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> "HR told me that Sergey's response to it was, 'Why not? They're my employees,'" Ayers said. "But you don't have employees for f---ing! That's not what the job

by tmpz22 7y ago

> "HR told me that Sergey's response to it was, 'Why not? They're my employees,'" Ayers said. "But you don't have employees for f---ing! That's not what the job is." Ooooof. That shatters the "Early on Google's culture was great!" narrative... [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-sergey-brin-employees-masseuse-room-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-sergey-brin-employees...

nostrademons 7y ago
Not really. Eric Schmidt (also a notorious womanizer) had a saying while I was there: "More revenue solves all known problems." When everybody at the company is getting rich, they're all working on exciting problems, Fortune and Time and BusinessWeek and Playboy magazines are featuring employees on the cover, and everyone you meet is impressed at where you work, then employees are willing to overlook a large number of shenanigans and petty injustices. It's only when there's no chance at getting rich that people care about the little things like being treated fairly, not being sexually harassed, and so on. Lest you think I'm being cynical (I am, but also realistic), note that similar cultural shifts have also played out at other Silicon Valley startups (notably Uber and Zenefits), that the financial and cryptocurrency worlds have even worse cultural problems, and that 49% of America elected a president whose attitude toward women is "grab 'em by the pussy!", usually explicitly citing his promise to bring back jobs, glory, and power to America as the reason why they overlook his personal failings.
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  I don't think the 2016 election is a good analogy, as both candidates had their share of skeletons in the closet, with the non-winning party arguably having skeletons that were more of a national security risk than a cultural one. People seem to conveniently forget this fact though.
  - okaram 7y ago
    1. That is unarguably false. 2. There were other candidates. 3. Mr Trump also won the primary.
    - Nuzzerino 7y ago
      We'll have to agree to disagree on point 1, as there's plenty of common knowledge out there that I don't need to muddy the thread with. The parent comment was referring to the general election of 49%, and the "grab by the pussy" story broke after the primary was over, so point 3 is a straw man argument. Edit: Sometimes I underestimate how in the dark people really are on the subject so I did a quick search to find this op ed which shows that, yes, there really were issues that voters were concerned about from a national security perspective, namely the contributions to multiple civil wars. https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_ted_rall/if_hillary_clinton_had_won_we_d_be_even_worse https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_co...
      - rconti 7y ago
        Point 3 is not a straw man argument; he was objectively a horrible person before that quote came to light. It wasn't remotely surprising to anyone.
        Nuzzerino 7y ago
        Did he start 4 civil wars though? That's my point, a lot of voters weigh that heavily against what you bring up. Don't shoot the messenger.
        edgyquant 7y ago
        Who exactly do you think started four civil wars?
        nl 7y ago
        Just because some right wing opinion piece thinks Hillary Clinton started 4 civil wars doesn't make it true. she convinced Obama to back military coups against the democratically-elected leaders of Honduras and Egypt. The Intercept (no friend of the Clintons!) writes: A retired U.S. military intelligence officer, who helped with the lobbying and the Honduran colonels’ trip, told me on condition of anonymity that the coup supporters debated “how to manage the U.S.” One group, he said, decided to “start using the true and trusted method and say, ‘Here is the bogeyman, it’s communism.’ And who are their allies? The Republicans.” A network of former Cold Warriors and Republicans in Congress loudly encouraged Honduras’s de facto regime and criticized the newly elected Obama administration’s handling of the crisis. https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/ https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense... By the time Clinton got involved the coup was complete. The others are the same. Read the US reaction to the Egyptian coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t.... It's easy to criticise it, but hard to come up with what the reaction should have been. It's worth noting that both parties had fairly similar reactions here. Does anyone really believe that Clinton and Obama were backing militant Islamists in Syria and Libya? The countries were a mess and they were stuck trying to find a way forward - they didn't (and shouldn't have!) wanted Gaddafi or Assad in power, but both conflicts were multi-sided messes where one group would get taken over by another.
  - orf 7y ago
    Often bankrupt property tycoon riddled with dubious overseas Russian debt and has historic shady dealings in a number of countries doesn’t have skeletons in his closet that would impact national security? Right. There was a reason he was Russia’s preferred candidate, and it wasn’t because they had too much kompromat on Hillary to know what to do with.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      The Wiki page for CIA activities in Syria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War,_2011%E2%80%932017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War,_2... - includes the choice quote "CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones" battling each other. If Russia had a preference, theories of kompromat look pretty weak compared to theories that maybe Trump just looked less likely to topple regimes basically on Russia's southern border. Hillary was probably going to continue in the same vein as either Bush or Obama, at least Trump would have appeared as a new draw from the deck. Trumps "peace with Russia" pronouncements are one of his best features. It is a good year when the US president isn't flattening countries a la Bush. If there was a path to swapping out the missiles for insulting tweets that is a big win for everyone. Not to say Trump is particularly good, but really the US has an impact on the world and wide-eyed anti-Russia conspiracy theories help nobody. At least his administration has been better than Bush's for the Middle East.
- ksec 7y ago
  I think this sums up not just big cooperate, but large part of our society in general as well. ( May be a bigger problem in US than other parts of the world, but still a problem ) I often wonder why realistic people are called cynical, even when they are facts happening everywhere in a statistically large sums. Do others live in fairy land?
  - unapologetic 7y ago
    Because when you simply accept the world as is, it looks a lot like you're endorsing the status quo. Especially on this site where a lot of people seem to take a weird pseudo-detached outlook. Trying to analyze things in an almost entirely emotionless judgement free manner. I think this is seen by people as enlightened. Personally I find it genuinely disturbing. It becomes hard to tell where this sort of detached analysis ends and where it becomes just actually not caring about or not seeing the moral issues here.
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      This isn't really the site for people who want to create genuine social change in the world, other than through startups. The site guidelines say that what's on-topic is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". Curiosity is more about knowing things than doing things. I think one implicit belief held by the folks who started this site is that if you do want to challenge entrenched power structures, the best way to do that is to be very circumspect about who you tell that you're challenging power structures, because you can expect to have a strong negative reaction from the power structures themselves. (Peter Thiel describes startups as "a conspiracy to change the world".) There are other sites on the web that are attempting to organize people for large-scale social change, ones that are presumably watched (and cared about) by the FBI, as opposed to just being watched (with idle curiosity) by the FBI.
      - unapologetic 7y ago
        Peter Thiel has an extremely vested interest in preserving the status-quo. Frankly I think the notion that he knows all that much about genuinely creating any sort of movement to be questionable at best. It's not about changing the world it's about not dehumanizing everything.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>It's only when there's no chance at getting rich that people care about the little things like being treated fairly, not being sexually harassed, and so on. Make me a star Harvey...

by tmpz22 7y ago

nostrademons 7y ago

Not really. Eric Schmidt (also a notorious womanizer) had a saying while I was there: "More revenue solves all known problems." When everybody at the company is getting rich, they're all working on exciting problems, Fortune and Time and BusinessWeek and Playboy magazines are featuring employees on the cover, and everyone you meet is impressed at where you work, then employees are willing to overlook a large number of shenanigans and petty injustices. It's only when there's no chance at getting rich that people care about the little things like being treated fairly, not being sexually harassed, and so on. Lest you think I'm being cynical (I am, but also realistic), note that similar cultural shifts have also played out at other Silicon Valley startups (notably Uber and Zenefits), that the financial and cryptocurrency worlds have even worse cultural problems, and that 49% of America elected a president whose attitude toward women is "grab 'em by the pussy!", usually explicitly citing his promise to bring back jobs, glory, and power to America as the reason why they overlook his personal failings.

Nuzzerino 7y ago
I don't think the 2016 election is a good analogy, as both candidates had their share of skeletons in the closet, with the non-winning party arguably having skeletons that were more of a national security risk than a cultural one. People seem to conveniently forget this fact though.
- okaram 7y ago
  1. That is unarguably false. 2. There were other candidates. 3. Mr Trump also won the primary.
  - Nuzzerino 7y ago
    We'll have to agree to disagree on point 1, as there's plenty of common knowledge out there that I don't need to muddy the thread with. The parent comment was referring to the general election of 49%, and the "grab by the pussy" story broke after the primary was over, so point 3 is a straw man argument. Edit: Sometimes I underestimate how in the dark people really are on the subject so I did a quick search to find this op ed which shows that, yes, there really were issues that voters were concerned about from a national security perspective, namely the contributions to multiple civil wars. https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_ted_rall/if_hillary_clinton_had_won_we_d_be_even_worse https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_co...
    - rconti 7y ago
      Point 3 is not a straw man argument; he was objectively a horrible person before that quote came to light. It wasn't remotely surprising to anyone.
      - Nuzzerino 7y ago
        Did he start 4 civil wars though? That's my point, a lot of voters weigh that heavily against what you bring up. Don't shoot the messenger.
        edgyquant 7y ago
        Who exactly do you think started four civil wars?
        nl 7y ago
        Just because some right wing opinion piece thinks Hillary Clinton started 4 civil wars doesn't make it true. she convinced Obama to back military coups against the democratically-elected leaders of Honduras and Egypt. The Intercept (no friend of the Clintons!) writes: A retired U.S. military intelligence officer, who helped with the lobbying and the Honduran colonels’ trip, told me on condition of anonymity that the coup supporters debated “how to manage the U.S.” One group, he said, decided to “start using the true and trusted method and say, ‘Here is the bogeyman, it’s communism.’ And who are their allies? The Republicans.” A network of former Cold Warriors and Republicans in Congress loudly encouraged Honduras’s de facto regime and criticized the newly elected Obama administration’s handling of the crisis. https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/ https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense... By the time Clinton got involved the coup was complete. The others are the same. Read the US reaction to the Egyptian coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t.... It's easy to criticise it, but hard to come up with what the reaction should have been. It's worth noting that both parties had fairly similar reactions here. Does anyone really believe that Clinton and Obama were backing militant Islamists in Syria and Libya? The countries were a mess and they were stuck trying to find a way forward - they didn't (and shouldn't have!) wanted Gaddafi or Assad in power, but both conflicts were multi-sided messes where one group would get taken over by another.
- orf 7y ago
  Often bankrupt property tycoon riddled with dubious overseas Russian debt and has historic shady dealings in a number of countries doesn’t have skeletons in his closet that would impact national security? Right. There was a reason he was Russia’s preferred candidate, and it wasn’t because they had too much kompromat on Hillary to know what to do with.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    The Wiki page for CIA activities in Syria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War,_2011%E2%80%932017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War,_2... - includes the choice quote "CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones" battling each other. If Russia had a preference, theories of kompromat look pretty weak compared to theories that maybe Trump just looked less likely to topple regimes basically on Russia's southern border. Hillary was probably going to continue in the same vein as either Bush or Obama, at least Trump would have appeared as a new draw from the deck. Trumps "peace with Russia" pronouncements are one of his best features. It is a good year when the US president isn't flattening countries a la Bush. If there was a path to swapping out the missiles for insulting tweets that is a big win for everyone. Not to say Trump is particularly good, but really the US has an impact on the world and wide-eyed anti-Russia conspiracy theories help nobody. At least his administration has been better than Bush's for the Middle East.
ksec 7y ago
I think this sums up not just big cooperate, but large part of our society in general as well. ( May be a bigger problem in US than other parts of the world, but still a problem ) I often wonder why realistic people are called cynical, even when they are facts happening everywhere in a statistically large sums. Do others live in fairy land?
- unapologetic 7y ago
  Because when you simply accept the world as is, it looks a lot like you're endorsing the status quo. Especially on this site where a lot of people seem to take a weird pseudo-detached outlook. Trying to analyze things in an almost entirely emotionless judgement free manner. I think this is seen by people as enlightened. Personally I find it genuinely disturbing. It becomes hard to tell where this sort of detached analysis ends and where it becomes just actually not caring about or not seeing the moral issues here.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    This isn't really the site for people who want to create genuine social change in the world, other than through startups. The site guidelines say that what's on-topic is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". Curiosity is more about knowing things than doing things. I think one implicit belief held by the folks who started this site is that if you do want to challenge entrenched power structures, the best way to do that is to be very circumspect about who you tell that you're challenging power structures, because you can expect to have a strong negative reaction from the power structures themselves. (Peter Thiel describes startups as "a conspiracy to change the world".) There are other sites on the web that are attempting to organize people for large-scale social change, ones that are presumably watched (and cared about) by the FBI, as opposed to just being watched (with idle curiosity) by the FBI.
    - unapologetic 7y ago
      Peter Thiel has an extremely vested interest in preserving the status-quo. Frankly I think the notion that he knows all that much about genuinely creating any sort of movement to be questionable at best. It's not about changing the world it's about not dehumanizing everything.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>It's only when there's no chance at getting rich that people care about the little things like being treated fairly, not being sexually harassed, and so on. Make me a star Harvey...