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I Was Google’s Head of International Relations
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y agoThis was a great read. Nothing like a story from the inside to highlight that senior executives at Google really don't care about human rights and just how far down the slippery slope they've already gone.
- enitihas 7y agoAt which big company do you think senior executives care about human rights? I am not saying Google shouldn't strive to do better than others, but just curious.
- hacknat 7y agoIf big is the problem than maybe we should break these monopolies up.
- enitihas 7y agoHow does that work well in a global economy? What if China doesn't break their big companies, but rather encourages them?
- andreilys 7y agoWhat will likely happen is those companies will now have less competition and as a result dominate the world economy. Serving as yet another tool to exert and influence the geopolitical landscape.
- anoncake 7y agoFree trade is not a law of nature.
- infinityplus1 7y agoThose big companies can simply be banned. Look at Huavei.
- enitihas 7y agoWas huawei ever banned, or only threatened?
- hacknat 7y agoThe first word of your response belies its incorrectness. While you may end up being right, the situation is anything but “simple”. There are plenty of Monopolies that were taken down by innovation in the last 20 years. Monopolies are not autocrats. They do have lots of power, but they’re not invincible, especially when it comes to innovating.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- enitihas 7y agoAnd which monopolies were replaced with a good competitive landscape. Nobody is saying innovation can't replace monopolies, just that they are more likely to be replaced by another innovative monopoly rather than several competitive businesses.
- lokar 7y agoI think the interesting part (from this story, and my personal experience) was that Google execs did care for as long as they did. It obviously ended, but much later then I would have expected.
- michaelt 7y agoA lot of companies are less subject to criticism by simply not having an arsenal of spying and censorship tools at their disposal, or China as a major target market. If you're a senior executive at CVS or Verizon or Home Depot you don't need a stance on disputed borders in your maps or flags in your emoji set - making it much easier to avoid the kind of criticisms tech companies are vulnerable to. Sure, you're vulnerable to criticism for selling products brought from (or containing components brought from) oppressive regimes, but Apple and Google and Microsoft all do that and the other stuff as well
- advisedwang 7y agoI think Larry and Sergey did. And that's kind of the authors point when he talks about leadership change.
- fernandopj 7y agoWell, the author is now running for a US public office position. So I personally take this article as just another form of content marketing for his new public persona.
- barrkel 7y agoPut yourself in the author's shoes. If you'd seen these kinds of wrongs and you wanted to right them, and discovered you couldn't do it from within the organization, how would you do it from the outside? Because from where I'm sitting, your narrative is universal against all politicians, and in fact democracy itself, since all political communications are just marketing to get elected.
- skybrian 7y agoI think ordinary journalistic skepticism should apply here? He's telling a story from his perspective, but you can't judge a political situation by listening to only one of the people involved.
- everdrive 7y agoThe biggest point of skepticism in my mind is the combination of two totally unrelated qualms in one article. "Google ignored human rights in China in pursuit of profit. (and therefore Google is evil)" AND "Google isn't nice to women, minorities, and other groups. (and is therefore evil)" These two issues are not related at all. It's easy to imagine a company which didn't kowtow to China, but was still not treating minorities properly. And of course, it's easy to imagine the reverse. (and, I'll bet that latter scenario happens quite often.) The only real point relating them together is the author's personal grievance. It's also the case that the James Damore memo suggests the opposite problem the author complains about -- diversity policies which are too progressive. I'm not suggesting Damore is correct, and the author is incorrect, but instead that this line of argument is not a given. Further, although I completely agree with the complaints with regard to China, the author has said very little which was not already publicly known. That's a fine thing to do, but he muddies the water by mixing these large geopolitical problems with his own personal grievances. Lastly, I find it surprising that he does not know how HR works. As I mentioned above, HR prevents lawsuits. They only help you if helping you will prevent a lawsuit.
- Mindwipe 7y agoThat all seems... pretty damning. Not very surprising, but pretty damning. Google definitely needs to outright fire the HR partner who was stupid enough to write that they should "do some digging" on a staff member down. They're clearly a liability.
- notkaiho 7y agoYes, that's absolutely the crux of the problem here.
- tehjoker 7y agoFor our benefit, shouldn't they stay on permanently? Also, how does messing up a cc equate to a bad employee? It happens all the time even in important communications. Sucks, but what can you do?
- Mindwipe 7y ago> Also, how does messing up a cc equate to a bad employee? It wasn't the CC I was criticising. If you subscribe to the maxim that the point of an HR department is to shield the company from successful employment lawsuits then putting "dig up some dirt" on someone in writing anywhere where it is subject to discovery in the event of a lawsuit is flat out incompetent.
- enitihas 7y agoI think Google have pushed themselves into a corner, where it would be difficult for them to win. Companies like Microsoft and Apple which don't care about Employee unrest would continue to wrestle contracts like JEDI and Chinese market, and continue growing. Bing continues to operate and censor in China, but nobody bats an eye. But people don't encourage boycotting MSFT because of it. Apple Maps works in China too. China is a substantial market for Apple. Apple keeps removing Apps on the behalf of the Chinese government (recently removed an App used by Hong Kong protestors), and on iOS it is almost impossible for a non tech user to install apps outside of app store. I think what all this will do is encourage companies to refrain from things like "Don't be evil", since once you do that the geanie is out of the bottle, and you won't just be compared to your peers, but be held to a substantially higher standard.
- hetspookjee 7y agoI think the same mantra is also responsible for the rise in succes. It's an enormously attractive proposition to get paid a lot, work on world's largest dataset with world's most advanced hardware - while all doing good, akin to working for an NGO. The downside is that if you want to get rid of that proposition you're still stuck with a larger than average pool of idealistically driven employees. As for now one of the few companies I have the desire to work for is Apple due to their stance on privacy - though I find it difficult to completely respect them due to their stance on China, which is entirely conflicting with their western stance regarding privacy and ethics.
- goatinaboat 7y agoIt's an enormously attractive proposition to get paid a lot, work on world's largest dataset with world's most advanced hardware - while all doing good The getting paid a lot is to entice people to do the mental gymnastics necessary to pretend what they do isn’t mere adtech.
- reroute1 7y agoConversely you might want to consider the mental gymnastics required to pretend that all that people at google do is merely adtech.
- lidHanteyk 7y agoMy New Years' Resolution is to divest myself of Google.
- FussyZeus 7y agoMine is to continue doing it. I've rid myself of everything but Search. Recommendations?
- dd36 7y agoAnd IBM sold to the Nazis. There needs to be a higher value enforced by law.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- andreilys 7y ago” At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a group labeled “homos” while participants shouted out stereotypes such as “effeminate” and “promiscuous.” Colleagues of color were forced to join groups called “Asians” and “Brown people” in other rooms nearby.” Wow this literally sounds like an episode of The Office (S1 E2) Definitely not the most damning thing in this article but the one that really jumped out for me. Can’t even wrap my mind around why someone thought this would be a good idea
- iliekcomputers 7y agoIn this day and age, who thinks that "homos" is a good label to use? And this is at Google, holy crap. How does a place that I'd expect to be filled to the brim with forward thinking techies even hire a person who thought this was a good idea?
- whatshisface 7y agoAlso, how would they know who to put in the "homo room?" How were people assigned? Did a senior executive walk up and down the hall, looking in offices, and going "gay, black, gay, gay, asian..." Something has to have been left out of the story, this is way too crazy to ever happen.
- whoevercares 7y agoHappened to know quite a few people from Google who has been frustrated by the policy made by his team and they clearly disagree with many of it’s implementation details. It might be interesting to hear from insiders how much they appreciate his org
- shadowgovt 7y agoWhich is fair, but it seems like an org with the task of keeping the company from being evil would generate some friction with people seeking the shortest path to product (and therefore promotion). That the work they do is unpopular doesn't imply the work they do is bad. I, personally, was always grudgingly respectful of the privacy auditing team, even if their suggestions could delay a project upwards of two quarters.
- sjg007 7y agoSeems like Google needs an executive leadership team where these types of questions are addressed and decisions are made. A human rights board sounds like a good idea to me but I can see why a company would not pursue one. We largely expect the US government to take the lead with respect to human rights. Not saying that I agree or disagree with that but it is how many businesses operate. Googlers who disagree could voice to the ELT and then make decisions on their own if the ELT disagrees if they want to stay, leave or what not. They could unionize too and use the power of collective bargaining. It seems like the cafeteria workers figured out how to do it.
- shadowgovt 7y agoI'm openly curious if even the creation of some kind of leadership team for human rights questions opens the company up to more liability by creating a paper trail that a prosecutor could point to. What happens when the documented human rights decisions differ from US law (which has its own places where it's fallen on its face in the human rights department)? Or from the law of any country in which Google operates, for that matter? (I agree this is a good idea in principle, but it's possible for good ideas to be bad to implement for liability reasons).
- heymijo 7y agoPerformance evaluations are subjectivity masquerading as objectivity. > In each of these cases, I brought these issues to HR and senior executives and was assured the problems would be handled. Yet in each case, there was no follow up to address the concerns — until the day I was accidentally copied on an email from a senior HR director. In the email, the HR director told a colleague that I seemed to raise concerns like these a lot, and instructed her to “do some digging” on me instead. Then, despite being rated and widely known as one of the best people managers at the company, despite 11 years of glowing performance reviews and near-perfect scores on Google’s 360-performance evaluations, and despite being a member of the elite Foundation Program reserved for Google’s “most critical talent” who are “key to Google’s current and future success,” I was told there was no longer a job for me as a result of a “reorganization,” despite 90 positions on the policy team being vacant at the time.
- whatshisface 7y agoThat sounds like how Damore says he was treated. If nothing else, these scandals have taught us about how Google's HR works at high levels.
- rolltiide 7y agoHow all HR works: protect the company, cut out the person that reported the problem. You are always taking a big EV- gamble if you actually believe that HR is there to help you. If you experience adversity at work there is no help for you, income is the EV+ bet.
- oumua_don17 7y agoIs EV = Enterprise Value? [1] [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/enterprisevalue.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/enterprisevalue.asp
- technofiend 7y agoNo, it's expected value. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/expected-value.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/expected-value.asp
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago> A new CEO was hired to lead Google Cloud and a new CFO was hired from Wall Street, and beating earnings expectations every quarter became the key priority. So, IOW, they became what every other big company has become. It's not about employees. It's not about customers. It's not about product. It's only about returning every penny they possibly can to shareholders.
- SamuelAdams 7y agoExactly this. Thousands of USA based companies sell products and services to foreign governments all over the world for the purpose of making more money. Yet no one discusses those companies. Why should Google be put on a pedestal? Organizations grow and change all the time. People who still think a 20+ year old organization needs to hold fast to its founders roots are holding the company back. If there is a group of googler's that still believe in the "do no evil" manatra, have them go off and build a nonprofit org that builds services that respect "do no evil". Or improve open source / free services that can compete with Google services.
- KKKKkkkk1 7y agoIt was no different in the workplace culture. Senior colleagues bullied and screamed at young women, causing them to cry at their desks. An unfortunate fact that catches many by surprise is that bullying is not against company policy in some of the FAANGs. In fact, some of them were founded by bullies and have a culture that glorifies such behavior.
- pysxul 7y agothat's a people problem that exist pretty much in every company with a management layer
- bagacrap 7y agoI find "scream" and "yell" to be incredibly subjective terms, and more often than not applied hyperbolically relative to my meaning of the words.
- shantly 7y agoI've heard it applied to a totally normal conversational level of volume, but with a serious edge/tone to it.
- jahlove 7y ago> In fact, some of them were founded by bullies and have a culture that glorifies such behavior. See video evidence of Bill Gates. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzftbBq42i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzftbBq42i8
- cerealbad 7y agoManagement bloating faster than the codebase.
- austincheney 7y ago> In the email, the HR director told a colleague that I seemed to raise concerns like these a lot, and instructed her to “do some digging” on me instead. A lesson on how to fire somebody you disagree with. You need paper to show a series of bad behavior, but because there is no prior bad paper you deliberately produce it moving forward to use as a weapon. I have been through this myself. A manager at a prior company was very unhappy with my periodic separations for scheduled military training. He mentioned that scheduling such separations from work was harming my career and would immediately follow that with some excuse to justify my near termination. Those are illegal communications. I ignored this for a while because I loved my coworkers. He must have finally brought his frustrations to HR for action, because suddenly one day the negative communications stopped and the formal written documentation started. Somebody had educated him on the lawful approach. I finally just left and found work elsewhere.
- sojournerc 7y agoIANAL, but as far as I know employer repercussions for military service are forbidden and protected against at a Federal level in the US. Did you have not have recourse along those lines? (or maybe not in the USA?)
- monocasa 7y agoThey are protected, but practically enforcing those provisions is very difficult.
- gwright 7y agoWhile I think there should be a legal recourse for these sorts of things, everyone's personal calculus on when to fight and when to move on is going to be different. Just because there is a legal recourse doesn't mean that everyone is going to go down that road. Companies that don't "do the right thing" ultimately get punished by attrition of employees (and customers) deciding to pick up and move on.
- austincheney 7y ago
- einpoklum 7y ago> the simple but powerful guidance “Don’t be evil.” > ... I joined Google in 2008, when those words still mattered. Oh, sure, sure. You weren't saving everyone's private information forever. You weren't sending a copy of everything to the NSA. You weren't lobbying to get regulatory breaks on data centers. No, Google was perfectly saintly 10 years ago. ... (reading further down) Ah, so, this guy is telling us the problem with Google is in _China_. Hilarious. > But each time I recommended a Human Rights Program, senior executives came up with an excuse to say no. Ok, so - perhaps I can give the author the benefit of the doubt and believe he is a very naive man for believing a corporation like Google would allow for something like this.
- jstewartmobile 7y agoI might be wrong, but--I do believe that if someone pisses on our heads and tells us it's raining here, and you have the temerity to suggest that it might not actually be rain, that is somehow a direct violation of HN site guidelines. Could be wrong though...
- alexeiz 7y ago> At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a group labeled “homos” while participants shouted out stereotypes such as “effeminate” and “promiscuous.” Colleagues of color were forced to join groups called “Asians” and “Brown people” in other rooms nearby. I call that BS. It doesn't pass the Jussie Smollette test. The whole write-up reads really made up. There are a lot of things in there that are hard to believe. Google moved to the left in recent years more than ever, but this guys says that "Standing up ... for the LGBTQ community ... had cost me my career." Give me a break.
- everdrive 7y agoHR does not protect you. They have two roles, and two roles only: - They protect the company from being sued. - They fire you.
- romanows 7y agoNote that protecting the company from being sued can mean protecting you. For example, a harasser might be fired to avoid a lawsuit. But you hear stories about HR people putting the company in legal jeopardy (e.g. not firing a harasser) due to their own bias, laziness or in-company relationships.
- threatofrain 7y agoIf you’ve been harassed at work it gives you an upper hand to complain about your workplace, and so you also present a liability to the company now that harassment occurred. That might not mean consequences but it does mean you are more risky, even if there’s no easy way to deal with that risk now.
- Mangalor 7y agoOk, so, "let harassers get away with it" is the correct answer? Surely not.
- m0zg 7y agoHarassment is difficult to document. If it's not documented and there are no witnesses willing to corroborate (i.e. if you can't sue), to HR it doesn't exist. Anecdotally, I've also seen people complain of harassment when e.g. someone complemented them on their looks when wearing a bikini at a company event in Hawaii. So while I in general have no sympathy for HR, they do end up in such bullshit situations from time to time.
- m0zg 7y agoCritically, if you have hard evidence that could screw the company, they fire the person that would minimize the damage if you were to sue. But yeah, 100% of their responsibility centers around protecting the company, and 0% around protecting the employee _per se_.
- lone_haxx0r 7y agoI wanted to read the article, but Medium sucks too much.
- conradfr 7y ago"Standing up for women, for the LGBTQ community, for colleagues of color, and for human rights — had cost me my career." Did these people ask you to? If I'm a bit cynic I would say it starts with China, then move to internal politics but in the end he only really quit because he was "soft-fired". Still, some great information in his post.
- ur-whale 7y agoNot first the first time, I'd like to point out that the people that instituted and cared for the amazing cultural values of Google in its first ten years are loooong gone. They're all rich beyond belief and completely burnt out from carrying that torch (Jeff Dean maybe being the exception). Unfortunately, before they bailed, they didn't take the time to select their replacement properly, as in: handing over the reins to people with the same kind of ethos, moral values and more importantly, the same kind of backbone. Instead, they left the superb thing they had created in the hands of a new gen of execs who either don't even understand how one can say "Don't Be Evil" in a business context or - Sundar being a prime example - strictly don't have the shoulders, charisma, leadership or vision to run something like Google. Google has turned in yet another faceless corporation run by a bunch of greedy execs who are only in it to make as much money as they can. Given how much power Google has concentrated in the hands of a few, this is pretty terrible.
- mav3rick 7y agoLol so many original people are still there.
- dandare 7y agoI switched to DDG after Google's Dragonfly fiasco. The only way to stop Google from going to bed with the communist mass murderers is to threaten their domestic profits.
- username90 7y agoI'm not sure how that would help. DDG partners with Bing which already does everything Dragonfly were supposed to do, while Google is still not in China. So it seems like you now offer more support to the Chinese government than when you used Google.
- mav3rick 7y agoDon't worry. Op won't reply now.
- mrmuagi 7y agoWell the context provided by this article is about revealing identities of individuals, which I trust is a shielded against when using DDG?
- dandare 7y agoInteresting, I didn't know the content is sourced from Bing, I thought they have their own engine. I still believe that leaving Google (for Bing) is a relevant response to Dragonfly.
- mav3rick 7y agoSo ddg still supports communist mass murderers ?
- forgotmylogin2 7y agoIt sounds like product teams were deliberating circumventing his team. Hard to imagine anybody being able to serve in this role if their partner teams are unwilling to work with them. Sidenote: the fundamental problem with Google's performance review process is that you get to choose who reviews you, and nobody chooses to get reviewed by somebody they quarreled with. As a result, claiming you had good performance reviews is more or less meaningless. It really just means your manager liked you. It says little about how good you are at working with others.
- sjg007 7y agoI agree. 360 reviews are completely useless. Business and marketing folks always give out quid pro quo great reviews. There is no reason not to. Why would you burn a bridge? And possibly a later career move? The only people who seem to take 360s seriously are engineers who are usually too competitive with each other to review someone fairly. And that is a major detriment to team cohesion.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- goatinaboat 7y agoengineers who are usually too competitive with each other to review someone fairly. And that is a major detriment to team cohesion. This is why engineers are so powerless in most organisations, this crab mentality. Members of other professions always present a united front to outsiders and deal with matters internally. It’s too easy for management to divide-and-conquer engineers.
- JohnFen 7y agoI'm an engineer and I only took 360s seriously the first time I encountered them. I rapidly learned better.
- UncleMeat 7y ago> the fundamental problem with Google's performance review process is that you get to choose who reviews you Except this isn't true at all. Your manager reviews you. Other people write feedback (you choose these people, though people can write unsolicited feedback for you). Your manager should be obtaining a holistic view of your work rather than just relying on the solicited feedback. Further, there is an oversight process where managers must justify their ratings to other managers. This attempts to prevent the "your manager likes you so you get a good review" problem.
- vjktyu 7y agoSo the high-level sociopaths have taken over to increase profits at any cost, and Ross has chosen to leave for big politics and use the moment to show his principled approach. P.S. everybody should read the gervais principle book: it's 101 of the corp politics.
- sjg007 7y agoOh boy, Google is going to be upset if he is elected Senator... I wonder if a break up big tech line would appeal to voters in Maine.
- shadowgovt 7y agoIf anyone ever wonders how Google justifies those multi-million-dollar golden parachutes when high-valued employees leave the company, here's a case study in how. Google employs good engineers and politically powerful people. There are consequences for a company that does that when they lose the trust of those individuals.
- asdf21 7y agoI find it hilarious that they were trying to virtue signal about inclusivity with their diversity trainings, but instead they resulted in a bunch of racist behavior and actual minorities being extremely offended, even years later.
- shadowgovt 7y agoOh, I think it's worse than that. I think the company leadership legitimately wants to do right by minority staff and has no idea how, so that defer to third-party programs they lack the skill to evaluate.
- sjg007 7y agoMaybe it is better to show episodes of Seasame street. They seem to be able to do it.
- busterarm 7y agoGiven the influence of companies like Google and Facebook in our elections and political discourse these days, maybe Google thinks it's a sure thing that he won't be elected. Or that even if he is, how much reach will he have anyway?
- 7y ago
- carapace 7y agoTL;DR: The founders checked out and greed trumped ethics. Anyhow, here's IMO the key take away / question: > I think the important question is what does it mean when one of America’s marque’ companies changes so dramatically. Is it the inevitable outcome of a corporate culture that rewards growth and profits over social impact and responsibility? Is it in some way related to the corruption that has gripped our federal government? Is this part of the global trend toward “strong man” leaders who are coming to power around the globe, where questions of “right” and “wrong” are ignored in favor of self-interest and self-dealing? Finally, what are the implications for all of us when that once-great American company controls so much data about billions of users across the globe?
- steve76 7y agoPump and dump. We do stuff like this all the time. Get wannabes to dump hundreds of billions into a leading brand, trillions into a sector, and then crash it. Stopped WW3 from happening for a century. Here's what I want from you: - You want a ULW. How about you pay your bills and don't ban me from Adsense the day before you say you will write a check you chiseling 'ing -hole *s. - Why is being paid to program a computer all of a sudden an Olympic event? I have the clout to make working at Google as prestigious as getting paid to wait for a bus or read a book at the library, and I will keep you alive to see it. We really would be better off if we just take some warehouse, fill it up with a cube farm, and just have bums sit there and do what the phone tells them. I would trade all you built for that in an instant. --- --- --- Life used to be really fun, really easy. People were nice. Rent was nothing. Buying was fun! Because of your relentless pursuit of celebrity, you turned the world against me. So! Here's what I'm prepared to do for you: - Card sharing. I do work. You owe me money. Instead of having you take 2% of everything I make, you put that balance on a card sharing platform. Secure compute runs traditional eCommerce, and my bills are magically paid! Things I want magically show up on my door! - First class offline device to device communication. I take a ten year old iPhone, I install my app on it, I throw it on a subway, and my data gets out to my users client up without paying for a server.
- aledalgrande 7y ago> But there is a significant difference between serving ads based on a Google search and working with the Chinese government on artificial intelligence or hosting the applications of the Saudi government, including Absher, an application that allows men to track and control the movement of their female family members. Proud to work for Google?
- ng7j5d9 7y ago> Our 2010 decision to stop cooperating with Chinese government censorship on Search results was the first time a non-Chinese corporation stood up to the Chinese government. I didn't bother reading the rest of the post after that claim. Maybe he means that Google was the first non-Chinese corporation to stand up to the Chinese government specifically regarding Internet search?
- nojvek 7y agoI do wonder if any of this articles cost Google anything when it comes to hiring. Will people just take the big fat compensation or does google actually feel any pressure due to negative press. In my mind at-least, I no longer reply to Google recruiters or consider Google as a respectable employer anymore.
- UserIsUnused 7y agoGoogle has the power to hide negative press
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Buge 7y agoDoes Google use that power? I see a lot of negative press.
- JohnFen 7y ago> I do wonder if any of this articles cost Google anything when it comes to hiring. I would say about half of the engineers that I personally know would never consider working for Google. But they largely reached that place years ago, so I don't think that more recent articles had anything to do with that.
- busterarm 7y agoThe running joke among the last few years of MIT grads, as far as I've heard from our hires, is that only the bottom of the class goes to work at Google.
- Redoubts 7y agoTheir interview process and pay scale strongly indicates they’re optimizing for commodity new grads. I don’t see any appeal for experienced hires.
- nojvek 7y agooh wow! Isn't this just blatant sexism and racism ? > It was no different in the workplace culture. Senior colleagues bullied and screamed at young women, causing them to cry at their desks. At an all-hands meeting, my boss said, “Now you Asians come to the microphone too. I know you don’t like to ask questions.” At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a group labeled “homos” while participants shouted out stereotypes such as “effeminate” and “promiscuous.” Colleagues of color were forced to join groups called “Asians” and “Brown people” in other rooms nearby.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago"“Now you Asians come to the microphone too. I know you don’t like to ask questions.”" I actually listened to a great podcast recently that expresses why this might be, and the trick is not to demand more interaction but to give everyone an opportunity to write thoughts down first. Then the differences sharply decrease. What this shows me is an unfortunate lack of education in recent sociological research, but also a lack of curiosity to pursue. Weird for Google.
- scarejunba 7y agoI don't know about the "Now you Asians" line but the diversity exercise is so bloody obvious in what it's aiming to achieve that it blows my mind any other HN commenters aren't able to figure it out. It is a "see how it feels to be discriminated against" exercise. You can argue the outcomes, but you certainly can't argue the intentions. It's clearly aimed at trying to make people understand what it's like to be discriminated against. About the best you can do for a well-intentioned person doing a thing like that is tell them it's not helping.
- samat 7y agoI’ve met this guy on a conference and remember being sure he will run for public office one day.
- drdeadringer 7y agoWhat "gave it away" about him?
- samat 7y agoIt felt like he genuinely cared about issues I’ve raised though I was 99% sure he did not give a slightest fuck about them. He was listening and responding in such a way that I felt a relieve by simply talking to him. Great experience.
- Paul-ish 7y ago> It felt like he genuinely cared about issues I’ve raised though I was 99% sure he did not give a slightest fuck about them. How does that work?
- jiveturkey 7y ago> I joined Google in 2008, when those words still mattered. I saw them used to guide product designs that put the company’s success above a user’s privacy, such as during the development of Google’s ill-fated social network, Buzz. How is that !evil? Putting the company's success above user needs would seem to fall squarely into the evil category. > Although difficult, I was intensely proud of the principled approach the company took in making this decision. [pulling out of China] How naive. This wasn't a principled decision centered on user rights. This was protecting the company's non-China reputation. Can't have Chinese hackers infiltrating Google writ large. Google decided that the best defense was to pack up their toys. As should be obvious to the author considering his later experience: > But each time I recommended a Human Rights Program, senior executives came up with an excuse to say no. His solution: > Although the causes and the implications are worth debating, I am certain of the appropriate response. No longer can massive tech companies like Google be permitted to operate relatively free from government oversight. So, become China-lite? I think there is a reasonable answer in there somewhere, that could be expressed with much more nuance. But as-is, sorry but he sounds like a clown. That said, I've only cherry-picked the parts of the article I don't like. There's plenty to like. I'd read it more generously if he didn't have an ulterior motive at hand.
- paul7986 7y agoOh look another article/first hand account from an insider trashing Google and how it forgot its core mantra. Even it's own founders jumped ship. Personally This is good to see as was also having a hard time giving away my three Google Home speakers for Christmas(white elephant exchange). Majority of my family members did not want their creepy listening devices in their houses. Neither do I every again even though I enjoyed using them!
- rdtsc 7y agoThe article talks about Google's relationship with China and it's encouraging to see that there were people standing up in the company and pushing back. But I also wonder what author would think about https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ Google essentially was becoming an arm of the US State Department. With Schmidt and Jared Cohen saying things like "What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century, technology and cyber-security companies will be to the twenty-first". That seems somewhat benign but then it crosses into Google directly helping the US government drumming up support for Syria air strikes by putting links to government propaganda right on front/search page. I often wonder what Larry and Sergey really think of Google now. Is this the company they dreamed Google would become? Are they proud how their "child" has grown.
- EsssM7QVMehFPAs 7y ago> Lord and master, hear me crying! - > Ah, he comes excited. > Sir, my need is sore. > Spirits that I've cited > My commands ignore.
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's not "becoming an arm" because it does many other things independently. Calling it an "arm" discredits you. But it is a partner, which is bad enough. Larry and Sergey have about 45% voting power (Eric has the rest of the majority) and huge soft power in Google. They are absolutely happy with their "baby" because they choose every day allow and did everything Google does. They could end any project they don't approve of.
- avocado4 7y agoNewsflash - he wasn't Google's head of international relationships like he claims. I keep seeing people in insignificant positions trying to present themselves like somebody they aren't. For example, account managers trying to make it sound like the manage large teams while it's an entry level sales role, or tech leads trying to use it as a formal title (it's not - basically everyone going for L4 is a tech lead, and you can self-proclaim).
- JohnFen 7y ago> he wasn't Google's head of international relationships like he claims. Do you have any evidence for this claim? I could find all sorts of things online that say he was, and none that say otherwise.
- avocado4 7y agoThe source is org chart.
- jldugger 7y agoHis linkedin page, however, declares: > Global Head of International Relations > Jul 2012 – May 2019 > Head of Government Affairs, Asia Pacific > Jan 2010 – Jul 2012 > Head of Government Affairs, Western US > Mar 2008 – Dec 2009 Who does the global head report to? Deputy Vice President of International relations?
- cbarrick 7y ago"Head" is a vague term. His exact title was "Director, International Relations".
- EddieCPU 7y ago- quote - ‘It was no different in the workplace culture. Senior colleagues bullied and screamed at young women, causing them to cry at their desks. At an all-hands meeting, my boss said, “Now you Asians come to the microphone too. I know you don’t like to ask questions.” At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a group labeled “homos” while participants shouted out stereotypes such as “effeminate” and “promiscuous.” Colleagues of color were forced to join groups called “Asians” and “Brown people” in other rooms nearby.”’ - end quote - Such accusations require firm evidence. Quite frankly I find this hard-to-believe. “A former Google executive moved back to Maine and entered the 2020 Senate race. Can he win?” https://bangordailynews.com/2019/11/12/politics/a-former-google-executive-moved-back-to-maine-and-entered-the-2020-senate-race-can-he-win/ https://bangordailynews.com/2019/11/12/politics/a-former-goo...
- justapassenger 7y ago> I used those words myself in 2010 as Head of Public Policy for Asia Pacific, when I executed the company’s landmark decision to stop censoring Search results in China, putting human rights ahead of the bottom line. This guy VPs. He's making it sound as if they cured cancer. What google did is agree to the law in China, and then started to break it. Those are horrible laws, but those were rules of the game from day 1. Google did that _purely_ for PR - they could've just shutdown their service, instead of starting to break the local laws, they suddenly disagreed with. What Google did which such an horrible execution, is made Chinese government even more paranoid and destroyed any trust in USA tech companies.
- shadowgovt 7y agoThat feeling ought to be mutual. I don't really understand US tech companies that trust China. Especially after the CPC's operatives were caught fishing in Gmail accounts for political dissidents.
- baryphonic 7y agoCompletely agree. Google made a half-hearted show of flouting preexisting Chinese authoritarianism only to backtrack shortly thereafter when the cameras were off and the press/government had moved on. An interesting point of comparison is Facebook of all things. For all of their faults, Facebook could not come to an agreement with the CCP respecting expression and human rights, and so chose to not do business in China. Yet in mainstream sources, the vitriol directed at Facebook is quite a bit more intense than that directed at Google. (And a lot of the hate directed at Facebook is frankly laughable compared to what Google has done.) I don't even use Facebook (although I'd say I'm paranoid about both companies), but at least Zuckerberg &co. have some skin in the game when standing for their values. (Almost as much skin in the game as those WhatsApp folks who sacrificed over a gigabuck over their disillusionment at what Facebook were doing to their creation.) Other thought: the author is either extremely cynical/manipulative for writing a seemingly earnest polemic against Google in order to garner sympathy from the public, or he's genuinely a true believer who is a bit naive and would get steamrolled upon entering the US Senate.
- 7y ago
- tibiahurried 7y agoGoogle has become such an unappealing company to work for. You hear and read more often on how bad the culture seems to be getting there. Up until a few years ago I really wanted to work there but when the time came I decided not to go and went to work for another big tech. Looking back I think I made the right choice :) Culture is such an important aspect that in imo many underestimate blinded from the fact that they want that big name on their resume at all costs.
- Platov 7y ago- quote - ‘It was no different in the workplace culture. Senior colleagues bullied and screamed at young women, causing them to cry at their desks. At an all-hands meeting, my boss said, “Now you Asians come to the microphone too. I know you don’t like to ask questions.” At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a group labeled “homos” while participants shouted out stereotypes such as “effeminate” and “promiscuous.” Colleagues of color were forced to join groups called “Asians” and “Brown people” in other rooms nearby.”’ - end quote - Such accusations require firm evidence. Quite frankly I find this hard-to-believe. Is there another reason for trashing his former workplace? “A former Google executive moved back to Maine and entered the 2020 Senate race. Can he win?” https://bangordailynews.com/2019/11/12/politics/a-former-google-executive-moved-back-to-maine-and-entered-the-2020-senate-race-can-he-win/ https://bangordailynews.com/2019/11/12/politics/a-former-goo...
- wnoise 7y agoYet another anecdote that toxic tech culture is really toxic finance culture.
- praptak 7y agoIt's capitalism culture.
- elchupanebre 7y agoIf you want to try socialist culture go work for the government.
- mkolodny 7y agoThe original title gives a very different impression than the posted title. Here's the original: "I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left."
- l33tbro 7y ago> Two weeks after leaving Google, I returned home to Maine. It’s where I was born and raised, and where I was taught basic values like the importance of working hard, standing up for what is right, and speaking the truth. The folksy tone at the end had me expecting some kind of agenda on behalf of the author with writing the article. Lo and behold, she's a political candidate. The whole article feels like someone trying to control their past narrative as they preprare to enter public life. She never 'left' for ethical reasons - she was fired then offered a crappy role.
- mclightning 7y agoshe?
- vjktyu 7y agoChances are, he (Ross) has outplayed the senior execs at Google. He was in the CA governor's team before and thus knew about the new trend to regulate tech, so he went to Google to build some wealth for his political campaign, skillfully played the victim's role, and precisely before the 2020 elections got himself fired for being too concerned with human rights. His next step will be to get into the Senate, make it clear to the new president that their views are aligned, acquire an even more powerful position and then come back to the Google execs who talked down to him.
- codeisawesome 7y agoSounds like... he IS the Senate!!
- Traster 7y agoSo your theory is that he spent a decade at a company, that grew more than 10x over that time, and got consistently promoted into senior leadership as a cynical ploy to gather ammunition to attack the company he spent a decade working at, and then manufactured a reason to get fired as a political stunt?
- vjktyu 7y ago
- pm90 7y agoKey conclusion: > Although the causes and the implications are worth debating, I am certain of the appropriate response. No longer can massive tech companies like Google be permitted to operate relatively free from government oversight. As soon as Google executives were asked by Congress about Project Dragonfly and Google’s commitment to free expression and human rights, they assured Congress that the project was exploratory and it was subsequently shut down. I think we've reached a stage where this is true for all of tech. SV libertarians may balk at this, but this kind of regulation is the only thing that will change the incentives. It will make the financial cost of doing evil high enough that profit-driven product execs will no longer have the option to pursue these paths. In a certain sense, that regulation actually protects the company's character, allowing the success of good ideas, penalizing the profit-at-all-costs execs.
- holografix 7y agoCall me cynical but there are so many incentives to all parties here it’s hard for one not to roll one’s eyes at this. I’m not American, but... Dude is a politician: “Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine.” He knows of the anti big tech sentiment right now, Liz Warren “break’em up” and all that. This piece is coming out at a very convenient time where the media is hungry for yet more scandals at Google, it’s sure to get the author’s name talked about. “Enter the Chinese market in 2006...users were getting more information than before, even if there was censorship of some topics... In China, the government not only demands full access to a company’s user data and infrastructure...” I don’t believe Google pulled out of China just not to be evil. I believe they did so to avoid feeding Baidu with even more expertise than they already had, given the already cross-pollinated rankdex/pagerank algo. “...in December 2017, Google announced the establishment of the Google Center for Artificial Intelligence in Beijing” Given the feedback loop of technology flowing military->private sector->military and the vast amount of Chinese nationals acquiring American expertise and returning to China or Chinese gov-controlled biz poaching talent from the US (see Andrew Ng) I wouldn’t be surprised if the US Gov instructed Google and others to open such facilities in China as a way to “fight back”. This is a tech arms race just as hypersonic weapons are. “...I returned home to Maine. It’s where I was born and raised, and where I was taught basic values like the importance of working hard, standing up for what is right, and speaking the truth. Sharing my story with my neighbors and my family has helped me understand why I was so often in conflict with the company’s leaders as Google changed.“ That paragraph is sure to touch the hearts of many of the voters in the state of Maine which the author is a candidate for the 2020 elections. I trust he’ll use his considerable wealth, accumulated over the 11 “conflicting years“ as a Google exec to fund his campaign. PS: That diversity exercise is grotesque.
- ehsankia 7y ago> Dude is a politician: “Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine.” To be more specific, he left Google and is now trying to run for senate, during the election cycle that is about to start. Which makes this Medium post boosting his name id very timely.
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago> and after the Chinese government attempted to hack into the Gmail accounts of human rights advocates in 2009 Not really relevant to the story, but this was always a lie. The reason that China hacked Google had nothing to do with spying on activists. It’s a cover story for a counter-intel op. China hacked the “PRISM”-like feature in order to see which of their spies had been burned, based on whether or not the US government had wiretaps on those accounts. https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/google-aurora-hack-was-chinese-counterespionage-operation/d/d-id/1110060 https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/google-auro... https://www.cio.com/article/2386547/-aurora--cyber-attackers-were-really-running-counter-intelligence.html https://www.cio.com/article/2386547/-aurora--cyber-attackers...
- reactspa 7y agoimho, the author's being disingenuous when describing the cringeworthy diversity exercises. The point of those exercises is to make you cringe at name-calling and stereotyping. To take the thoughts out of peoples' minds and put them in ether so all can see how cringey these labels are.
- aniruddhd 7y agoI wonder if Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon employees ever dare to say such things about their company polices. No wonder these companies are thriving. Sad thing is When startups and new corporations would like to use the clouds then they don't check the human rights policies and work culture and instead of Google goes to such corporation and then Google executives think Why are we even on moral policing part? As this doesn't help. So problem lays within us, like me using Windows 10 in computer and buying things from Amazon.
- legulere 7y agoI think we in free countries have an obligation to keep our companies from being accomplices to human rights violations. There seems to be a lack of regulation.
- ryuukk_ 7y agothey fired him because of poor performances, he try to save the face to get hired elsewhere "why i left" show the letter then