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Can you help me understand what you mean by a viable cloud? As for what I would expect Google to do if I were a Google employee, I would not want them doing bu

Can you help me understand what you mean by a viable cloud? As for what I would expect Google to do if I were a Google employee, I would not want them doing business in countries with a history of abuses. We can try to parse what abuse means, but I think we could come up with a reasonable definition. I find it hard to believe that refusing to do business in Russia could be of strategic consequence, especially given the moral consequences. I am willing to be convinced however.

dekhn 5y ago
By viable, I mean that there are three big clouds (in the US): Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. To win the cloud game you need large volumes of business to justify large amounts of hardware purchases with large discounts. If amazon and Microsoft pick up a bunch of DoD deals, Google will be paying premium for hardware they can get cheaper. That affects costs and therefore profitability. So I think that Google, by not pursuing deals that Amazon and Microsoft have clearly stated they, as a business, want to pursue, would set itself up for being a perennial 3rd or 4th placer (after Oracle of all companies). The only countries I expect cloud providers to not deal with are the ones prohibited by the country their corporation is legally housed in (countries embargoed or sanctioned by the US, like North Korea, Iran, Syria). If I dislike a country and don't want Google to do cloud business, I'll tell me representative and they can attempt to change the law.
- diskzero 5y ago
  I understand your view about petitioning to change the law. For an employee of a company such as Google, is their only recourse, when disagreeing with a position their company holds, to quit? The employees of companies like Google generate much of the value, but they don't wield the power that shareholders have with their votes, and they aren't writing legislation to pass like lobbyists are.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    Employees of Google who hold ranks less than Director or Principal Engineer should quit if they don't like it. If you're a director or PE you should communicate your opinion to Thomas Kurian directly. I personally influenced Google's direction in a major business area while only a lowly senior SWE. It's an area that leaders in google then messed up very badly (dammit, jeff, you had ONE JOB). I quit recently, citing a number of things that I wasn't OK with, one of which is that I felt that the company gave far too much credence to a small group of of noisy people in ways that are hurting the company. BTW, I, like most long termers, are granted Google stock and some tiny amount of voting shares and some employees have exercised this right https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/google-employees-presenting-zevin-shareholder-proposal-at-meeting.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/google-employees-presenting-... BTW I'd like to take this opportunity to show a person I disagree with completely, but respect immensely because she's one of the most impactful activists I've ever seen: https://onezero.medium.com/google-workers-lost-a-leader-but-the-fight-will-continue-c487aa5fd2ba https://onezero.medium.com/google-workers-lost-a-leader-but-... She helped lead the drive to remove the Real Names requirement from Google+ by directly convincing the principal engineer who ran the real names mapreduce to stop doing it. Of course google wrote a nice "update on google plus" which is no longer available, but see more here https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-plus-names-20140715-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-...
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  > ... only countries I expect cloud providers to not deal with It is not about Google "not dealing with Russia". It's about Russia threatening to ban Google, if it allows certain apps, certain free speech, to be downloaded from its app-store.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    isn't it their right to do so? They're a sovereign country with rule of law. Google's job is not to defend the free speech rights of individuals in sovereign countries.
    - galaxyLogic 5y ago
      Nobody's asking Google to do something but rather to NOT do something. Hey Google, do NOT ban the pro-democracy app from your app-store. Google, you don't need to do anything, just don't do something that suppresses free speech. Google is taking explicit action to suppress democracy, by removing a pro-democracy app from their app-store. What will they do next? Remove all news critical of Putin from Google's search-results?
      - dekhn 5y ago
        not banning the app would be a direct violation of the law. what they are doing is complying with the local legal system. if google doesn't want to be in that biz, they should leave the country or find a way to elect a different leader.
        galaxyLogic 5y ago
        > not banning the app would be a direct violation of the law. I don't think so. Russia can't dictate what kind of free speech Google can serve from its servers in United States can it? Or has Russian law taken over United States already?

dekhn 5y ago

By viable, I mean that there are three big clouds (in the US): Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. To win the cloud game you need large volumes of business to justify large amounts of hardware purchases with large discounts. If amazon and Microsoft pick up a bunch of DoD deals, Google will be paying premium for hardware they can get cheaper. That affects costs and therefore profitability. So I think that Google, by not pursuing deals that Amazon and Microsoft have clearly stated they, as a business, want to pursue, would set itself up for being a perennial 3rd or 4th placer (after Oracle of all companies). The only countries I expect cloud providers to not deal with are the ones prohibited by the country their corporation is legally housed in (countries embargoed or sanctioned by the US, like North Korea, Iran, Syria). If I dislike a country and don't want Google to do cloud business, I'll tell me representative and they can attempt to change the law.

diskzero 5y ago
I understand your view about petitioning to change the law. For an employee of a company such as Google, is their only recourse, when disagreeing with a position their company holds, to quit? The employees of companies like Google generate much of the value, but they don't wield the power that shareholders have with their votes, and they aren't writing legislation to pass like lobbyists are.
- dekhn 5y ago
  Employees of Google who hold ranks less than Director or Principal Engineer should quit if they don't like it. If you're a director or PE you should communicate your opinion to Thomas Kurian directly. I personally influenced Google's direction in a major business area while only a lowly senior SWE. It's an area that leaders in google then messed up very badly (dammit, jeff, you had ONE JOB). I quit recently, citing a number of things that I wasn't OK with, one of which is that I felt that the company gave far too much credence to a small group of of noisy people in ways that are hurting the company. BTW, I, like most long termers, are granted Google stock and some tiny amount of voting shares and some employees have exercised this right https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/google-employees-presenting-zevin-shareholder-proposal-at-meeting.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/google-employees-presenting-... BTW I'd like to take this opportunity to show a person I disagree with completely, but respect immensely because she's one of the most impactful activists I've ever seen: https://onezero.medium.com/google-workers-lost-a-leader-but-the-fight-will-continue-c487aa5fd2ba https://onezero.medium.com/google-workers-lost-a-leader-but-... She helped lead the drive to remove the Real Names requirement from Google+ by directly convincing the principal engineer who ran the real names mapreduce to stop doing it. Of course google wrote a nice "update on google plus" which is no longer available, but see more here https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-plus-names-20140715-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-...
galaxyLogic 5y ago
> ... only countries I expect cloud providers to not deal with It is not about Google "not dealing with Russia". It's about Russia threatening to ban Google, if it allows certain apps, certain free speech, to be downloaded from its app-store.
- dekhn 5y ago
  isn't it their right to do so? They're a sovereign country with rule of law. Google's job is not to defend the free speech rights of individuals in sovereign countries.
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    Nobody's asking Google to do something but rather to NOT do something. Hey Google, do NOT ban the pro-democracy app from your app-store. Google, you don't need to do anything, just don't do something that suppresses free speech. Google is taking explicit action to suppress democracy, by removing a pro-democracy app from their app-store. What will they do next? Remove all news critical of Putin from Google's search-results?
    - dekhn 5y ago
      not banning the app would be a direct violation of the law. what they are doing is complying with the local legal system. if google doesn't want to be in that biz, they should leave the country or find a way to elect a different leader.
      - galaxyLogic 5y ago
        > not banning the app would be a direct violation of the law. I don't think so. Russia can't dictate what kind of free speech Google can serve from its servers in United States can it? Or has Russian law taken over United States already?