13 ms·

Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

730 points by justinwp 3mo ago

https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602 https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602

justinwp 3mo ago
I am not going to share much more than what I already have, but I think this speaks to the experience of working in big tech and the disruption caused by AI both at the level of teams/roadmaps/incentives and changing user behavior.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  I haven't been following along with your story closely so forgive me for asking you to repeat things that you've probably already said, but did they just fire you out of the blue or did they talk to you and it didn't go well?
- alberth 3mo ago
  Sorry to hear your story. Since I’ve never work at FAANG, does Google have strict procedures (and approvals) before launching a product? And if so, did this go through that process?
  - jkaplowitz 3mo ago
    > does Google have strict procedures (and approvals) before launching a product? I worked at Google in the past, most recently ending in early 2015, and can confirm that the answer to this question was yes when I was there - presumably still the case today with different details. I have no idea whether the procedures were followed in this case, nor do I have any other inside information on this story, nor am I speaking for Google or Alphabet here.
    - trollbridge 3mo ago
      It was certainly the case for me back circa... I can barely remember, 2008/2009? Everyone just launched tools internally, although it was pretty easy to get approval to launch something externally, although most people didn't bother. The environment back then had tons of internal tools all over the place.
      - jkaplowitz 3mo ago
        Oh yeah, I'm referring to external launches, not to internal launches.
  - lokar 3mo ago
    I’ve been gone a few years, but there was a process for contributing OSS code outside the company, and another for releasing company code externally, etc It seemed to mostly work. Some people complained it was too slow, others seemed to manage fine. I think Chris DiBonas’ team ran all of that.
    - khazhoux 3mo ago
      DiBona definitely started the OSS group and process, and ran it for many years.
  - Tomte 3mo ago
    Their process is a well-known template other organizations look at when creating their own: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing
- anon84873628 3mo ago
  It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".
  - justinwp 3mo ago
    To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/approval https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/..., but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-google-doing-with-its-open-source-teams/341033 https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Ferret7446 3mo ago
      The OSS release process has always stated that you can't use Google branding for a unilateral launch. You aren't making yourself look better
      - justinwp 3mo ago
        The "G" logo is a GitHub organization setting that applies to all repos in GitHub.com/googleworkspace and has for years.
    - dekhn 3mo ago
      Something in the explanation is missing here. It's still not clear to me from any of the provided context whether you got approval to release this. At least from my understanding of your role, if you had approval and used an official google repository, you would not get fired for merely publishing code that accesses a documented API through documented endpoints. Hence many people are wondering if you released this without approval (that's my guess), if you used a Google repo to do it (from what I can tell you did use a google repo, but not an officially supported one, and other teams at google use this repo to publish code), and whether there were other extenuating circumstances, or if it was "the workspace SVP called my division's VP and told him to fire me" (just a guess for another firing mechanism).
- freedomben 3mo ago
  Really sorry to hear about this. It's so ironic because your tool is something that made G workspace so much more useful to me personally and was a deciding factor in which calendar project I used. Getting fired for making a product more useful to customers is quite ironic. Thank you for your work on the tool! Paired with a claude skill I wrote around it, it saves me a ton of time creating a logseq meeting note page for important meetings. I wish you the best of luck landing somewhere that appreciates you a lot more than G did.
- huflungdung 3mo ago
  [dead]
nickv 3mo ago
Yikes. I see Justin posted this, and I'm sure he can't say much - but this is an absolutely insane story. Google has gone from encouraging 20% time (to create amazing projects like this) to firing people for doing it. There seems to be some true maliciousness going on at Google. You have this, you have the open source Gemini CLI getting replaced with a shittier closed source Antigravity CLI, etc... etc... What is going on there?
- notfromhere 3mo ago
  its what happens when a company runs out of ideas and is mostly run by people with MBAs. Good ideas are now risky because it steps on the toes of someone's fiefdom
  - lokar 3mo ago
    There have always been lots of ideas. The issue is the management consultants and finance took over.
    - toomuchtodo 3mo ago
      They’ve been GE’d.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- ex-aws-dude 3mo ago
  Maybe the policy is that you can’t just release 20% time projects publically?
  - nomel 3mo ago
    I've never worked for an employer, from pizza delivery, to corporate intern, to multiple startup, to FAANG, that didn't have this VERY CLEARLY worded in the employment agreement, right up top: 1. Any work you do during company time/resources/equipment, is company property. 2. Anything public related to work, or that could be considered as competing or providing the service in the same space as work, needs to be vetted by the company. Along with public communication, etc. In my experience, this isn't some "what happens when MBA's run company" or "they run out of ideas", it's literally every company I've ever worked for. Was google previously an exception here, or are people just unfamiliar with the details of the 20% policy? Surely they didn't allow you to work on, for example, something for a competitor? There had to be some limitations, rather than a pure free for all, as seems to be suggested in the comments.
solid_fuel 3mo ago
Usable link for anyone else without a twitter account: https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602 https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602
- dietr1ch 3mo ago
  Auto-redirect for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/
websap 3mo ago
This is what happens when companies are run by boomers who care more about building their orgs, instead of doing hard cutting edge engineering work. Sucks for the author. Hope they land a good gig at a frontier lab.
_doctor_love 3mo ago
[flagged]
- shevy-java 3mo ago
  It's twitter right? Ever since a billionaire bought it it went downhill.
  - testfrequency 3mo ago
    HN is slowly starting to feel this way also, sadly
    - verdverm 3mo ago
      HN still has the best mods (official and community) Also, see the last rule in the Guidelines
      - testfrequency 3mo ago
        The one that says don’t compare HN to Reddit? Said the HN community has become over time (sadly) more toxic like Twitter/X. The moderation here is fine, though it can be questionable at times why there’s some post suppression on certain topics.
  - konart 3mo ago
    This is host most of the internet is in general.
- solid_fuel 3mo ago
  I think the full text of that is even worse: > You had my sympathy until you mentioned your healing. Now I know you were fired for being a pussy. I was expecting some more substantial motivation for that but it's not even motivated by some weird disagreement about acceptable behavior at work, it's just this weird insanely toxic belief that taking care of yourself is "pussy behavior".
- 3mo ago
shevy-java 3mo ago
> getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories. > I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. I normally don't defend Google - this pure Evil should not exist. Degoogling is a holy act. But it is also kind of silly to create a project, attach Google logo etc... to it while working at Google. Or perhaps it was a genius move. Either way I am not entirely certain whether the description is as clear here. If it was an internal tool only, did it need a logo? If it was external, who would use it when a Google logo is attached? That's all very strange to me. > But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. That may be the case - Google lies to humans all the time. See when they killed ublock origin via fake "arguments" that were lies (killed it in the sense that the Google store crippled it: https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock%20origin?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock%20origin?hl=... - I just tried to find the old webpage on chrome webstore but the search results no longer show it, only alternative names that are fake projects. I should have bookmarked the old link, Google is REALLY so annoying. The world wide web needs to overcome its number #1 enemy here. Which is Google.)
- jasonlotito 3mo ago
  > But it is also kind of silly to create a project, attach Google logo etc... to it while working at Google. Nah. Fuck Google. Reasonable humans would talk to him, fix it, and move on. They don't need you carrying an ounce of water.
  - trollbridge 3mo ago
    Yeah, the reasonable thing here is a stern talking-to about company policies, and then leveraging this thing to get more goodwill in the community about AI, which is an area Google is currently lacking in.
    - Ferret7446 3mo ago
      He probably got that talking to, and continued to be stubborn and unapologetic. Getting fired is quite difficult, as there will be multiple attempts at resolving any issue.
OJFord 3mo ago
I don't get it – you called the GitHub org 'googleworkspace' and used the Google logo? Presumably without permission? Don't Googlers regularly open-source side projects under the official org(s)? Did you really think this was going to be fine, or was it 'growth hacking' with tougher consequences than expected?
- dekhn 3mo ago
  I believe it's an official or semi-official Google github org. Typically at Google there is some process you are supposed to follow when opensourcing your code, and a repo like this exists specifically to get more people to use the API. The CLI still exists at the repo and the repo still has the Google branding, so it's 99% certain this is a Google repo. If you do an end-run around the normal open source publishing you can get in trouble- up to and including termination- but my guess is there is more context around the firing than just "posted open source code to work with standard Google APIs". For example, you can get punished at google (up to and including termination) for raising your voice in a meeting.
  - fragmede 3mo ago
    Yes, berating a coworker for being a fucking moron is unacceptable in corporate America.
    - hilariously 3mo ago
      The truth is that in decent workplaces we've figured out attacking people doesn't generally get what you want, unless what you want is to have a tantrum. Calling an idea nonsense is fine, calling it not profitable is great, and saying its a waste of time is a Monday. Attacking someone as a fucking moron is pointless, just fire them, deprioritize them, or move on.
      - fragmede 3mo ago
        It's a reframe for > you can get punished at google (up to and including termination) for raising your voice in a meeting. That makes it sound like Google is really weird for firing people for merely "raising your voice in a meeting", but the reality is that toxic assholes who can't control their emotions and yell racist slurs at people do get fired, but, uh, shouldn't they?
testfrequency 3mo ago
Very lame of Google. I guess we all get to continue trusting GAM (https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM) with an entire companies most precious data, instead of, I don’t know…Google?
arjie 3mo ago
The concerns seem to be primarily around trademark and logos? Unless there's more to it, those seem trivial to remedy by requiring removal of logos and renaming in the style of Clawdbot -> Moltbot -> OpenClaw. Google is well-known to be pretty sparing with firing people even for performance, so either this is a change in stance (entirely possible) or there's more to it.
- cynicalkane 3mo ago
  For over the last >1 year, Google has been dismissing people without warning or cause. The days where it was nearly impossible to be fired are over; now you might be severed by surprise for no given reason at all.
  - collabs 3mo ago
    Anecdotally speaking, I have seen a change in behavior even from early 2024. I was in a meeting (online) with a few people from Google shortly before Google IO about something fairly small. The technical engineer actually spoke(!) and he talked about revenue and stuff. I was dumbfounded that technical engineers at Google would ever care about "moving the needle".
    - stogot 3mo ago
      Are you sure it wasn’t a “customer engineer” role?
      - collabs 3mo ago
        No, it was not a sales call.
  - lern_too_spel 3mo ago
    I know many people at Google who have been waiting to get laid off to get better terms than they would from just quitting. Now they know what to do.
firefax 3mo ago
So... they fired him for doing a 20% time project? I'm glad I don't have any of their stock to sell, what terrible management.
- outside1234 3mo ago
  20% time project != able to just launch it YOLO style I suspect the core issue here is that he launched it with Google logos without following any sort of process
  - ex-aws-dude 3mo ago
    That would be dumb but I don’t think it should result in firing still
    - free652 3mo ago
      2 months later, I think we can assume some kind of process behind that didnt go well for our friend here.
      - dolmen 3mo ago
        It looks like he wants his former manager to be fired too. This only gives bad signals to hiring teams.
        free652 3mo ago
        His manager would the first line manager, and really not a decision maker at G. it possible that his manager would put him under a bus after getting called out by legal. Dunno. But regardless once escalated by legal there have been a process to mitigate this, so either the director fired the OP or someone higher. The direct manger would be not really in the decision making here. There is a clear path to release open source at G, and it seems it wasnt followed. The OP claimed that its confusing, but it isn't - usual the launch tool to get the approval and you covered your bases. If the OP didnt have all launch approvals after 7 years at G, wow thats on him. If the OP actually had all the launch approvals then he has an actually big case against G. Launch approvals are for all product - internal and external, it usually requires L8+ (Director) levels approvals.
cs702 3mo ago
Looks like a textbook example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.[a] People like the OP, Justin Poehnelt, who build cool things out of self-motivation that others find interesting and want to use, are now at the mercy of those inside Google who care more about the company's internal bureaucracy and their own role and importance within it. To them, the fact that the OP's project was an instant github hit meant nothing. -- EDIT: Others here are saying that Justin released his code with Google's branding without asking for approval. If that's true, it wasn't right of him, and his firing was justifiable. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650310 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650192 --- [a] https://jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
- logicchains 3mo ago
  People ask why Google's Gemini is falling behind the competition in spite of Google's immense resources, this kind of thing is an example why.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 3mo ago
    the Antigravity AI suite is hugely popular among non-developers
    - stogot 3mo ago
      So is every other AI tool
    - throwaway23597 3mo ago
      Who is in charge of naming things at Google? Like a five syllable word followed by "AI", I couldn't think of a worse name for a product competing for mind share.
      - quuxplusone 3mo ago
        The other day I learned that the command line interface (or whatever) to Antigravity goes by the abbreviated name "agy", which is awfully close to "agi" as in "artificial general intelligence." I strongly suspect they did that on purpose.
elzbardico 3mo ago
[flagged]
xnx 3mo ago
Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is someone who has huge wildcard risk in the future. I would expect significant disciplinary action if they didn't follow procedure, and termination if they were directly warned at any point.
- jbm 3mo ago
  Your ships would have been sunk during the 2002 Millennial challenge and an entire bureaucracy would defend you for the next 20 years.
- ktm5j 3mo ago
  Yeah that's kind of the impression that I had.. should have ran it past his superiors. Hope he learns something from this instead of deflecting like he seems to be doing.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wildrhythms 3mo ago
    His boss is the one that announced the tool.
  - saghm 3mo ago
    Superiors like...his manager, who announced the project for him?
    - ktm5j 3mo ago
      If that's really the case (which isn't really clear from this post) then I feel like we're missing some details.
- ingvay7 3mo ago
  Particularly for a company that possibly has to navigate high-volume, often frivolous litigation and brand attacks from trolls. I have been in similar situations having to partner with legal defending the most frivolous things on products released. You literally sign docs to not do such things when u onboard. Not sure what the point of broadcasting this is though.
speak_plainly 3mo ago
Google seems to be filled with really talented people, technology, and every resource anyone would ever need, but their execution and management seems to be severely lacking. This account is a pretty damning indictment of Google. Look at the entire Bard-to-Gemini launch, and from my experience, Gemini's performance is slipping hard recently. Then you have the sheer scale of the Google graveyard. And finally, take a look at Youtube lately. The company increasingly feels optimized for internal politics and corporate metrics rather than building the best possible products for real people. I guess this is why monopolies suck.
xendo 3mo ago
Around that time I built a CLI to access and manage monitoring cameras that my company is selling. After giving a demo to my leadership I strongly adviced against releasing it to public. Giving agents access to some stuff is bad for customers.
echoangle 3mo ago
Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?
- throwaway23597 3mo ago
  I tend to agree with you here. This is the equivalent of that scene in Better Call Saul where Jimmy makes a commercial without getting sign-off from the partners. It doesn't matter whether the thing worked - this is essentially a mutiny from the product roadmap.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - refulgentis 3mo ago
    Love Better Call Saul :) The comparison is not even wrong (in the Pauli sense). Required knowledge seems to be DevRels role within Google culture. The absolute last thing this was was “mutiny” from a “product roadmap”. They’re sort of just around to build things to help devs and evangelize. They’re not tied to roadmaps or recruited to work on them.
- chaostheory 3mo ago
  Ofcourse. This is HN and not LinkedIn. We have a lot more people here who like bending rules as opposed to following them.
  - sanderjd 3mo ago
    Yes, fair. I do feel like the twitter post walks this line a bit though, between "yes, I broke the rules, for a good reason!" which I think many of us here can probably respect to various degrees and "I don't understand what I did that was wrong".
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
827a 3mo ago
IMO: If the project leverages Google branding or authority improperly, then it shouldn't be on github and should not be under active development by Google employees; yet it is. If Google is suddenly alright with the way the project leveraged Google branding and authority, then the cause for firing the original developer, especially given Google's famously lax stance toward 20% projects and internal open source, is a lot weaker. In other words: Healthy companies do not fire individuals simply for breaching branding guidelines in a way that is ultimately beneficial and looked favorably upon by the company. That's literally just not a thing that happens; at worst you get a reprimand, and in many healthy companies you'd actually get a promotion. So, something does not add up. It might be the story of the person fired. It might also be on the other side; that our external impression on what's been going on inside of Google needs to be re-adjusted, and this company will be a lot weaker in ten years than I would have originally estimated.
- dekhn 3mo ago
  There are more than a few plausible scenarios here. I've been inside google and I've seen other "i was fired" posts before. almost always, there is some additional context which gets left out. For example, I could see a path where the author wrote the code, got approval, published it, and then another part of the company (workspace) found out and wanted to use the same space/place or another place to publish their "competing but official" system, and the author refused (programmers are notorious for this) to take down his code when asked, at which point any number of different paths could lead to the employee being fired for not complying. However, google is filled with personalities and egos and sometimes engineers are the collateral damage.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
danielodievich 3mo ago
5 years ago out of necessity I made a CLI around a private product API to manage something it wasn't making publicly, by reverse-engineering the API and complex logons and etc. It was very useful to ~ 100 people worldwide but it was enough of an audience. But I couldn't get any traction releasing it publicly until a distinguished engineer very far away from my org was in need of just this tool for his project. All of a sudden I got an innovation award from company leadership and legal fast tracked open-sourcing it. Pushing something like this out into public repo without legal review is suicidal.
stevenalowe 3mo ago
Do not use the brand without permission is taught on Day 1. Who can give you permission, not so much.
qsxfthnkp2322 3mo ago
At big tech you do what your piece of shit manager wants you to do (assuming you have one of the typical big tech managers). That’s all you are allowed to do. Thats my experience at Apple. I even tried to ask for alternatives, mentors, etc. all denied by my one manager because I was reorged into their team and a new manager had something to prove. Directors who I talked to just shrugged their shoulders. Leadership at these companies is pretty much shit. It’s not surprising something this happens at Google. Companies could give zero f’s about you, how long you have been there, or what you have done or accomplished there. Seriously. If you know you have a bad manager (you’ll definitely know) then you need to get the hell out asap. Don’t think if you tough it out it’ll work out. I lasted 5 years total and the last two years with this unnecessary insane stress caused by him. They will let you go after your dog suddenly gets cancer and they dont care you have a mortgage or need health insurance. I’m sure there are good management out there, but not my experience and clearly not the experience of who posted this on x. Management and leadership at these companies needs to fucking treat people that work for them like they care. At all.
- dekhn 3mo ago
  A long long time ago, Google management cared more about its employees. I saw folks with cancer who were not fired (even though they couldn't work) to keep them access to healthcare. And a coworker whose parachute did not deploy and was brain damaged- my manager spent hours on the phone calling his parents in Iran, arranging special health care, etc. Intrinsic motivation- making a new product out of nothing- was incentivzed, not punished (unless you leaked code intentionally). But also, the worst managers I've ever had were at Google.
  - qsxfthnkp2322 3mo ago
    The good days of tech are over due to people like this who have a stronghold in management. These people. Man. This manager I had would also be hard to contact, he would schedule meetings on my calendar just to cancel them or change them last minute, all the time. He told me I would never be a software engineer even though I have 15 years experience. He denied me a mentor when I wasn’t too busy or on a pip or anything. He started this stuff 3 months after be was promoted to management by his best friend. Who I learned from some other people that they have been friends since high school. He is protected by this guy and he controls his narrative better than anyone else. But ultimately he’s a piece of shit. When I was reorged to this team with the product I worked on it was just me. My first manager told me on our last 1:1 that he fucking hated those people. So I dealt with that for more than 2 years. I wanted nothing more in my career to work at Apple. And then after two different managers this guy gets promoted and immediately starts this and emailing me about things i didn’t do. I had good to great performance reviews before him. Now I have no job for more than half a year and am about to be on the edge of selling my house without somewhere to live. And I’ve applied at soooo many places and I have a great resume. I enjoy tech but the job market is worse than ive experienced ever. And my beagle of 13 years passed. So it’s been a great year.
apimade 3mo ago
Doesn’t appear to be at feature parity to GAM yet. https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki
squidi 3mo ago
Justin’s blog is the consistently the best resource for Google Apps Script content and he genuinely seemed to connect with the platform. He always stood out, as Googlers don’t typically seem to connect with anyone/anything.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
jongjong 3mo ago
This reminds me of how the founders of the so-called 'open source' cryptocurrency project I joined suppressed my work in the community. They monopolize opportunities, suppressing natural-born entrepreneurs; force us into very narrow roles and fire us if we step out of line ever to slightly. Even when it is beneficial to them. IMO, we should get rid of trademark laws. They didn't mind their LLMs ripping off people's copyrights. Why should anyone uphold trademarks? If I work at Google and want to represent myself as Google, I should be able to. I feel like, even if I don't work at Google, I should be able to use the logo. It's the consumer's mistake for inferring a relationship. I'm just showing a logo of a well known company and letting their dumbass jump to a conclusion.
cdata 3mo ago
I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed Github orgs. In fact, for most of my tenure ('15-'21) my team had license to publish to Github unilaterally (no approval from the open source office required). Great power comes with great responsibility, but also I would put to you that publishing an open source project like this one is part of Google's culture. Firing seems an extreme consequence for the perceived damage of a long-tenured employee's behavior in this case.
- reactordev 3mo ago
  Used to be part of Google’s culture until the AI wars and walled garden present we find ourselves in.
- frollogaston 3mo ago
  So is it normally allowed to publish a non-Google-affiliated repo under Google's brand? This seems weird to me, and I can't understand why he didn't just do it under his own name. I did work at Google until a year ago, when I quit and sold my stock, but not in a team that remotely deals with open source so idk how this works.
  - cdata 3mo ago
    Simply put: all work published to Google repos is implicitly affiliated with Google. In my team's case we would include expectation-setting language in the README.md so that it was clear that the project was not an officially-supported Google product. As far as I know, no-one ever lost their job for failing to set that expectation. A gentle correction from legal was sufficient to set the world right.
    - frollogaston 3mo ago
      But there's an approval process to create such a repo under the Google name, right? I'm not seeing that he followed that.
zerobees 3mo ago
It'd be a fairly major faux pas to release a "non-product" open-source project in a way that smells like a product, but I don't think it's an automatic firing offense in most of big tech, especially if you're just releasing some technical (CLI) tool. It's more of a "stern talking-to" situation. I'm guessing something more happened here. Maybe someone was displeased with how the author initially responded, or some powerful exec really wanted to make an example out of him (sounds like another group was working on an identically-named official product with the same name?), or they were just looking for an excuse to cut this particular role.
CyLith 3mo ago
Former Google employee here. This is exactly the kind of shit-for-brains action I'd expect from Google executives. Bravo on further dragging your image through the mud.
- fuck_google 3mo ago
  [dead]
sumanthvepa 3mo ago
Yes. While they may have been justified in firing him for not following policy, they also lost a talented engineer. (I'm sure they don't care) I would have done the intelligent thing here and looked at how the project could have been made official. But that decision would have had to been made at a very high level, maybe even the CEO, because anyone lower down would have made a narrow and parochial decision in favour of the org they were protecting, rather than in the best interests of the company.
fg137 3mo ago
The repo clearly says "This is not an officially supported Google product." So what is this thing? Can anyone rely on it with confidence? Does Google even acknowledge its existence? If it's not officially supported, why is your name, a (former) Google employee, on it?
- fuck_google 3mo ago
  [dead]
donatj 3mo ago
How do the permissions work on Googles GitHub orgs where this guy could somehow create an unapproved public repo. I work for a MUCH smaller org and creating a repo at all requires review, creating a public repo many times more so.
OrvalWintermute 3mo ago
I remember when Google was a bit rogue, full of brilliant people developing awesome things.
oybng 3mo ago
How foolish creating something of value while under the foot of such evil
khazhoux 3mo ago
I see justinwp is commenting here… Justin, people are asking questions that you’re not replying to. Sorry, but it’s pretty disingenuous to tweet your story and post it here, but then refuse to answer requests for more info. > I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. Seems to me your management chain was thinking “Why the hell is someone on our team releasing a vibe-coded CLI that’s branded to look like an official API, when we’re 2 weeks from announcing the actual CLI??” If you didn’t know there was an official CLI in the works, that’s one thing, but if you did know then that’s pretty shitty to your teammates in Workspace and bad for users who would adopt one CLI (thinking it’s official) just to then see another one 2 weeks later. Still, I would expect a talking-to and not an actual firing… but who knows what actually happened since you’re not responding to anyone. :shrug:
- cute_boi 3mo ago
  The read me clearly says "This is not an officially supported Google product.". I am not getting what you want to imply here and what you expect him to reply here.
  - khazhoux 3mo ago
    It's other people on this thread that had questions, more than me. I'm not really implying -- I'm stating that I don't think his management chain was "afraid of being disrupted", but that they were pissed that one of their own team members released a product with Google branding that was the same thing they were about to announce in 2 weeks. It was poor judgement. Not worth a firing, though, in my opinion.
    - justinwp 3mo ago
      > they were about to announce in 2 weeks Market validation can change roadmaps. As I stated on Twitter/X, CLIs for agents was not a very interesting thing outside a small group earlier in 2026.
waterTanuki 3mo ago
In the README > This is not an officially supported Google product. Why was this project published under an account named "Google Workspace"? Google seems to want to have their cake and eat it too, same with the cli creator. If you want to publish a project under open source and you are the sole creator/owner -> do it in your own time, under your OWN individual github account. Nothing good has ever come from ceeding control of these things to giant corporations who only care how much it will increase their profit next quarter.
- ventana 3mo ago
  Xoogler here who also published things within Google repositories. This is a standard phrase that you should have in the README to get an approval to publish your repository to GitHub, even if it is totally related to the Google business (as mine were). My guess is that it's similar to the regular "no warranty" clause in the licenses, just explicitly opting out this code from any possible agreements Google might have with its customers. Google's process to publish to open source is well documented and this documentation is public. [1] is the document that requires this disclaimer. [1]: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/publishing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/...
  - waterTanuki 3mo ago
    The issue isn't lack of documentation, it's the policy itself. If it's not supported by google it shouldn't be published under their name. Simple.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
On the plus side, this is the best marketing ever for a new job. "I'm the guy Google fired for making a workspace CLI". Keep on getting rid of your talented dedicated people, Google, we'd love to hire them.
matznerd 3mo ago
Great that it was available, but compared to Peter's version this one is inferior. It didn't have draft email as a default and asking it to write a draft would just send the email, oops lol. And doesn't have mutli-account support or a number of other features. I think one thing it could do better was inline commenting (maybe), but neither CLI can initiate their own comments... Gog cli - https://github.com/openclaw/gogcli https://github.com/openclaw/gogcli
jazzpush2 3mo ago
You would think the devrel would be more familiar with OSS policies than anyone else. Something about their LinkedIn job title at Google ("Developer Relations (Mostly SWE)" also reads odd.
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
skobes 3mo ago
I'm confused, this tweet reads like the lead-in or movie-trailer to a story, but where is the actual story?
bschwindHN 3mo ago
Thanks for at least making a CLI in Rust instead of Python. Their gcloud CLI is so annoying (and slow) to use.
randomuser558 3mo ago
[flagged]
MatmaRex 3mo ago
Testing the keyboard. tasting the rainbow
thatsadude 3mo ago
Funny to think about this when he got fired releasing a well-received product. On the other hand, Google released a subpar antigravity 2.0, full of bugs, almost unusable. The tech lead of Antigravity went on X to claim users don't know what they want.
jbverschoor 3mo ago
I thought this was an official release by Google
eranation 3mo ago
Put aside whether this was justified or not, or the potential Streisand effect or PR damage (or vice versa). What signal is this sending to the young Google engineer who wants to build the next Gmail? Even if this violated every internal policy, firing someone who created something that people actually want is sending a very disturbing message (internally and externally). Also, is this somehow relate to Addy Osmani’s recent departure from Google? (Was it in sympathy, was it a retaliation as this was “the tweet that got OP fired”?)
- subscribed 3mo ago
  I support your opinion but if you think Google is concerned about the image you've been in the coma for the last 15 years :)
stevage 3mo ago
The text of their "tweet that got me fired" is: > Introducing the Google Workspace CLI: https://github.com/googleworkspac https://github.com/googleworkspac e/cli - built for humans and agents. > Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included. Yeah, that absolutely looks like an official product announcement from Google. Surely it was obvious they'd get in trouble for that.
- etothepii 3mo ago
  Is the issue primarily caused by the English language? (Google Workspace) CLI vs Google (Workspace CLI) Because Google has there name in the product for which the CLI was produced it looks like he's using the Google brand when he's only using a descriptor of what his CLI was for. Trademarks are funny, but if I build a thing that only works with Google Workspace wouldn't it be a bit weird to not say that?
  - zipy124 3mo ago
    Probably contributes to the fact. In Opensource to avoid legal threats for instance with USB/HDMI and the likes you usually say "Compatible with" to avoid claiming certification/trademark infringement.
  - stevage 3mo ago
    Good point. "CLI for Google Workspace" would be less ambiguous.
  - echoangle 3mo ago
    If you launched a “google workspace cli”, as a random person not affiliated with google, wouldn’t you expect to get sued too? You could maybe try to get away with “CLI for google workspace” (although clarifying it with “compatible with google workspace” or something like that would be better), but the first one just sounds like it’s an official thing. If you namedrop a copyrighted name, you have to make sure that people won’t think you’re officially affiliated with that.
AJRF 3mo ago
Former Googler here...nah just kidding, I just felt left out.
- antonvs 3mo ago
  Apparently LinkedIn doesn’t stop you from adding Google or any other company to your employment history. Go for it!
  - AJRF 3mo ago
    I'm gonna do it! A dream come true!
    - fuck_google 3mo ago
      [dead]
    - tomaytotomato 3mo ago
      Why stop there? I am considering adding Bell Labs, Xerox and Skunkworks Lockheed Martin to my work experience
tlogan 3mo ago
I never worked for Google, but I do have fairly extensive experience with these kinds of situations. From that perspective, I assume there has to be more to the story for it to lead to a firing. In general, when a talented employee (like OP) does something like this, the response is usually something like: “We appreciate and love your initiative, and we want to encourage you to keep doing this kind of work. However, this needs to be taken down, and you need to make sure this does not happen again.” Usually, these things are not career-ending moves. Actually it might be even opposite. Sure one might get labeled as a “cowboy”, but there is always some executive who will support “cowboys” because they shake things up. So one can actually get a promotion. So I think there is something more here. Either Google handled this very badly (and organization is broken) or the OP did not act in the company’s best interest and intentionally refused to follow certain instructions.
- IshKebab 3mo ago
  My guess is he didn't say "ok sorry I'll double check in future" but got into an argument with them about how he was right.
- zipy124 3mo ago
  Given their manager was the one who announced their project I'm leaning closer to Google handling this badly? Which is understandable in an organisation so large tbh. Sometimes things are done badly, no one is perfect, especially not large organisations.
  - saghm 3mo ago
    It's amazing how quickly so much of this thread is people vehemently arguing that this person deserved to be fired for not following proper procedures, but when it's the company not following proper procedures for literally firing someone (which is a way more egregious thing to screw up than publishing some code that can easily be deleted, not that Google apparently has bothered to do that yet), there's so much room for patience and understanding because "nobody's perfect". We're in a pretty messed up place in society if we hold individual people to this much of higher bar than a multi-trillion dollar company
crawshaw 3mo ago
This is the nature of large institutions: they have to distrust their own people. You cannot be relied on to act well, you must be checked first. There is a good reason for this! In a large group of people, there are bad people. This is also why I am done working at large companies. I learned a lot, met some great people, but am uninterested in a low trust environment. I like relying on my colleagues. When they do something unexpected, I am surprised and study it to learn, not lambast.
isabellehue 3mo ago
[flagged]
spacebacon 3mo ago
[dead]
Ecko123 3mo ago
[dead]
khurs 3mo ago
We don't know the full facts, but seems harsh to fire him rather than consider other solutions.
opptybiz 3mo ago
[dead]
KennyBlanken 3mo ago
It's amazing the number of people (many of whom claim to be Google employees past or present) who probably consider themselves smarter than everyone else in any room they walk into... ...who did not figure out that this project was published in a google-run github org, it was approved by his manager, etc. As he has said multiple times: he went through the publishing process with his manager's blessing. Stop making up bullshit about how he didn't follow processes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655744
gunaclksy 3mo ago
[dead]
dusbskxnd 3mo ago
I work at Google so was curious. This person did attempt to follow the process, but was belligerent in review and it was cancelled. They continued anyway. No surprise they were fired. If you work at google just search this CLI and you will see for yourself.
- justinwp 3mo ago
  The launch was canceled after the fact.
assimpleaspossi 3mo ago
Couldn't this just be an "Oops! Sorry. I didn't know." and rename it? I don't know why it couldn't be that simple instead of dropping the hammer by firing.
- romanovcode 3mo ago
  This is how these things usually play out. Unless OP was being difficult and defending his position that he did nothing wrong.
AbstractH24 3mo ago
lol, I really am starting to appreciate that article I read a month or so ago about how writing a public letter is a right of passage when leaving Google
haritha-j 3mo ago
For me it hangs on how the author describes his product “THE google workspace CLI” as opposed to “A google workspace CLI”. That sounds very much like an official google product to me.
- itake 3mo ago
  He worked at Google and released it in a Google owned GitHub organization. Seems like he just didn’t have the authority to release such a project.
Haven880 3mo ago
Maybe this is just one of the AI firing? It just happen OP did something before the firing announced and put that and firing together. This would explain why others also let go and the repo still there.
quadrifoliate 3mo ago
I am appalled at the amount of commenters on HN saying stuff like "well he should have followed proper procedures, it's right and proper that he was fired". When did we all join IBM? A few points: 1. It's clear from various comments that he might have followed "the process", and that different orgs at Google have varying levels of latitude in publishing to GitHub orgs with the company colors. 2. The repo clearly has no sensitive code or such, it's just using the developer API. Naturally, Google hasn't taken it down, and it is widely popular. Guess what, the author was in DevRel and it was literally their job to showcase the developer API. Which they did, splendidly. What was the internal justification, "What would happen if every employee just wrote and published useful code that leveraged our public APIs? We can't have that!"? 3. There are comments saying that it was "unexpected" that a single person would be able to generate something that looks like a full product. Really? The place where the CEO runs around making claims like "75% of all code here is AI-written" found it unexpected that a person would be able to ship what looks like a product? How low are their expectations about their own tech, exactly? 4. Anecdote, but as soon as the Workspace admins at my place saw this, they went "Holy shit, Google released something useful for Workspace! How can we use it?" It stoops to the level of self-parody that Google would fire the person that created one of the few actually useful tools for Workspace. Steve Yegge's memo about GCP (a different org, I know) sucking at public-facing APIs comes to mind. Justin -- if you read this, I'm very sorry that this happened to you. Whoever took this decision is a suit and is destroying people's trust in Google and their attitude towards people that use and maintain their APIs. If I was a VC (unfortunately, I'm just a mid-level IC), I would immediately invest in your next startup.
transformerash 3mo ago
[dead]
thucyd 3mo ago
Ex-Google here. This is pretty typical in the modern era. Its a high paying job. He made people look bad/incompetent that were either: 1. Struggling for a while to ship what he did 2. Couldn't even come up with this to begin with So they pulled the necessary levers to get him axed. Google salaries are top of the industry. People get robbed for $20. If you don't think someone would cheat/lie/scheme in order to protect their paycheck, you're delusional.
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[dead]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]
tomsop 3mo ago
[flagged]

730 points by justinwp 3mo ago

https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602 https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602

I am not going to share much more than what I already have, but I think this speaks to the experience of working in big tech and the disruption caused by AI both at the level of teams/roadmaps/incentives and changing user behavior.

fragmede 3mo ago
I haven't been following along with your story closely so forgive me for asking you to repeat things that you've probably already said, but did they just fire you out of the blue or did they talk to you and it didn't go well?
alberth 3mo ago
Sorry to hear your story. Since I’ve never work at FAANG, does Google have strict procedures (and approvals) before launching a product? And if so, did this go through that process?
- jkaplowitz 3mo ago
  > does Google have strict procedures (and approvals) before launching a product? I worked at Google in the past, most recently ending in early 2015, and can confirm that the answer to this question was yes when I was there - presumably still the case today with different details. I have no idea whether the procedures were followed in this case, nor do I have any other inside information on this story, nor am I speaking for Google or Alphabet here.
  - trollbridge 3mo ago
    It was certainly the case for me back circa... I can barely remember, 2008/2009? Everyone just launched tools internally, although it was pretty easy to get approval to launch something externally, although most people didn't bother. The environment back then had tons of internal tools all over the place.
    - jkaplowitz 3mo ago
      Oh yeah, I'm referring to external launches, not to internal launches.
- lokar 3mo ago
  I’ve been gone a few years, but there was a process for contributing OSS code outside the company, and another for releasing company code externally, etc It seemed to mostly work. Some people complained it was too slow, others seemed to manage fine. I think Chris DiBonas’ team ran all of that.
  - khazhoux 3mo ago
    DiBona definitely started the OSS group and process, and ran it for many years.
- Tomte 3mo ago
  Their process is a well-known template other organizations look at when creating their own: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing
anon84873628 3mo ago
It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".
- justinwp 3mo ago
  To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/approval https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/..., but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-google-doing-with-its-open-source-teams/341033 https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Ferret7446 3mo ago
    The OSS release process has always stated that you can't use Google branding for a unilateral launch. You aren't making yourself look better
    - justinwp 3mo ago
      The "G" logo is a GitHub organization setting that applies to all repos in GitHub.com/googleworkspace and has for years.
  - dekhn 3mo ago
    Something in the explanation is missing here. It's still not clear to me from any of the provided context whether you got approval to release this. At least from my understanding of your role, if you had approval and used an official google repository, you would not get fired for merely publishing code that accesses a documented API through documented endpoints. Hence many people are wondering if you released this without approval (that's my guess), if you used a Google repo to do it (from what I can tell you did use a google repo, but not an officially supported one, and other teams at google use this repo to publish code), and whether there were other extenuating circumstances, or if it was "the workspace SVP called my division's VP and told him to fire me" (just a guess for another firing mechanism).
freedomben 3mo ago
Really sorry to hear about this. It's so ironic because your tool is something that made G workspace so much more useful to me personally and was a deciding factor in which calendar project I used. Getting fired for making a product more useful to customers is quite ironic. Thank you for your work on the tool! Paired with a claude skill I wrote around it, it saves me a ton of time creating a logseq meeting note page for important meetings. I wish you the best of luck landing somewhere that appreciates you a lot more than G did.
huflungdung 3mo ago
[dead]

nickv 3mo ago

Yikes. I see Justin posted this, and I'm sure he can't say much - but this is an absolutely insane story. Google has gone from encouraging 20% time (to create amazing projects like this) to firing people for doing it. There seems to be some true maliciousness going on at Google. You have this, you have the open source Gemini CLI getting replaced with a shittier closed source Antigravity CLI, etc... etc... What is going on there?

notfromhere 3mo ago
its what happens when a company runs out of ideas and is mostly run by people with MBAs. Good ideas are now risky because it steps on the toes of someone's fiefdom
- lokar 3mo ago
  There have always been lots of ideas. The issue is the management consultants and finance took over.
  - toomuchtodo 3mo ago
    They’ve been GE’d.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
ex-aws-dude 3mo ago
Maybe the policy is that you can’t just release 20% time projects publically?
- nomel 3mo ago
  I've never worked for an employer, from pizza delivery, to corporate intern, to multiple startup, to FAANG, that didn't have this VERY CLEARLY worded in the employment agreement, right up top: 1. Any work you do during company time/resources/equipment, is company property. 2. Anything public related to work, or that could be considered as competing or providing the service in the same space as work, needs to be vetted by the company. Along with public communication, etc. In my experience, this isn't some "what happens when MBA's run company" or "they run out of ideas", it's literally every company I've ever worked for. Was google previously an exception here, or are people just unfamiliar with the details of the 20% policy? Surely they didn't allow you to work on, for example, something for a competitor? There had to be some limitations, rather than a pure free for all, as seems to be suggested in the comments.

solid_fuel 3mo ago

Usable link for anyone else without a twitter account: https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602 https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602

dietr1ch 3mo ago
Auto-redirect for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/

websap 3mo ago

This is what happens when companies are run by boomers who care more about building their orgs, instead of doing hard cutting edge engineering work. Sucks for the author. Hope they land a good gig at a frontier lab.

_doctor_love 3mo ago

[flagged]

shevy-java 3mo ago
It's twitter right? Ever since a billionaire bought it it went downhill.
- testfrequency 3mo ago
  HN is slowly starting to feel this way also, sadly
  - verdverm 3mo ago
    HN still has the best mods (official and community) Also, see the last rule in the Guidelines
    - testfrequency 3mo ago
      The one that says don’t compare HN to Reddit? Said the HN community has become over time (sadly) more toxic like Twitter/X. The moderation here is fine, though it can be questionable at times why there’s some post suppression on certain topics.
- konart 3mo ago
  This is host most of the internet is in general.
solid_fuel 3mo ago
I think the full text of that is even worse: > You had my sympathy until you mentioned your healing. Now I know you were fired for being a pussy. I was expecting some more substantial motivation for that but it's not even motivated by some weird disagreement about acceptable behavior at work, it's just this weird insanely toxic belief that taking care of yourself is "pussy behavior".
3mo ago

shevy-java 3mo ago

> getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories. > I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. I normally don't defend Google - this pure Evil should not exist. Degoogling is a holy act. But it is also kind of silly to create a project, attach Google logo etc... to it while working at Google. Or perhaps it was a genius move. Either way I am not entirely certain whether the description is as clear here. If it was an internal tool only, did it need a logo? If it was external, who would use it when a Google logo is attached? That's all very strange to me. > But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. That may be the case - Google lies to humans all the time. See when they killed ublock origin via fake "arguments" that were lies (killed it in the sense that the Google store crippled it: https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock%20origin?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock%20origin?hl=... - I just tried to find the old webpage on chrome webstore but the search results no longer show it, only alternative names that are fake projects. I should have bookmarked the old link, Google is REALLY so annoying. The world wide web needs to overcome its number #1 enemy here. Which is Google.)

jasonlotito 3mo ago
> But it is also kind of silly to create a project, attach Google logo etc... to it while working at Google. Nah. Fuck Google. Reasonable humans would talk to him, fix it, and move on. They don't need you carrying an ounce of water.
- trollbridge 3mo ago
  Yeah, the reasonable thing here is a stern talking-to about company policies, and then leveraging this thing to get more goodwill in the community about AI, which is an area Google is currently lacking in.
  - Ferret7446 3mo ago
    He probably got that talking to, and continued to be stubborn and unapologetic. Getting fired is quite difficult, as there will be multiple attempts at resolving any issue.

OJFord 3mo ago

I don't get it – you called the GitHub org 'googleworkspace' and used the Google logo? Presumably without permission? Don't Googlers regularly open-source side projects under the official org(s)? Did you really think this was going to be fine, or was it 'growth hacking' with tougher consequences than expected?

dekhn 3mo ago
I believe it's an official or semi-official Google github org. Typically at Google there is some process you are supposed to follow when opensourcing your code, and a repo like this exists specifically to get more people to use the API. The CLI still exists at the repo and the repo still has the Google branding, so it's 99% certain this is a Google repo. If you do an end-run around the normal open source publishing you can get in trouble- up to and including termination- but my guess is there is more context around the firing than just "posted open source code to work with standard Google APIs". For example, you can get punished at google (up to and including termination) for raising your voice in a meeting.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  Yes, berating a coworker for being a fucking moron is unacceptable in corporate America.
  - hilariously 3mo ago
    The truth is that in decent workplaces we've figured out attacking people doesn't generally get what you want, unless what you want is to have a tantrum. Calling an idea nonsense is fine, calling it not profitable is great, and saying its a waste of time is a Monday. Attacking someone as a fucking moron is pointless, just fire them, deprioritize them, or move on.
    - fragmede 3mo ago
      It's a reframe for > you can get punished at google (up to and including termination) for raising your voice in a meeting. That makes it sound like Google is really weird for firing people for merely "raising your voice in a meeting", but the reality is that toxic assholes who can't control their emotions and yell racist slurs at people do get fired, but, uh, shouldn't they?

testfrequency 3mo ago

Very lame of Google. I guess we all get to continue trusting GAM (https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM) with an entire companies most precious data, instead of, I don’t know…Google?

arjie 3mo ago

The concerns seem to be primarily around trademark and logos? Unless there's more to it, those seem trivial to remedy by requiring removal of logos and renaming in the style of Clawdbot -> Moltbot -> OpenClaw. Google is well-known to be pretty sparing with firing people even for performance, so either this is a change in stance (entirely possible) or there's more to it.

cynicalkane 3mo ago
For over the last >1 year, Google has been dismissing people without warning or cause. The days where it was nearly impossible to be fired are over; now you might be severed by surprise for no given reason at all.
- collabs 3mo ago
  Anecdotally speaking, I have seen a change in behavior even from early 2024. I was in a meeting (online) with a few people from Google shortly before Google IO about something fairly small. The technical engineer actually spoke(!) and he talked about revenue and stuff. I was dumbfounded that technical engineers at Google would ever care about "moving the needle".
  - stogot 3mo ago
    Are you sure it wasn’t a “customer engineer” role?
    - collabs 3mo ago
      No, it was not a sales call.
- lern_too_spel 3mo ago
  I know many people at Google who have been waiting to get laid off to get better terms than they would from just quitting. Now they know what to do.

firefax 3mo ago

So... they fired him for doing a 20% time project? I'm glad I don't have any of their stock to sell, what terrible management.

outside1234 3mo ago
20% time project != able to just launch it YOLO style I suspect the core issue here is that he launched it with Google logos without following any sort of process
- ex-aws-dude 3mo ago
  That would be dumb but I don’t think it should result in firing still
  - free652 3mo ago
    2 months later, I think we can assume some kind of process behind that didnt go well for our friend here.
    - dolmen 3mo ago
      It looks like he wants his former manager to be fired too. This only gives bad signals to hiring teams.
      - free652 3mo ago
        His manager would the first line manager, and really not a decision maker at G. it possible that his manager would put him under a bus after getting called out by legal. Dunno. But regardless once escalated by legal there have been a process to mitigate this, so either the director fired the OP or someone higher. The direct manger would be not really in the decision making here. There is a clear path to release open source at G, and it seems it wasnt followed. The OP claimed that its confusing, but it isn't - usual the launch tool to get the approval and you covered your bases. If the OP didnt have all launch approvals after 7 years at G, wow thats on him. If the OP actually had all the launch approvals then he has an actually big case against G. Launch approvals are for all product - internal and external, it usually requires L8+ (Director) levels approvals.

cs702 3mo ago

Looks like a textbook example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.[a] People like the OP, Justin Poehnelt, who build cool things out of self-motivation that others find interesting and want to use, are now at the mercy of those inside Google who care more about the company's internal bureaucracy and their own role and importance within it. To them, the fact that the OP's project was an instant github hit meant nothing. -- EDIT: Others here are saying that Justin released his code with Google's branding without asking for approval. If that's true, it wasn't right of him, and his firing was justifiable. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650310 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650192 --- [a] https://jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

logicchains 3mo ago
People ask why Google's Gemini is falling behind the competition in spite of Google's immense resources, this kind of thing is an example why.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3mo ago
  the Antigravity AI suite is hugely popular among non-developers
  - stogot 3mo ago
    So is every other AI tool
  - throwaway23597 3mo ago
    Who is in charge of naming things at Google? Like a five syllable word followed by "AI", I couldn't think of a worse name for a product competing for mind share.
    - quuxplusone 3mo ago
      The other day I learned that the command line interface (or whatever) to Antigravity goes by the abbreviated name "agy", which is awfully close to "agi" as in "artificial general intelligence." I strongly suspect they did that on purpose.

elzbardico 3mo ago

[flagged]

xnx 3mo ago

Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is someone who has huge wildcard risk in the future. I would expect significant disciplinary action if they didn't follow procedure, and termination if they were directly warned at any point.

jbm 3mo ago
Your ships would have been sunk during the 2002 Millennial challenge and an entire bureaucracy would defend you for the next 20 years.
ktm5j 3mo ago
Yeah that's kind of the impression that I had.. should have ran it past his superiors. Hope he learns something from this instead of deflecting like he seems to be doing.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- wildrhythms 3mo ago
  His boss is the one that announced the tool.
- saghm 3mo ago
  Superiors like...his manager, who announced the project for him?
  - ktm5j 3mo ago
    If that's really the case (which isn't really clear from this post) then I feel like we're missing some details.
ingvay7 3mo ago
Particularly for a company that possibly has to navigate high-volume, often frivolous litigation and brand attacks from trolls. I have been in similar situations having to partner with legal defending the most frivolous things on products released. You literally sign docs to not do such things when u onboard. Not sure what the point of broadcasting this is though.

speak_plainly 3mo ago

Google seems to be filled with really talented people, technology, and every resource anyone would ever need, but their execution and management seems to be severely lacking. This account is a pretty damning indictment of Google. Look at the entire Bard-to-Gemini launch, and from my experience, Gemini's performance is slipping hard recently. Then you have the sheer scale of the Google graveyard. And finally, take a look at Youtube lately. The company increasingly feels optimized for internal politics and corporate metrics rather than building the best possible products for real people. I guess this is why monopolies suck.

xendo 3mo ago

Around that time I built a CLI to access and manage monitoring cameras that my company is selling. After giving a demo to my leadership I strongly adviced against releasing it to public. Giving agents access to some stuff is bad for customers.

echoangle 3mo ago

Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?

throwaway23597 3mo ago
I tend to agree with you here. This is the equivalent of that scene in Better Call Saul where Jimmy makes a commercial without getting sign-off from the partners. It doesn't matter whether the thing worked - this is essentially a mutiny from the product roadmap.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- refulgentis 3mo ago
  Love Better Call Saul :) The comparison is not even wrong (in the Pauli sense). Required knowledge seems to be DevRels role within Google culture. The absolute last thing this was was “mutiny” from a “product roadmap”. They’re sort of just around to build things to help devs and evangelize. They’re not tied to roadmaps or recruited to work on them.
chaostheory 3mo ago
Ofcourse. This is HN and not LinkedIn. We have a lot more people here who like bending rules as opposed to following them.
- sanderjd 3mo ago
  Yes, fair. I do feel like the twitter post walks this line a bit though, between "yes, I broke the rules, for a good reason!" which I think many of us here can probably respect to various degrees and "I don't understand what I did that was wrong".

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

827a 3mo ago

IMO: If the project leverages Google branding or authority improperly, then it shouldn't be on github and should not be under active development by Google employees; yet it is. If Google is suddenly alright with the way the project leveraged Google branding and authority, then the cause for firing the original developer, especially given Google's famously lax stance toward 20% projects and internal open source, is a lot weaker. In other words: Healthy companies do not fire individuals simply for breaching branding guidelines in a way that is ultimately beneficial and looked favorably upon by the company. That's literally just not a thing that happens; at worst you get a reprimand, and in many healthy companies you'd actually get a promotion. So, something does not add up. It might be the story of the person fired. It might also be on the other side; that our external impression on what's been going on inside of Google needs to be re-adjusted, and this company will be a lot weaker in ten years than I would have originally estimated.

dekhn 3mo ago
There are more than a few plausible scenarios here. I've been inside google and I've seen other "i was fired" posts before. almost always, there is some additional context which gets left out. For example, I could see a path where the author wrote the code, got approval, published it, and then another part of the company (workspace) found out and wanted to use the same space/place or another place to publish their "competing but official" system, and the author refused (programmers are notorious for this) to take down his code when asked, at which point any number of different paths could lead to the employee being fired for not complying. However, google is filled with personalities and egos and sometimes engineers are the collateral damage.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

danielodievich 3mo ago

5 years ago out of necessity I made a CLI around a private product API to manage something it wasn't making publicly, by reverse-engineering the API and complex logons and etc. It was very useful to ~ 100 people worldwide but it was enough of an audience. But I couldn't get any traction releasing it publicly until a distinguished engineer very far away from my org was in need of just this tool for his project. All of a sudden I got an innovation award from company leadership and legal fast tracked open-sourcing it. Pushing something like this out into public repo without legal review is suicidal.

stevenalowe 3mo ago

Do not use the brand without permission is taught on Day 1. Who can give you permission, not so much.

qsxfthnkp2322 3mo ago

At big tech you do what your piece of shit manager wants you to do (assuming you have one of the typical big tech managers). That’s all you are allowed to do. Thats my experience at Apple. I even tried to ask for alternatives, mentors, etc. all denied by my one manager because I was reorged into their team and a new manager had something to prove. Directors who I talked to just shrugged their shoulders. Leadership at these companies is pretty much shit. It’s not surprising something this happens at Google. Companies could give zero f’s about you, how long you have been there, or what you have done or accomplished there. Seriously. If you know you have a bad manager (you’ll definitely know) then you need to get the hell out asap. Don’t think if you tough it out it’ll work out. I lasted 5 years total and the last two years with this unnecessary insane stress caused by him. They will let you go after your dog suddenly gets cancer and they dont care you have a mortgage or need health insurance. I’m sure there are good management out there, but not my experience and clearly not the experience of who posted this on x. Management and leadership at these companies needs to fucking treat people that work for them like they care. At all.

dekhn 3mo ago
A long long time ago, Google management cared more about its employees. I saw folks with cancer who were not fired (even though they couldn't work) to keep them access to healthcare. And a coworker whose parachute did not deploy and was brain damaged- my manager spent hours on the phone calling his parents in Iran, arranging special health care, etc. Intrinsic motivation- making a new product out of nothing- was incentivzed, not punished (unless you leaked code intentionally). But also, the worst managers I've ever had were at Google.
- qsxfthnkp2322 3mo ago
  The good days of tech are over due to people like this who have a stronghold in management. These people. Man. This manager I had would also be hard to contact, he would schedule meetings on my calendar just to cancel them or change them last minute, all the time. He told me I would never be a software engineer even though I have 15 years experience. He denied me a mentor when I wasn’t too busy or on a pip or anything. He started this stuff 3 months after be was promoted to management by his best friend. Who I learned from some other people that they have been friends since high school. He is protected by this guy and he controls his narrative better than anyone else. But ultimately he’s a piece of shit. When I was reorged to this team with the product I worked on it was just me. My first manager told me on our last 1:1 that he fucking hated those people. So I dealt with that for more than 2 years. I wanted nothing more in my career to work at Apple. And then after two different managers this guy gets promoted and immediately starts this and emailing me about things i didn’t do. I had good to great performance reviews before him. Now I have no job for more than half a year and am about to be on the edge of selling my house without somewhere to live. And I’ve applied at soooo many places and I have a great resume. I enjoy tech but the job market is worse than ive experienced ever. And my beagle of 13 years passed. So it’s been a great year.

apimade 3mo ago

Doesn’t appear to be at feature parity to GAM yet. https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki

squidi 3mo ago

Justin’s blog is the consistently the best resource for Google Apps Script content and he genuinely seemed to connect with the platform. He always stood out, as Googlers don’t typically seem to connect with anyone/anything.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

jongjong 3mo ago

This reminds me of how the founders of the so-called 'open source' cryptocurrency project I joined suppressed my work in the community. They monopolize opportunities, suppressing natural-born entrepreneurs; force us into very narrow roles and fire us if we step out of line ever to slightly. Even when it is beneficial to them. IMO, we should get rid of trademark laws. They didn't mind their LLMs ripping off people's copyrights. Why should anyone uphold trademarks? If I work at Google and want to represent myself as Google, I should be able to. I feel like, even if I don't work at Google, I should be able to use the logo. It's the consumer's mistake for inferring a relationship. I'm just showing a logo of a well known company and letting their dumbass jump to a conclusion.

cdata 3mo ago

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed Github orgs. In fact, for most of my tenure ('15-'21) my team had license to publish to Github unilaterally (no approval from the open source office required). Great power comes with great responsibility, but also I would put to you that publishing an open source project like this one is part of Google's culture. Firing seems an extreme consequence for the perceived damage of a long-tenured employee's behavior in this case.

reactordev 3mo ago
Used to be part of Google’s culture until the AI wars and walled garden present we find ourselves in.
frollogaston 3mo ago
So is it normally allowed to publish a non-Google-affiliated repo under Google's brand? This seems weird to me, and I can't understand why he didn't just do it under his own name. I did work at Google until a year ago, when I quit and sold my stock, but not in a team that remotely deals with open source so idk how this works.
- cdata 3mo ago
  Simply put: all work published to Google repos is implicitly affiliated with Google. In my team's case we would include expectation-setting language in the README.md so that it was clear that the project was not an officially-supported Google product. As far as I know, no-one ever lost their job for failing to set that expectation. A gentle correction from legal was sufficient to set the world right.
  - frollogaston 3mo ago
    But there's an approval process to create such a repo under the Google name, right? I'm not seeing that he followed that.

zerobees 3mo ago

It'd be a fairly major faux pas to release a "non-product" open-source project in a way that smells like a product, but I don't think it's an automatic firing offense in most of big tech, especially if you're just releasing some technical (CLI) tool. It's more of a "stern talking-to" situation. I'm guessing something more happened here. Maybe someone was displeased with how the author initially responded, or some powerful exec really wanted to make an example out of him (sounds like another group was working on an identically-named official product with the same name?), or they were just looking for an excuse to cut this particular role.

CyLith 3mo ago

Former Google employee here. This is exactly the kind of shit-for-brains action I'd expect from Google executives. Bravo on further dragging your image through the mud.

fuck_google 3mo ago
[dead]

sumanthvepa 3mo ago

Yes. While they may have been justified in firing him for not following policy, they also lost a talented engineer. (I'm sure they don't care) I would have done the intelligent thing here and looked at how the project could have been made official. But that decision would have had to been made at a very high level, maybe even the CEO, because anyone lower down would have made a narrow and parochial decision in favour of the org they were protecting, rather than in the best interests of the company.

fg137 3mo ago

The repo clearly says "This is not an officially supported Google product." So what is this thing? Can anyone rely on it with confidence? Does Google even acknowledge its existence? If it's not officially supported, why is your name, a (former) Google employee, on it?

fuck_google 3mo ago
[dead]

donatj 3mo ago

How do the permissions work on Googles GitHub orgs where this guy could somehow create an unapproved public repo. I work for a MUCH smaller org and creating a repo at all requires review, creating a public repo many times more so.

OrvalWintermute 3mo ago

I remember when Google was a bit rogue, full of brilliant people developing awesome things.

oybng 3mo ago

How foolish creating something of value while under the foot of such evil

khazhoux 3mo ago

I see justinwp is commenting here… Justin, people are asking questions that you’re not replying to. Sorry, but it’s pretty disingenuous to tweet your story and post it here, but then refuse to answer requests for more info. > I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. Seems to me your management chain was thinking “Why the hell is someone on our team releasing a vibe-coded CLI that’s branded to look like an official API, when we’re 2 weeks from announcing the actual CLI??” If you didn’t know there was an official CLI in the works, that’s one thing, but if you did know then that’s pretty shitty to your teammates in Workspace and bad for users who would adopt one CLI (thinking it’s official) just to then see another one 2 weeks later. Still, I would expect a talking-to and not an actual firing… but who knows what actually happened since you’re not responding to anyone. :shrug:

cute_boi 3mo ago
The read me clearly says "This is not an officially supported Google product.". I am not getting what you want to imply here and what you expect him to reply here.
- khazhoux 3mo ago
  It's other people on this thread that had questions, more than me. I'm not really implying -- I'm stating that I don't think his management chain was "afraid of being disrupted", but that they were pissed that one of their own team members released a product with Google branding that was the same thing they were about to announce in 2 weeks. It was poor judgement. Not worth a firing, though, in my opinion.
  - justinwp 3mo ago
    > they were about to announce in 2 weeks Market validation can change roadmaps. As I stated on Twitter/X, CLIs for agents was not a very interesting thing outside a small group earlier in 2026.

waterTanuki 3mo ago

In the README > This is not an officially supported Google product. Why was this project published under an account named "Google Workspace"? Google seems to want to have their cake and eat it too, same with the cli creator. If you want to publish a project under open source and you are the sole creator/owner -> do it in your own time, under your OWN individual github account. Nothing good has ever come from ceeding control of these things to giant corporations who only care how much it will increase their profit next quarter.

ventana 3mo ago
Xoogler here who also published things within Google repositories. This is a standard phrase that you should have in the README to get an approval to publish your repository to GitHub, even if it is totally related to the Google business (as mine were). My guess is that it's similar to the regular "no warranty" clause in the licenses, just explicitly opting out this code from any possible agreements Google might have with its customers. Google's process to publish to open source is well documented and this documentation is public. [1] is the document that requires this disclaimer. [1]: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/publishing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/...
- waterTanuki 3mo ago
  The issue isn't lack of documentation, it's the policy itself. If it's not supported by google it shouldn't be published under their name. Simple.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

0xbadcafebee 3mo ago

On the plus side, this is the best marketing ever for a new job. "I'm the guy Google fired for making a workspace CLI". Keep on getting rid of your talented dedicated people, Google, we'd love to hire them.

matznerd 3mo ago

Great that it was available, but compared to Peter's version this one is inferior. It didn't have draft email as a default and asking it to write a draft would just send the email, oops lol. And doesn't have mutli-account support or a number of other features. I think one thing it could do better was inline commenting (maybe), but neither CLI can initiate their own comments... Gog cli - https://github.com/openclaw/gogcli https://github.com/openclaw/gogcli

jazzpush2 3mo ago

You would think the devrel would be more familiar with OSS policies than anyone else. Something about their LinkedIn job title at Google ("Developer Relations (Mostly SWE)" also reads odd.

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

skobes 3mo ago

I'm confused, this tweet reads like the lead-in or movie-trailer to a story, but where is the actual story?

bschwindHN 3mo ago

Thanks for at least making a CLI in Rust instead of Python. Their gcloud CLI is so annoying (and slow) to use.

randomuser558 3mo ago

[flagged]

MatmaRex 3mo ago

Testing the keyboard. tasting the rainbow

thatsadude 3mo ago

Funny to think about this when he got fired releasing a well-received product. On the other hand, Google released a subpar antigravity 2.0, full of bugs, almost unusable. The tech lead of Antigravity went on X to claim users don't know what they want.

jbverschoor 3mo ago

I thought this was an official release by Google

eranation 3mo ago

Put aside whether this was justified or not, or the potential Streisand effect or PR damage (or vice versa). What signal is this sending to the young Google engineer who wants to build the next Gmail? Even if this violated every internal policy, firing someone who created something that people actually want is sending a very disturbing message (internally and externally). Also, is this somehow relate to Addy Osmani’s recent departure from Google? (Was it in sympathy, was it a retaliation as this was “the tweet that got OP fired”?)

subscribed 3mo ago
I support your opinion but if you think Google is concerned about the image you've been in the coma for the last 15 years :)

stevage 3mo ago

The text of their "tweet that got me fired" is: > Introducing the Google Workspace CLI: https://github.com/googleworkspac https://github.com/googleworkspac e/cli - built for humans and agents. > Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included. Yeah, that absolutely looks like an official product announcement from Google. Surely it was obvious they'd get in trouble for that.

etothepii 3mo ago
Is the issue primarily caused by the English language? (Google Workspace) CLI vs Google (Workspace CLI) Because Google has there name in the product for which the CLI was produced it looks like he's using the Google brand when he's only using a descriptor of what his CLI was for. Trademarks are funny, but if I build a thing that only works with Google Workspace wouldn't it be a bit weird to not say that?
- zipy124 3mo ago
  Probably contributes to the fact. In Opensource to avoid legal threats for instance with USB/HDMI and the likes you usually say "Compatible with" to avoid claiming certification/trademark infringement.
- stevage 3mo ago
  Good point. "CLI for Google Workspace" would be less ambiguous.
- echoangle 3mo ago
  If you launched a “google workspace cli”, as a random person not affiliated with google, wouldn’t you expect to get sued too? You could maybe try to get away with “CLI for google workspace” (although clarifying it with “compatible with google workspace” or something like that would be better), but the first one just sounds like it’s an official thing. If you namedrop a copyrighted name, you have to make sure that people won’t think you’re officially affiliated with that.

AJRF 3mo ago

Former Googler here...nah just kidding, I just felt left out.

antonvs 3mo ago
Apparently LinkedIn doesn’t stop you from adding Google or any other company to your employment history. Go for it!
- AJRF 3mo ago
  I'm gonna do it! A dream come true!
  - fuck_google 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - tomaytotomato 3mo ago
    Why stop there? I am considering adding Bell Labs, Xerox and Skunkworks Lockheed Martin to my work experience

tlogan 3mo ago

I never worked for Google, but I do have fairly extensive experience with these kinds of situations. From that perspective, I assume there has to be more to the story for it to lead to a firing. In general, when a talented employee (like OP) does something like this, the response is usually something like: “We appreciate and love your initiative, and we want to encourage you to keep doing this kind of work. However, this needs to be taken down, and you need to make sure this does not happen again.” Usually, these things are not career-ending moves. Actually it might be even opposite. Sure one might get labeled as a “cowboy”, but there is always some executive who will support “cowboys” because they shake things up. So one can actually get a promotion. So I think there is something more here. Either Google handled this very badly (and organization is broken) or the OP did not act in the company’s best interest and intentionally refused to follow certain instructions.

IshKebab 3mo ago
My guess is he didn't say "ok sorry I'll double check in future" but got into an argument with them about how he was right.
zipy124 3mo ago
Given their manager was the one who announced their project I'm leaning closer to Google handling this badly? Which is understandable in an organisation so large tbh. Sometimes things are done badly, no one is perfect, especially not large organisations.
- saghm 3mo ago
  It's amazing how quickly so much of this thread is people vehemently arguing that this person deserved to be fired for not following proper procedures, but when it's the company not following proper procedures for literally firing someone (which is a way more egregious thing to screw up than publishing some code that can easily be deleted, not that Google apparently has bothered to do that yet), there's so much room for patience and understanding because "nobody's perfect". We're in a pretty messed up place in society if we hold individual people to this much of higher bar than a multi-trillion dollar company

crawshaw 3mo ago

This is the nature of large institutions: they have to distrust their own people. You cannot be relied on to act well, you must be checked first. There is a good reason for this! In a large group of people, there are bad people. This is also why I am done working at large companies. I learned a lot, met some great people, but am uninterested in a low trust environment. I like relying on my colleagues. When they do something unexpected, I am surprised and study it to learn, not lambast.

isabellehue 3mo ago

[flagged]

spacebacon 3mo ago

[dead]

Ecko123 3mo ago

[dead]

khurs 3mo ago

We don't know the full facts, but seems harsh to fire him rather than consider other solutions.

opptybiz 3mo ago

[dead]

KennyBlanken 3mo ago

It's amazing the number of people (many of whom claim to be Google employees past or present) who probably consider themselves smarter than everyone else in any room they walk into... ...who did not figure out that this project was published in a google-run github org, it was approved by his manager, etc. As he has said multiple times: he went through the publishing process with his manager's blessing. Stop making up bullshit about how he didn't follow processes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48655744

gunaclksy 3mo ago

[dead]

dusbskxnd 3mo ago

I work at Google so was curious. This person did attempt to follow the process, but was belligerent in review and it was cancelled. They continued anyway. No surprise they were fired. If you work at google just search this CLI and you will see for yourself.

justinwp 3mo ago
The launch was canceled after the fact.

assimpleaspossi 3mo ago

Couldn't this just be an "Oops! Sorry. I didn't know." and rename it? I don't know why it couldn't be that simple instead of dropping the hammer by firing.

romanovcode 3mo ago
This is how these things usually play out. Unless OP was being difficult and defending his position that he did nothing wrong.

AbstractH24 3mo ago

lol, I really am starting to appreciate that article I read a month or so ago about how writing a public letter is a right of passage when leaving Google

haritha-j 3mo ago

For me it hangs on how the author describes his product “THE google workspace CLI” as opposed to “A google workspace CLI”. That sounds very much like an official google product to me.

itake 3mo ago
He worked at Google and released it in a Google owned GitHub organization. Seems like he just didn’t have the authority to release such a project.

Haven880 3mo ago

Maybe this is just one of the AI firing? It just happen OP did something before the firing announced and put that and firing together. This would explain why others also let go and the repo still there.

quadrifoliate 3mo ago

I am appalled at the amount of commenters on HN saying stuff like "well he should have followed proper procedures, it's right and proper that he was fired". When did we all join IBM? A few points: 1. It's clear from various comments that he might have followed "the process", and that different orgs at Google have varying levels of latitude in publishing to GitHub orgs with the company colors. 2. The repo clearly has no sensitive code or such, it's just using the developer API. Naturally, Google hasn't taken it down, and it is widely popular. Guess what, the author was in DevRel and it was literally their job to showcase the developer API. Which they did, splendidly. What was the internal justification, "What would happen if every employee just wrote and published useful code that leveraged our public APIs? We can't have that!"? 3. There are comments saying that it was "unexpected" that a single person would be able to generate something that looks like a full product. Really? The place where the CEO runs around making claims like "75% of all code here is AI-written" found it unexpected that a person would be able to ship what looks like a product? How low are their expectations about their own tech, exactly? 4. Anecdote, but as soon as the Workspace admins at my place saw this, they went "Holy shit, Google released something useful for Workspace! How can we use it?" It stoops to the level of self-parody that Google would fire the person that created one of the few actually useful tools for Workspace. Steve Yegge's memo about GCP (a different org, I know) sucking at public-facing APIs comes to mind. Justin -- if you read this, I'm very sorry that this happened to you. Whoever took this decision is a suit and is destroying people's trust in Google and their attitude towards people that use and maintain their APIs. If I was a VC (unfortunately, I'm just a mid-level IC), I would immediately invest in your next startup.

transformerash 3mo ago

[dead]

thucyd 3mo ago

Ex-Google here. This is pretty typical in the modern era. Its a high paying job. He made people look bad/incompetent that were either: 1. Struggling for a while to ship what he did 2. Couldn't even come up with this to begin with So they pulled the necessary levers to get him axed. Google salaries are top of the industry. People get robbed for $20. If you don't think someone would cheat/lie/scheme in order to protect their paycheck, you're delusional.

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[dead]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]

tomsop 3mo ago

[flagged]