason things like cloud software and AI must be built by Google. Look at the Linux kernel. This is kowtowing to financial economics first, cause paid speech is everything to an ad company. Humanity is still emotionally transitioning away from traditional values belief in top down godhead must rule! hierarchy. We’ve seen literally for a whole now the idea of a God described by Abrahamic religion is not compatible with our physical measure of reality. But human social sensibilities take time to update as the generations of old linger The finance economy is the last big hurdle.

badrabbit 7y ago

Imagine if wikipedia courted specific types of activists. People should take sides but companies should be neutral,and get out of the way of people engaging in political discourse or activism.

robk 7y ago
Wikipedia is chock full of activists
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Users,users! Not wikipedia promoted groups. Ffs,what is controversial about that?
notadoc 7y ago
Wikipedia is far from neutral and full of activists and people with agendas. It can sometimes be acceptable for a broad overview of a subject, but it's so full of opinion, inaccuracy, and misinformation that it should have near zero credibility for anyone who is seeking truth and bias-free knowledge. Appropriately, it has zero credibility in any credible academic environment BTW.
- adrianN 7y ago
  There are no unbiased sources of knowledge. Wikipedia isn't special. Everything is written by humans and humans have their biases. That's why you shouldn't get all your information from a single source.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  > The journal Nature says the open-access encyclopedia is about as accurate as the old standby. https://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/ https://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-bri...

nostrademons 7y ago

I think it's more that they actively courted assertive people with opinions and then created a culture where you can bring your whole self to work. They did this so that they could get the benefits of creativity, which inherently requires emotional engagement, which requires that you not repress your emotions. (It turns out that it's not possible to selectively repress emotions: "I've got to watch what I say about politics" subconsciously spills over into "I've got to watch what I say" which spills over into "I've got to watch what I say about anything new and controversial", and you lose the latter well before the former.) The part that's biting them is that now that they're 100,000 people, creativity is wasted anyway, because any brilliant new product idea will get killed long before launch and if it doesn't it'll probably catastrophically damage Google's brand. So the upside of this cultural decision is worthless to them, and the downside is incredibly chaotic and difficult to manage. I think we'll see a shift away from this at Google, but I think other startups will still consciously embrace it. When you're 10 people and are about to go out of business if you don't come up with a brilliant idea, your incentives are dramatically different from when you're 100,000 and make tens of billions from your existing business lines every quarter.

nradov 7y ago
Why do you think that creativity requires emotional engagement? I haven't found that to be the case.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Personal experience, but it's also been born out by studies: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-and-science/201909/what-emotions-help-creativity https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-a... https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creative https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creat... https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02660/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0266... TL;DR: It's not the specific emotion that matters (indeed, there's evidence that having mixed emotions, where you can synthesize aspects of them, is crucial to creativity), it's the motivational intensity behind it.

avocado4 7y ago

I'm pretty sure Google has seen an exodus of alienated top performers in the past years (who happen to be predominantly Asian and White males). So now Google is realizing that maybe demonizing their core demographic through fostering hostile identity politics inside the company is threatening their core advantage. I expect more crackdowns from the leadership in the future, including restrictions on Memegen and other toxic internal forums. I cannot stress enough how bizarre the internal politics truly were now that I left Google. It's interesting to see posts from Xoogler activists in Xoogler boards who try to introduce themselves as some sort of oppressed heroes, only to be stonewalled by the alumni community who couldn't care less about their PC agenda now that their career isn't held siege to PC whims.

siruncledrew 7y ago

It's very hard to actually have private, internal dialogues in a 'townhall setting' among an employee group so large. Recordings and videos could get leaked at any time by an employee to the media or on social media, which will further blow it up (ahem, like with Facebook) or perhaps take things out of context or cause more chaos. Google actually trying to have a serious - and not just PR/HR-bullshit - discussion about highly nuanced, opinionated, divisive topics relevant to the workplace in this type of mass-meeting setting is basically playing with fire out in the open. (This isn't a take on yes/no politics in the workplace, just an interpretation from Google/Facebook)

asveikau 7y ago
> Recordings and videos could get leaked at any time by an employee to the media or on social media, which will further blow it up (ahem, like with Facebook) Worth clarifying a point. The leakers didn't make Zuck say stupid things. I can understand that having scrutiny on every single communication is probably pretty hard, but people often neglect that the best PR scandal avoidance mechanism is to not do stupid things.
- throwaway579315 7y ago
  What did Zuckerberg say in the leaked audio that was stupid?

shadowgovt 7y ago

I strongly suspect that Google can't hear the question over the sound of their stock reaching record highs, but it's an interesting question.

tanilama 7y ago

They must have. They have actively invite politics into their companies, and make a playground for them.

Animats 7y ago

Well, that's the price of expecting people to spend their whole life at work. If everybody knocks off at 5 and goes home, they can keep their politics at home. Google feeds 3 meals a day, and if you eat dinner at work, you're expected to return to work afterwards. They have lockers and showers at work. They'd have adult dorms if they could.

tirewarehouse 7y ago
I know you're a prolific poster on here, and you often provide valuable contributions, so it's disheartening to see how full of misinformation this comment is. I've worked at many tech companies, and Google has among the best work-life balance I've encountered. Work hours vary by team and by role, but on a whole, it's very reasonable. They serve three meals, but you're not expected to eat all three meals. Some people like to get in early and leave early, others like to get in late and stay late. The food is just a perk, there if you want it. Also, you're not obligated or expected to work longer if you eat dinner. Not sure where you heard that one. If you're at the office when dinner is served, it's considered that you've already stayed late.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  And many companies unlike Google don't let you take food home. Or serve it very late, so you are working late. This is not the case at Google at all. The parent comment is so off the mark. These kind of posters have an image in their head from HN threads and keep propagating it in their comments.
  - tirewarehouse 7y ago
    To be fair to OP, I had the same image in my head before I joined. I probably wrote a similar comment at some point in the past, and propagated the misinformation myself. I worked for many years at an aerospace company, where we put in long hours for relatively little pay. I convinced myself that if a company offered its employees good perks, it must have a sinister motive. Of course, now there are constant stories of tech employees griping about how evil they think their employers are, how unfairly they're being treated, how little freedom they have to express their opinions. It's hard not to roll my eyes sometimes.

narrator 7y ago

This infiltration and chaos making by SJWs in the tech companies is just a continuation of Dutschke's "Long march through the institutions"[1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...

busterarm 7y ago

Also Kickstarter, who is dealing with an internal unionization fight that's pitting the employees against each other.

thundergolfer 7y ago
Isn’t it pitting some employees against management? I’ve seen the articles discussing dismissals of prominent members of the union fight, but haven’t seen anything about employees fighting each other because of the unionisation.
- busterarm 7y ago
  The pro-union group within the roughly 110 person company doesn't have enough employee support required to establish collective bargaining. The pro-union group does not want unionization to go to vote because of this, so instead they've chosen the tactic of creating bad PR for the company management and the demand that company management accept unionization without employee vote. Employees who are both pro and against unionization have concerns about how the union organizers have acted and that it may be detrimental to the long term health of the company. About 20% of the company publicly, openly supports unionization but 2 people got fired. From the rest, almost 100% of them have received a raise or a promotion during the same period.

burtonator 7y ago

Interviewed at Etsy about a year or two ago and the interviewer was asking me about politically charged topics. How I would handle workplace gender complaints. How they should handle racial diversity in the work place, etc. It was really clear I was giving wrong answers. I told them flat out that I think people should be judged by the quality of their character, not the color of their skin and that the company should just try to be fair and hire the best people. I mean I get that companies want to do the right thing but you can only really do ONE thing well.

Gunax 7y ago
Wait... those are the wrong things to say? They are practically textbook PR cliches. They are not necessarily what people would actually do, but they sound like the correct answer in interview-speak.
- geofft 7y ago
  Er, if the question is "How would you handle someone you manage telling you of sexual/racial discrimination," the correct cliche answer is absolutely not to say "I judge people by the content of their character and pretend the color of the skin doesn't exist," or some equivalent form like "If the behavior would be acceptable if the people in the situation had different gender/race, then it's definitely acceptable." That would count as ignoring a report of discrimination that you're legally obligated to not ignore. (We'd need to know more details about the question and the answer to be sure.)
sailfast 7y ago
I assume this was for a supervisory position or an HR position? These aren’t really politically charged questions but rather questions about how to manage people and the issues that come with people. While the cause of the complaint may be politically charged, how one would handle the situation should be pretty by the book.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Even if the book is wrong?

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SquishyPanda23 7y ago

They're not keeping it out of the workplace, or at least that's one complaints that is public. Employees have been objecting to the hiring of conservative activists into influential positions. E.g. there were objections about support for the Trump administration's extreme positions on immigration and activist positions opposed to trans people.

vkou 7y ago

> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. I am really, really tired of people framing "Hiring (mostly) from the typical tech 22-35 college graduate demographic" as "Actively courting activists." What were you expecting tech companies to do? Not hire anyone under the age of 40, or anyone who grew up, schooled, or worked in a blue state? If they did that, I suppose they'd get a largely 'activist-free' (But not politics-free!) workforce. Google's business is inherently political. Its relationship with governments and regulators across the world is inherently political. The employee-employer relationship is inherently political. Of course you're going to get employees acting on their political opinions, in those contexts.

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geofft 7y ago

Well, Google and GitHub built fantastic engineering departments with that decision, beating the pants off several companies that followed "common knowledge." It was (and still is) a cliche that you get better results by hiring like Google than by hiring like everyone used to hire. What they're now learning is that this decision is incompatible with certain forms of revenue like military or immigration-enforcement contracts. That doesn't mean that the right answer is that you should accept such forms of revenue and reject the employees who don't support it. That just means you have to choose. What they're regretting is simply that they can't have it both ways. (Also, GitHub in particular is trying to endorse a particular form of politics at work - they've been defending the practices of ICE in their internal and external communications. If opposition to ICE is political, support of ICE is political too, no?) Google and GitHub are trying to turn into IBM and Oracle. That's fine, but they should remember that they were originally trying to beat IBM and Oracle. And they shouldn't be surprised if a company that explicitly embraces activist engineers and forswears sources of revenue incompatible with that activism, a company that says "We will talk about politics at the workplace and this is our particular form of politics," one day beats the pants off them.

bendbro 7y ago
> And they shouldn't be surprised if a company that explicitly embraces activist engineers and forswears sources of revenue incompatible with that activism, a company that says "We will talk about politics at the workplace and this is our particular form of politics," one day beats the pants off them. They should be surprised as it hasn't ever happened before. That's not to say that it won't or shouldn't happen, it just would be surprising.
- geofft 7y ago
  Didn't it happen with Google? Did they not build a more productive engineering department because they said "Bring your whole self to work, and bring your dog too" and not "We want your butt in a cubicle for 40 hours and this is just a job"? I suspect if a company says "Bring your whole self to work, and we're actually serious about it, only bother applying if you think you'll gel with the folks already here," they'll still be able to hire as many people as they need and they'll deliver better products because of it.

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bArray 7y ago

> I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively > courted activists are now regretting their decision. I think it's fair to say that there are a large number of people who are very invested in the answer to this question, hence it will be difficult to get a serious unbiased answer. It's also quite politically hot. > For a long time it was common knowledge that you would try > to keep stuff like that out of the workplace. Activists and unions have brought many a company and Country to its knees. Companies that stay away from politics (or any statements at all) seem to be doing better, but somebody like Google or GitHub have so much financial and structural clout that they can afford to make mistakes. > My guess is there will certainly be a shift away from > other companies trying to do this in the future. > Rightfully so imho. I agree, but it's hard to fully quantify. I guess the real point is that politically companies and Countries are split approximately 50/50 between two main parties and any polarizing position a company takes will likely upset roughly half of the people. I think the only way to maintain a proper diverse structure is to not take sides.

erikpukinskis 7y ago

“Complete chaos”? For real?

m0zg 7y ago

Seems like it'd be really easy to get rid of the "activists" though: sign a few Cloud contracts with people they don't like (starting with DoD and going down the list), and if they really are activists, they'll go work elsewhere. You don't have to get rid of TGIF to do that.