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Then for years Google denied wrongdoing but said they couldn't address it because it was in active litigation. Finally, the whole thing got settled (slap on th

Then for years Google denied wrongdoing but said they couldn't address it because it was in active litigation. Finally, the whole thing got settled (slap on the wrist but something at least), so Google employees could finally get an answer in the weekly all-hands (TGIF). Laszlo Bock was their head of people at the time, and claimed that Google still did nothing wrong, and that they only settled because they were caught up in the whole thing with other companies like Adobe who did do something wrong. He said they did nothing wrong because they only stopped outbound recruiting towards employees at those companies, which had no effect, and still accepted inbound applications. This raises the obvious question - if outbound recruiting had no effect, why was Google so eager to put at end to it? And how could Google act like they were caught up it the crossfire when it was specifically emails by Sergey Brin that provided the strongest evidence of illegal collusions? It blew my mind how Google insists they hire "the world's smartest people" but then can have executives on stage spin narratives with ridiculous holes in it and expect those smart people to believe it rather than have their intelligence insulted. But sadly, most Google employees did seem to buy it. There's a strong cult of indoctrination, starting with calling yourself a Googler and wearing the stupid hat, that Google execs just had a halo effect. I think between 2010 and now that halo effect has massively worn off, especially with all the dirty details about misbehavior from Sergey Brin, Vic Gundtora, and Andy Rubin. Nonetheless, it served as strong evidence as to how even really smart people can get caught up in cult-like communities. The "founder worship", the indoctrination into company culture, all of that is super common in Silicon Valley tech companies and for an obvious reason - it works.

MegaButts 5y ago
> Nonetheless, it served as strong evidence as to how even really smart people can get caught up in cult-like communities. I see it differently. It seems like strong evidence as to how smart the average googler really is. If you start with the assumption these people are smart then you can reach your conclusion, but if you discard that assumption you just have a group of gullible employees.
- solveit 5y ago
  Lol, every HN commenter knows Google was in the wrong but the Googlers themselves didn't because they're gullible. No, the Googlers didn't buy it but continued working because when it comes to it, thinking your company does shady things is very rarely sufficient to get you to up and leave. Is your company bigger than, say, a thousand people? Then they have definitely done something as bad as Google's collusion and you know it even if you don't know what. Are you going to leave?
  - MegaButts 5y ago
    I agree with you, and I'm very much of the opinion that most techies are entitled assholes who only care about enriching themselves. I was just pointing out what I considered to be a flaw in GP's reasoning. > Are you going to leave? I did, actually (more than once). And it's what made me realize how few engineers care about anything other than their paychecks and ultimately themselves. When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people I've met and worked with have no qualms looking the other way for more compensation.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      > When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people I've met and worked with have no qualms looking the other way for more compensation. When push comes to shove, those people would have no power to change things anyway in the vast majority of cases. You can either live in a terrible world rich, or poor - in both cases the world wouldn't change but at least your life will be better. A lot of problems are big enough that only governments can deal with them by the use of laws and appropriate enforcement (eventually escalating to violence if needed). But if the governments themselves benefit from the problem, or are owned by the corporations (corruption, or "lobbying" as it's called in the US), there's no chance for a few individuals to make a difference.
      - MegaButts 5y ago
        I disagree that employees have no power to make a difference. It's learned helplessness. By that logic, unions are also ineffective at bargaining. The point is you have to actually work together instead of for yourself.
holografix 5y ago
No one believes it. It’s called plausible deniability
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Not everyone who works at a company loves the company. A lot of people might think things their company does is pretty despicable. If it's the best place to extract maximum benefits (money, experience, recognition, etc) - then you take the good with the bad.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  See also 'mercenary'.
  - solveit 5y ago
    See 'anyone working at a large company ever'. Any large group of people with any kind of goal and any amount of power(doesn't even have to be a company) will do despicable things, it's almost a law of nature. Google's collusion is barely a blip on the bad stuff people do.
- caboteria 5y ago
  Someone who works at a company that does things that they find despicable because they're optimizing their benefits sounds like a textbook psychopath.
- ditonal 5y ago
  This is certainly true for some Googlers, but there are many true believers (at least when I was there). Many people there sincerely think Google is a special company - the company was even arrogant enough in their IPO to say they "not a conventional company, and not intending to become one". Even outside Google, the halo effect is insane. Look at how much hate companies like Facebook and Uber get on HN. But if you break down the scandals side by side, you'll realize Google has by far the worst ethics in the industry. For example, Uber is accused of being sexist because a woman wrote an open letter that she was excluded in various ways as an employee there, such as not receiving swag in her size as the only woman on the team. That sounds like a shitty culture. Meanwhile, Vic Gundotra was credibly accused of inviting 22 year old junior SWEs to exec offsites to sexually harass them. Andy Rubin was found to have sexually assaulted a subordinate, according to Google's own investigation, and recieved a 90M payout. What's a worse workplace for women? Not getting swag in your size, or being raped? Yet when I worked at Google when all these scandals took place, ordering an Uber was a huge faux paus. You had to order a Lyft because "Uber=sexist." Even now on a recent thread I mentioned how all these tech companies are more evil than your typical crypto startup, people said "only Uber and Facebook" look bad on a resume. I would argue that's purely a function of PR because I challenge anyone to debate me that Facebook or Uber had worse ethics scandals than Google. Google has one of the strongest PR machines of all time and its effect on sentiment inside and outside the company is indisputable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qiskit 5y ago
> It blew my mind how Google insists they hire "the world's smartest people" but then can have executives on stage spin narratives with ridiculous holes in it and expect those smart people to believe it rather than have their intelligence insulted. They don't hire the smartest people, they hire the greediest people. The only thing people worship in silicon valley and tech in general is money. That's it. An if your salary, stock options, etc are dependent on believing and selling lies, that's what you do. When an industry or group gets "saint status" or proclaims to be the agents of good, your spidey senses should start tingling.
subsubzero 5y ago
It could be posited that the huge jump in salaries in tech that started happening in the mid-to-late 2010's came about due to the discovery and removal of this illegal collaboration(google,apple etc) to fight attrition and bring down wages. It would be very interesting to see if there is a direct correlation to that event. I know my salary and salaries of my peers(at fangish companies) started going to the moon around 2016 onwards. the trial awards and verdict happened in 2014 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-google-lawsuit-exclusive/exclusive-apple-google-to-pay-324-million-to-settle-conspiracy-lawsuit-idUSBREA3N28Z20140425 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-google-lawsuit-excl...
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
> But sadly, most Google employees did seem to buy it. What makes you say that? Everyone I know is aware that Google was doing dirt, but salaries were going up so fast at the time it hardly mattered. Especially when the collusion ended we went through several years of absurd salary growth. Even during the period of collusion, Google was being pretty generous with compensation (e.g. this event -- https://www.businessinsider.com/google-options-repricing-bails-out-15642-employees-2009-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-options-repricing-bai...). Every programmer who was there at that time and has stayed has either been spending profligately or is fairly wealthy at this point.

MegaButts 5y ago

> Nonetheless, it served as strong evidence as to how even really smart people can get caught up in cult-like communities. I see it differently. It seems like strong evidence as to how smart the average googler really is. If you start with the assumption these people are smart then you can reach your conclusion, but if you discard that assumption you just have a group of gullible employees.

solveit 5y ago
Lol, every HN commenter knows Google was in the wrong but the Googlers themselves didn't because they're gullible. No, the Googlers didn't buy it but continued working because when it comes to it, thinking your company does shady things is very rarely sufficient to get you to up and leave. Is your company bigger than, say, a thousand people? Then they have definitely done something as bad as Google's collusion and you know it even if you don't know what. Are you going to leave?
- MegaButts 5y ago
  I agree with you, and I'm very much of the opinion that most techies are entitled assholes who only care about enriching themselves. I was just pointing out what I considered to be a flaw in GP's reasoning. > Are you going to leave? I did, actually (more than once). And it's what made me realize how few engineers care about anything other than their paychecks and ultimately themselves. When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people I've met and worked with have no qualms looking the other way for more compensation.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people I've met and worked with have no qualms looking the other way for more compensation. When push comes to shove, those people would have no power to change things anyway in the vast majority of cases. You can either live in a terrible world rich, or poor - in both cases the world wouldn't change but at least your life will be better. A lot of problems are big enough that only governments can deal with them by the use of laws and appropriate enforcement (eventually escalating to violence if needed). But if the governments themselves benefit from the problem, or are owned by the corporations (corruption, or "lobbying" as it's called in the US), there's no chance for a few individuals to make a difference.
    - MegaButts 5y ago
      I disagree that employees have no power to make a difference. It's learned helplessness. By that logic, unions are also ineffective at bargaining. The point is you have to actually work together instead of for yourself.

holografix 5y ago

No one believes it. It’s called plausible deniability

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

Not everyone who works at a company loves the company. A lot of people might think things their company does is pretty despicable. If it's the best place to extract maximum benefits (money, experience, recognition, etc) - then you take the good with the bad.

JasonFruit 5y ago
See also 'mercenary'.
- solveit 5y ago
  See 'anyone working at a large company ever'. Any large group of people with any kind of goal and any amount of power(doesn't even have to be a company) will do despicable things, it's almost a law of nature. Google's collusion is barely a blip on the bad stuff people do.
caboteria 5y ago
Someone who works at a company that does things that they find despicable because they're optimizing their benefits sounds like a textbook psychopath.
ditonal 5y ago
This is certainly true for some Googlers, but there are many true believers (at least when I was there). Many people there sincerely think Google is a special company - the company was even arrogant enough in their IPO to say they "not a conventional company, and not intending to become one". Even outside Google, the halo effect is insane. Look at how much hate companies like Facebook and Uber get on HN. But if you break down the scandals side by side, you'll realize Google has by far the worst ethics in the industry. For example, Uber is accused of being sexist because a woman wrote an open letter that she was excluded in various ways as an employee there, such as not receiving swag in her size as the only woman on the team. That sounds like a shitty culture. Meanwhile, Vic Gundotra was credibly accused of inviting 22 year old junior SWEs to exec offsites to sexually harass them. Andy Rubin was found to have sexually assaulted a subordinate, according to Google's own investigation, and recieved a 90M payout. What's a worse workplace for women? Not getting swag in your size, or being raped? Yet when I worked at Google when all these scandals took place, ordering an Uber was a huge faux paus. You had to order a Lyft because "Uber=sexist." Even now on a recent thread I mentioned how all these tech companies are more evil than your typical crypto startup, people said "only Uber and Facebook" look bad on a resume. I would argue that's purely a function of PR because I challenge anyone to debate me that Facebook or Uber had worse ethics scandals than Google. Google has one of the strongest PR machines of all time and its effect on sentiment inside and outside the company is indisputable.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

qiskit 5y ago

> It blew my mind how Google insists they hire "the world's smartest people" but then can have executives on stage spin narratives with ridiculous holes in it and expect those smart people to believe it rather than have their intelligence insulted. They don't hire the smartest people, they hire the greediest people. The only thing people worship in silicon valley and tech in general is money. That's it. An if your salary, stock options, etc are dependent on believing and selling lies, that's what you do. When an industry or group gets "saint status" or proclaims to be the agents of good, your spidey senses should start tingling.

subsubzero 5y ago

It could be posited that the huge jump in salaries in tech that started happening in the mid-to-late 2010's came about due to the discovery and removal of this illegal collaboration(google,apple etc) to fight attrition and bring down wages. It would be very interesting to see if there is a direct correlation to that event. I know my salary and salaries of my peers(at fangish companies) started going to the moon around 2016 onwards. the trial awards and verdict happened in 2014 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-google-lawsuit-exclusive/exclusive-apple-google-to-pay-324-million-to-settle-conspiracy-lawsuit-idUSBREA3N28Z20140425 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-google-lawsuit-excl...

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

> But sadly, most Google employees did seem to buy it. What makes you say that? Everyone I know is aware that Google was doing dirt, but salaries were going up so fast at the time it hardly mattered. Especially when the collusion ended we went through several years of absurd salary growth. Even during the period of collusion, Google was being pretty generous with compensation (e.g. this event -- https://www.businessinsider.com/google-options-repricing-bails-out-15642-employees-2009-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-options-repricing-bai...). Every programmer who was there at that time and has stayed has either been spending profligately or is fairly wealthy at this point.