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As an Xoogler (left in 2015) I find that news highly disappointing. I think that without honest, regular Q&A at events like TGIF, the company will become mor

As an Xoogler (left in 2015) I find that news highly disappointing. I think that without honest, regular Q&A at events like TGIF, the company will become more and more out of touch. When I was there, TGIF was watered down, but we still asked uncomfortable questions of management. I remember asking a question of Sundar when he was head of Android when the Nexus 6 came out questioning our chasing Apple into the high end market, rather than making affordable devices.

chance_state 7y ago
Do you remember other "uncomfortable" or probing questions that were asked? Just out of curiosity. I work for a company that holds similar "town halls" where employees are able to ask anonymous questions of management and they can get pretty brutal sometimes ("why is turnover so high?", "why is upper management's compensation so much higher than others?", etc).
- 1000units 7y ago
  My work has this too and it gets a little embarrassing when people reveal they fundamentally misunderstand the relationship they have with their employer.
  - chance_state 7y ago
    ha! I completely agree. Some of the questions are genuinely things that everyone is thinking but too afraid to ask, and some are complaints from employees to management that are as old as time. But with both types, it at least gives people the feeling that they can be heard.
  - chii 7y ago
    > reveal they fundamentally misunderstand the relationship they have with their employer. Due to the great PR that an employer create via their branding (for HR and recruiting). It is wise to always remember that if you earn a wage/salary, the relationship between an employer and employee is going to remain as such - the business's interests supersedes your own. I would like to see a future world where there is no such employer/employee relationship, because everyone works for themselves (but also cannot hire anyone).
- drewg123 7y ago
  It has been nearly 5 years, so I don't remember specifics. But I do recall people asking the same kinds of questions that would come up on HN around controversial product decisions. Eg, product cancellations, etc. I also recall people asking about differing working conditions between the core Google and acquired consumer products companies..
jtolmar 7y ago
Having left more recently (mid 2019) - TGIF had been increasingly sporadically scheduled from 2016 onwards, to the point that many of us had thought it was cancelled a few times between then and now. In my local office, snacks got rescheduled and shuffled around to be further away from where the live stream happened and sometimes start at the same time as the broadcast. The writing was on the wall for a long time. A lot of people blamed this on leaks, but that already came to a head in the 2013-2015 era, where I saw announcements go from being made a week ahead of time at TGIF, to a day, to hours, to a few hours after the fact, to not at all. I'd attribute more to new executives who were more hostile to being asked hard questions.
- ChrisCinelli 7y ago
  Exactly that.
- sneak 7y ago
  I get the impression (as a total outsider) that Google went from being a cohesive "us" that had clear inside/outside communication, to a collection of disparate groups (code monkeys/execs, for lack of a better term, as well as others) that do not feel aligned/allegiance to each other. Is that in any way accurate? That the internal unity got balkanized (primarily by senior management)?
  - jtolmar 7y ago
    Management above the director level was always invisible, but it went from invisible and assumed benevolent to invisible and assumed hostile (spurred by concrete actions). I don't think they were considered part of an "us" at any stage. Despite all the people ranting about political culture on Hacker News, my experience among leaf level employees was one of growing solidarity, and that sense of "us" increasingly being extended to temps, vendors, and contractors.
bamboozled 7y ago
I thought the same thing, this sounds like the CEOs approach is to cover up the issues rather than work on addressing them, probably one of the worst things you can do honestly and he now has the issue to solve of making sure the right information is communicated effectively without misinterpretation. It sounds like they might even need more transparency rather than less of it. If some of the conversations were being leaked, well why not just open it up?

chance_state 7y ago

Do you remember other "uncomfortable" or probing questions that were asked? Just out of curiosity. I work for a company that holds similar "town halls" where employees are able to ask anonymous questions of management and they can get pretty brutal sometimes ("why is turnover so high?", "why is upper management's compensation so much higher than others?", etc).

1000units 7y ago
My work has this too and it gets a little embarrassing when people reveal they fundamentally misunderstand the relationship they have with their employer.
- chance_state 7y ago
  ha! I completely agree. Some of the questions are genuinely things that everyone is thinking but too afraid to ask, and some are complaints from employees to management that are as old as time. But with both types, it at least gives people the feeling that they can be heard.
- chii 7y ago
  > reveal they fundamentally misunderstand the relationship they have with their employer. Due to the great PR that an employer create via their branding (for HR and recruiting). It is wise to always remember that if you earn a wage/salary, the relationship between an employer and employee is going to remain as such - the business's interests supersedes your own. I would like to see a future world where there is no such employer/employee relationship, because everyone works for themselves (but also cannot hire anyone).
drewg123 7y ago
It has been nearly 5 years, so I don't remember specifics. But I do recall people asking the same kinds of questions that would come up on HN around controversial product decisions. Eg, product cancellations, etc. I also recall people asking about differing working conditions between the core Google and acquired consumer products companies..

jtolmar 7y ago

Having left more recently (mid 2019) - TGIF had been increasingly sporadically scheduled from 2016 onwards, to the point that many of us had thought it was cancelled a few times between then and now. In my local office, snacks got rescheduled and shuffled around to be further away from where the live stream happened and sometimes start at the same time as the broadcast. The writing was on the wall for a long time. A lot of people blamed this on leaks, but that already came to a head in the 2013-2015 era, where I saw announcements go from being made a week ahead of time at TGIF, to a day, to hours, to a few hours after the fact, to not at all. I'd attribute more to new executives who were more hostile to being asked hard questions.

ChrisCinelli 7y ago
Exactly that.
sneak 7y ago
I get the impression (as a total outsider) that Google went from being a cohesive "us" that had clear inside/outside communication, to a collection of disparate groups (code monkeys/execs, for lack of a better term, as well as others) that do not feel aligned/allegiance to each other. Is that in any way accurate? That the internal unity got balkanized (primarily by senior management)?
- jtolmar 7y ago
  Management above the director level was always invisible, but it went from invisible and assumed benevolent to invisible and assumed hostile (spurred by concrete actions). I don't think they were considered part of an "us" at any stage. Despite all the people ranting about political culture on Hacker News, my experience among leaf level employees was one of growing solidarity, and that sense of "us" increasingly being extended to temps, vendors, and contractors.

bamboozled 7y ago

I thought the same thing, this sounds like the CEOs approach is to cover up the issues rather than work on addressing them, probably one of the worst things you can do honestly and he now has the issue to solve of making sure the right information is communicated effectively without misinterpretation. It sounds like they might even need more transparency rather than less of it. If some of the conversations were being leaked, well why not just open it up?