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Why I'm Forced to Say Farewell: Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass
- vrganj 4mo agoThis mirrors my own experience as a European that worked at FAANG in the Bay Area. It used to be a dream job. Now I've relocated back to Europe and want nothing to do with American Big Tech. It's become toxic and completely counter to my values. America has become a much darker place that has a very different place in the world. American tech companies have not just accepted, but actively embraced this transition. I am not interested in joining them and being complicit.
- lenerdenator 4mo agoYou're not gonna like it when you find out where, exactly, America learned those values from.
- vrganj 4mo agoLuckily, we've gone through that phase around ninety years ago in Europe. We've been trying to avoid it happening again ever since, though right now is a dangerous time here as well. But hey, at least Europe hasn't fallen yet.
- lenerdenator 4mo agoIf you think you've "gone through that phase", you're not paying much attention. European companies exist to extract profit without regard to decency, same as American companies. BP filling up the Gulf of Mexico with oil? European. Wirecard's fraud? European. HSBC money laundering? European. Dieselgate? European. I'm sure I could find more. Hell, Sergey Brin was born in Moscow and raised by Soviet parents. The US was founded mainly as an experiment in European mercantile colonialism. This is just a continuation of that. The downside of there not being any American exceptionalism is that everything you see in America is not an exception.
- rirze 4mo agoMorally fallen? Sure, Europe hasn't fallen yet. Systemically and structurally? Already on its way there. Excessive moral policing results in strangling regulations, which is exactly what Europe is facing right now. The opposite of innovation. Good luck in your endeavors.
- jonnybgood 4mo agoDarker than what other point in America’s history?
- wvh 4mo agoPerhaps darker than the initial mild optimism of the early internet.
- smackeyacky 4mo agoIt is easy to forget US history as the vast majority of us have only been exposed to the 1960s to 2000s era which in retrospect seem like an anomaly.
- gregw2 4mo agoIt's an interesting time window you chose. Why would there be an anomaly during that window (if there is one)? Perhaps it is due to the outward-facing, civic-oriented values coming out of WW2? There was a lot of reflection in America on what went wrong in German pre-war thinking and culture coming out of that period. The WW2 men in their 20s in 1940 were in their 40s in 1960s and their political power would have kept growing through peer older politicians into the 90s.
- smackeyacky 4mo agoTime window is roughly to a non US citizen from when civil rights and women’s rights were ascending there. The last 20 odd years show a marked decline in both. I often wonder when segregation in the US will be introduced.
- Laurel1234 4mo ago[flagged]
- sailfast 4mo agoBIT of a broad brush there but we can take the critique. While we vote for our leaders we don’t exactly get a say or have awareness of what sort of covert bullshit some over eager Yale graduate is doing as a top secret operation.
- g-b-r 4mo agoYou're free to protest and do many other things besides voting
- cess11 4mo agoOK, but what about the open stuff? Like the current and previous president being publicly genocidal? Like the health care system being used as a weapon against the domestic population, or the US armed forces destroying the planet by just existing and spewing so much carbon oxides and pollutants into the global environment? Either those votes are worth something, and it implicates US voters, or they're not worth something and the US political system is basically a sham deserving of revolution, which also implicates US voters who do not organise to this end. Arguably every state on friendly terms with the US is similarly morally implicated as well.
- BeetleB 4mo ago> While we vote for our leaders we don’t exactly get a say or have awareness of what sort of covert bullshit some over eager Yale graduate is doing as a top secret operation. I obviously don't know who you voted for, but anyone who voted for someone who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq is somewhat complicit (Clinton, Biden, etc). And I'm not speaking just about those running for presidency, but all the Congressmen who got re-elected over and over again.
- sailfast 4mo agoEuropean companies aren’t much different so just be sure to check where you stand first before you’re SURE you’ve actually escaped.
- jnaina 4mo agomoral clarity usually sharpens the moment the last RSU hits the brokerage account
- lulzury 4mo agoAlphabet dropped “don’t be evil” from its moto in 2015. This guy went in knowing how the sausage was being made.
- rvz 4mo agoMaybe they should not have joined the company in the first place if they had "morals" or "principles". Yet they still joined in 2017 even after knowing that slogan was removed anyway. Company mottos, principles, slogans and values are all fake fronts to lure in these sort of people alongside the free food with the carrots on those sticks. Once that all runs out or the company goes south and stops being a daycare, then they start doing silly virtue signalling posts like this. Now you are seeing who was there for the 'good vibes', free food, rest n' vest and who was there to keep the company alive. ...And finally we know that this is a love letter to get themselves hired at Anthropic. I think you might need more than that honestly.
- john_strinlai 4mo agothey did not. it’s still right there in the code of conduct https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of-conduct/default.aspx https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of... scroll to the bottom
- watwut 4mo agoThat is not corporate motto.
- john_strinlai 4mo agothe motto was always a part of the code of conduct (it was the preface), it just moved from google's to alphabet's when it became a subsidiary.
- raverbashing 4mo agoWhile I can understand the concerns, I wouldn't use a google doc to air my grievances though
- macintux 4mo ago"Oops, sorry, we have no idea how your document was lost in that cloud failure"
- mDyJzDPmBdG 4mo agoIsn't his just weird repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 ?
- bArray 4mo agoMaybe send it out like a leak to get more attraction?
- fakedang 4mo ago[flagged]
- malfist 4mo agoIsn't that just an attention whore?
- qwerpy 4mo ago[flagged]
- dominotw 4mo ago[flagged]
- grim_io 4mo agoWow, way to throw Mississippi under the bus by comparing them to us dirtpoor Europeans :) Whatever you think you have going over there, all things considered, you can keep it.
- dominotw 4mo agoi am not american. have no idea what goes on there. All i know is that its one of the poorest states in usa. I know talking to europeans that they think they are peers of other 'white nations' like usa. But europeans are now closer to countries they colonized than to usa.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo agoWhilst I appreciate the commitment to their values, I wonder where they stand on the 'safety' of their users as it relates to the Android Developer Verification update (currently top of HN, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755965). "Security" vs Openness > “make things so secure that we ourselves can’t break them, whether the device costs $1000 or $100, or the user is a celebrity or a refugee“ That can mean different things to different people in different contexts. Could easily mean building a software platform with security features that banks will build their apps to require.
- jasonvorhe 4mo agoThat is wasn't even covered says enough for me.
- ausernamethisis 4mo ago> I wonder where they stand on the 'safety' of their users as it relates to the Android Developer Verification update He discussed this briefly in a talk he gave at the Grazer Linuxtage 2026 in April https://media.ccc.de/v/glt26-615-what-can-we-learn-from-android-for-other-embedded-linux-systems-security#t=2770 https://media.ccc.de/v/glt26-615-what-can-we-learn-from-andr... at around minute 46
- robotmaxtron 4mo agogoogle used to be cool
- Aldipower 4mo ago25 years ago
- DonHopkins 4mo agoNot as cool as Yahoo! used to be.
- WarmWash 4mo agoThey should have stuck with the charging money model instead of giving away services for the cost of attention. There is a deep irony in Google becoming one of the greatest corporations ever on the back of an ostensibly socialist utopia business model. Everyone on earth with an internet connection can use the full suite of google products (which pretty much every person reading this chooses to use daily) without having social class be a limiting factor like it is with paid services. Litterally anyone with internet can access and use the same youtube and office suite that a billionaire on his yacht is using (perhaps the billionaire has yt premium though). And here we are, 25 years later, and google is considered one of the most evil and malicious corporations, despite most people never paying them anything (and a large subset of those never loading one of their ads either). From a high level POV, its an incredibly perplexing outcome. Compared to someone like Apple, who charges money, has zero openness, and prices to align with first world upper class, still being largely beloved.
- Aldipower 4mo agoYou know, Google hinders competition. They are so powerful, they dictate the rules. If you do not play by Google's rules and align to their algorithms, you are allowed to consume, but not to provide. You have to pay them and others to even gain a small amount of visibility in their search results. The Google and YouTube algos are unfair as f*ck and promote the already successful. Your comment in itself is deeply ironic.
- jfil 4mo ago
- jqpabc123 4mo ago"Don't be evil" was just a diversion from a path that was laid out from the beginning. And it worked --- for a while. Until the path became impossible to deny.
- jasonvorhe 4mo agoYeah, I'm sure the "don't be evil" charade was good marketing from the get-go or else they would've never taken In-Q-Tel funding.
- assimpleaspossi 4mo ago[flagged]
- afavour 4mo ago> The last time I worked for someone else was 1992 Sometimes it’s fine to see a topic and tell yourself “I have no relevant knowledge in this area so I won’t comment”.
- jofzar 4mo ago1992 is actually insane, this is before common commercial email.
- PedroBatista 4mo agoGood for you, just try to remember those old days when you complained about bosses and "whine" about things to your friends and some work colleges about day to day stuff. Now think what you would say about a situation when you were fed up and had to quit because you couldn't take it anymore and every day you had these tasks going against your values ( doesn't matter if they are "right" or "wrong", they are yours ). Also, Google is a multi-billion dreadnought with hundreds of millions of dollars for PR, lawyers and lobbying every year. I'm sure they can take a post about someone "whining" and quitting their job in disagreement. Something tells me Google be fine...
- cyanydeez 4mo agoeveryone _works for someone else_, it's entirely about what the structure of that relationship is. You don't make your own food do you? Build your own car? Make your own git repos? Seems like you might want to have a better view about who you work for.
- assimpleaspossi 4mo agoYour comment has nothing to do with what I wrote.
- 4mo ago
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- okokwhatever 4mo agoCan anyone in this industry really say goodbye without posting it? We act like artists, believing our ideals will illuminate the world with our moral compass. This is surreal.
- anon7000 4mo agoNot until tech companies stop pretending tech jobs are special. It’s part of the entire industry culture at this point that you join certain positions to “make a big difference.” Yet most startups are just b2b AI sass or whatever.
- jasonlotito 4mo agoThis was a post to colleagues. Someone else shared it out. Now, calm down. Your acting emotional. Maybe try smiling.
- compiler-guy 4mo agoThousands, maybe tens-of-thousands, leave tech companies everyday and never post anything. You just don’t hear about them.
- hadi77ir 4mo agohe resigned because of... "politics"? and not because of the path Google has chosen for Android security?
- vrganj 4mo agoThey are one and the same.
- rpdillon 4mo agoThe only stated reason for his resignation is that Google is no longer adhering to their promise to not use AI for weapons. I was surprised that the reasoning was so one-dimensional.
- datakan 4mo agoWhile I don't agree with the author exactly, I do admire someone sticking to their guns (no pun intended). Like Oscar Wild said, "Morality, like art requires drawing a line somewhere". One of my favorite 80's movies was Real Genius with Val Kilmer. He accidentally helps develop a weapon and then goes to extreme measures to prevent its use. For some people creating weapons is a line they wont cross and that's not a bad thing.
- rirze 4mo agoGo through enough pattern recognition and you'll realize it's often not someone sticking to their guns. Would the author have left if they didn't have another job lined up? Definitely not. Then, how strong are their principles? That's not remarkable to many.
- jasonlotito 4mo agoHe has not been responsible for Android Security since 2019. https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/ https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/
- KKKKkkkk1 4mo agoThe actual reason is right at the top: he's a director who was "promoted" to IC.
- hagbard_c 4mo ago[flagged]
- urbsgpw 4mo agoI find it laughable how when all of these platforms were aligned with the Dems the same behavior was ok (and it was those darned russians that were the problem on facebook and other platforms), whereas now that the tables have turned (for now...), it's all the end of the world. Whereas the feature of these platforms - their incredible power - was always the same. The outrage is then just a function of a person's preferences.
- anon7000 4mo agoWhat behavior was fine, exactly?
- hagbard_c 4mo ago[flagged]
- the_af 4mo agoThe criticism of Google and their abandoning of their "Don't Be Evil" motto has been a constant here since before Trump's first term. There's no correlation with Dems being in government. If anything, what Google (and Meta, etc) show during Trump is how hypocritical their "values" were at their core. When it paid them to pursue carbon neutral policies, and being seen as "inclusive" or whatever, being seen as against violence, they did so. Now that those in power are against all of that, it pays to quietly or not so quietly abandon those policies. They can do this because they were never their core values, they were just convenient for business at the time.
- urbsgpw 4mo agoI should have been more precise. My point was merely that the tone of MSM and left leaning media and commentators took on those same platforms was completely different. So to your point, I agree, it was never fine, but it was only seen as problematic by the mainstream after the re-alignment with the Trump admin.
- ChrisArchitect 4mo ago[dupe] Discussion on website source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396
- jumpman_miya 4mo ago[dead]
- sherburt3 4mo agoThese tech-bro public resignations are so tedious. Ostensibly he seems fine with the existence of AI mass surveillance and AI powered murderbots but he just never envisioned a scenario where they would get used that wasn't congruent with his politics.
- cma 4mo agoRatified treaties are the supreme law of the land and he's pointing out "all lawful uses" isn't what the admin says it is.
- sherburt3 4mo agoThat doesn't appear to be stopping the current administration. That's why I think you should be more concerned about the tools of oppression existing rather than the laws that govern them.
- jongjong 4mo agoIt's a systemic issue unfortunately. When some of these unethical CEOs say that they feel like they have no control and that if they didn't do it, someone else would, I believe them and it makes sense. That's why they should try to reform the system.
- AlexandrB 4mo agoWhy is this a Google doc and not just an HTML page? I was super-confused when the links didn't behave like normal links. This is like when people post a screenshot of an Apple note.
- jasonlotito 4mo agoBecause it was intended for colleagues and not the wider public. https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/ https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/
- ubermonkey 4mo agoThis dude only now thinks Google has lost its moral compass? In 2026? Bruh.
- nicolaslegland 4mo ago"I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy"
- delta_p_delta_x 4mo ago[dead]
- FpUser 4mo ago>" I still believe in Android as the (currently) best end-user facing operating system for mobile devices, with its balance between openness, flexibility, and security." I do not give a shit whether it is the best. If one can be cut off instantly by whims of some algo with no recourse - thank you but I'll pass. Yes I still use Android phone but mostly as phone, GPS and camera all of which can be replaced. I do not develop for Android or iOS exactly for the reason of not being in control. Stick to desktops, servers and browsers as deployment platforms
- Bluescreenbuddy 4mo agoGoogle never had a moral compass. They went in, got their money, and left when it was easy and barely affected them. They still profited.
- goldenarm 4mo agoWhy post a Google docs copy of the original article? https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/ https://www.mayrhofer.eu.org/post/leaving-google/
- jchw 4mo agoI think that article is rather a copy of the original Google Doc, judging by the included go link.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- layer8 4mo agoDiscussion of the blog post (284 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 The blog post now also contains a second addendum that the Google doc doesn't have.
- guhcampos 4mo agoThe blog post is from June 19th. Google Doc from June 17th. My guess? He shared the Google Doc link with his peers, but forgot that Google Docs links are public for anyone who knows the link, so someone just forwarded it to oblivion, and he was forced to publish that as blog post. The addendums kind of reflect that. That's a great reminded that any Google Doc with a shareable link is basically a public document for all intents and purposes.
- echelon 4mo ago> That's a great reminded that any Google Doc with a shareable link is basically a public document for all intents and purposes. As per design. Google gives you sufficient control over access permissions. If you make it public, you have to know anyone anywhere can see it once they get the URL. I frequently share Google docs and sheets links widely and to entirely unknown readers. That is part of the utility of the tool.
- bix6 4mo ago> Google was a different company 9 years ago. No it wasn’t.
- szundi 4mo ago16 years ago it was
- p-as-software 4mo agoJup! From day 2, the moment when they discover that customer data (yours, mine, everyone's) is more valuable than gold. Also the interaction with government and defense and intelligence is well documented: from google docs to maps and clouds. I wish people will read "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet" by Yasha Levine and stop feigning ignorance. I even expect that minimal level of awareness about the real business culture and inherent nature of these internet mega-corps for people in top positions. "Don't Be Evil" is a psychological machination for people working at google to ease their life in work related cognitive dissonance and marketing speak to the rest of us. If I were an angel (actual, not fallen yet) I will not tell my self: "Don’t Be Evil". My motto will be "keep being holy" or "be holier" or something that keep me in my angelic state or better. So even the “Don’t Be Evil” motto by itself already spill the beans!
- ThrowawayR2 4mo agoGoogle's purchase and subsequent integration of Doubleclick, reviled industry-wide for their invasive, sleazy adtech, was 18 years ago.
- shantnutiwari 4mo agoyeah, looks like some history rewriting. 9 years ago was 2017-- and by that time Google was already doing sleazy SEO shit, scanning peoples emails to who them ads, trying to make ads seem like general search results etc etc Google was *exactly* this company it is today
- w4der 4mo ago
- farceSpherule 4mo ago[dead]
- cmrdporcupine 4mo agoI came to Google via acquisition end of 2011 and left end of 2021. Google bought my employer so it could further cement its display ads monopoly. They never had a moral compass, they just wore one in a costume so that nobody would dig too closely into their business practices. We got to wave pitchforks and ask tough questions at TGIF for a while, and march in pride parades under a Google banner, and get fed nice treats and the like but under it all was still just an old fashioned railway monopoly. A huge fire hose of cash that let it play in all sorts of domains and espouse some vaguely California Ideology liberal/libertarian ideals while doing it. But the moment that monopoly came under threat and the moment they felt they no longer needed the costume, it came off. Google never had a moral compass. Anybody who thought it did was naive. It's not possible for a corporate entity to have one.
- lokar 4mo agoI could see some of that in 2011 (I started before the ipo), but it was almost all from ads. People in other parts of the company had a very different experience.
- cmrdporcupine 4mo agoOh absolutely, I transferred out of ads as soon as I could and of course it all seemed different. The reality is that ads was 95% of the company revenue though, so it was all fantasy.
- lokar 4mo agoFor many years infra was delightfully oblivious, just finding interesting things to build. :) Working on promo committee I could see how different ads was
- cmrdporcupine 4mo agoYeah I transferred through Access / Home / Hardware / Nest, with a foray through Fiber... it was a different world certainly. But there's also something about a PA being disconnected from its revenue sources to create a sense of unreality and distorted incentives.
- bparsons 4mo agoI'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
- nla 4mo ago[flagged]
- aoshifo 4mo agoThen, I'm sorry to say, you have no spine
- Vaslo 4mo agoYou sound like someone who has never been poor. Or whose family has never been poor. Easy to have “spine” when you can depend on someone else for money.
- steele 4mo agoWhen did m'lord permit you to use that serf mind to imagine? Ethics are for brains but your lot are for grains. When you view someone's choices for purpose & ethical boundaries through a lens that presents as identity politics, you are revealing your alienation from civilization. Talent with basic freedoms can be selective about their pursuits. If you hold a idea that you are a mercenary or machinery, consider how useful that is to ambitious sociopaths that have abandoned civilization.
- dTal 4mo agoThey're resigning because Google is complicit in killing people. How is that "identity politics"? Do you just throw the word "identity" in there for no reason?
- n4r9 4mo agoI can't imagine ignoring personal ethics in career decisions. I also find it troubling when personal ethics are inaccurately dismissed as "identity politics". Supporting carbon-neutrality and rejecting military applications are clearly matters of personal ethics.
- dominicrose 4mo agoPersonal ethics is personal which means other people won't likely understand it nor truly think it's really ethical.
- loeber 4mo ago[flagged]
- jhedwards 4mo agoThis comment make a couple assumptions I don't agree with: 1. That technological development and a "carbon neutral goal" are incompatible. Carbon neutrality is precisely a problem of technological development, with green energy, battery technology, and improving the grid all on the vanguard of modern technological development. The problems caused by global warming will only get more severe (even if they don't cause the apocalypse) and these technological issues will be correspondingly more important for the survival of any other tech that depends on energy. 2. That America's military interests and private sector involvement are inevitable. I think that Google could influence an overly militaristic policy precisely by withholding support. We are _not_ a dictatorship where everyone and every institution must bend their will to the leader, and changes are in fact sometimes made through a show of resistance. This may be a somewhat naive view, but I think it's more correct than one that sees US politics as so inevitable that even Google has no choice but to fall in line. Sure, it would probably cost them to resist, but as another commenter pointed out: ethical decisions typically have a cost.
- loeber 4mo agoReplying: 1. It's not about technological development as an absolute metric, but as a relative metric. The current AI race is a winner-take-most game. Google must compete and shoot to become a $10T+ company or effectively go under. Those are the choices. I think the OP is naive about the middle ground. 2. I object to the OP's 2000s-era popular moral handwringing over America's military. America's military is a force for good in the world. You might think it's not perfect -- sure -- but you should seriously imagine a world without it: I think you'll like that one a lot less. Consider that the OP in this blog post might be wrong about his ethical position.
- Alien1Being 4mo agoA typical case of false nostalgia for something that never existed .
- innagadadavida 4mo ago> When Google offered me the job of Director of Android Platform Security in 2017, it was impossible to refuse. Yes, Trump was already president—my family and I had qualms—but he seemed contained, even ineffective. Why make this about trump and politics. It’s just a job.
- vrganj 4mo ago[flagged]
- groundzeros2015 4mo ago> So was being a concentration camp guard. What the hell. We are talking about ads on the computer.
- vrganj 4mo agoSo we have established that "just a job" is not unpolitical? It's just that you draw the line somewhere between enabling mass surveillance and being a concentration camp guard.
- groundzeros2015 4mo agoI actually think “just a job” is a justification in the following ways. - Soldiers and police are a thing in society. They use violence in ways deemed just by society. I do not think their role is immoral. - From experience I know that the number of people who can look at the incentive structure they are in and decide to operate outside it is basically 1%. Humans just aren’t wired that way. - So I do not know in what ways a Nazi soldier could stop doing what they were doing - except in the same way you are free to escape industrial society and capitalism, by moving into a cabin in the woods in isolation. This is why leadership is so essential. The leaders we choose and the systems we build around them determine what people will actually do. Individual moral failure is self-inflicted not systematic.
- the_af 4mo ago
- 0dayman 4mo ago[dead]
- nekusar 4mo agoUh, its a company. It never had a "moral compass". And if companies had any attributes at all, it would be a Psychopath. Maaaaaybe when Dunbar's lower number was 13, the people working did. When Dunbar's 150 was hit, sure they had " do no evil" but that was just marketing spiel. When they bought Doubleclick, that coffin was welded shut and thrown in the ocean. Only the rubes believed the adtech marketing shit.
- tpoacher 4mo ago> Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass This needs a "2004" date.
- kyleblarson 4mo ago"Enough of my equity has vested, virtue signal engage."
- 1-6 4mo agoBiting the hand that fed you... on your way out.
- lokar 4mo agoThat’s not really how RSUs work in that situation. The number outstanding and vested each year stays pretty steady.
- groundzeros2015 4mo agoYeah what he means is he got enough money over a decade and then waited until a vest day to decide it was immoral.
- lokar 4mo agoOh, sure. But with monthly vesting it kind of a wash.
- ryandrake 4mo agoOnly if you are getting refreshes.
- groundzeros2015 4mo agoThere is some weird psychology going where the most morality posting is from people quitting Google or being unemployed.
- rirze 4mo agoAu contraire, Googlers have always been strangely academic brained and stuck in niche moral echo chambers. This is par for the course.
- 4mo ago
- felooboolooomba 4mo agoGoogle: We're not evil. Also, Google, later: No comment. Like a slap in the face from a psychopath. It's not about "good", "bad", "honest", etc. It's literally the world EVIL that they no longer want to swear off. Astronomically monumentally fucked up psycho shit. Dictionary: *EVIL* : morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked an evil impulse an evil tyrant evil deeds the evil institution of slavery : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct a person of evil reputation Google: no comment.
- felooboolooomba 4mo agoAnd I'm getting downvoted. Make of that what you will.
- rirze 4mo ago[flagged]
- shadow_it 4mo agoyes -- the author’s rhetoric makes the piece feel less like sober whistleblowing and more like an exit narrative designed to preserve moral self-image after benefiting from Google.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- checking23 4mo ago[flagged]
- jszymborski 4mo ago> Then there were the people. Larry and Sergey were still answering some tough leadership questions every week, and “Don’t Be Evil” wasn’t just a slogan of often-referenced Googliness—it was a north star for teams making hard calls. I'm sorry, but this is very hard to believe. I get 9 years is a lot of time, but Google has been awful for much longer thant that. In fact, 2018 was the year the motto was removed from the handbook, which certainly indicates it wasn't anything like a "North Star": https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-be-evil/254019/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-be-evil/2540...
- khurs 4mo agotl;dr : Android head of security has quit on principl as he is a pacifist and Google are now working with USA department of war. And also as they scrapped the carbon neutral promise due to the AI Datacentre race.
- reenorap 4mo agoTranslation: “My GSUs that I received at $35 and upwards for the last 10 years have made me enough money such that I can now finally make the “moral” decision that I’ve always wanted to do but was willing to swallow until I made enough money. Now I can pretend I was always the moral person that I purport to be, even though not much has actually changed except my financially-improved courage.”
- jadbox 4mo agoThis is needlessly cynical. Everyone has thresholds, and it may not be tied (at least exclusively) to money. Those that _assume_ that the morals of others are always at whim of financial gain are those that I trust the least.
- reenorap 4mo agoHe is worth well over $20M given his title and the skyrocketing of Google stock since 2017. He could have left years ago if he were really so morally outraged. There’s nothing more useless than a multi-millionaire “finally” taking a moral stand on something. I guarantee that this same person without the money would not have posted this ridiculous manifesto declaring his moral piety. If he donates all his wealth away because it was made “immorally” then I will change my stance. We both know he won’t and that’s how we know his courage is really just because he’s rich.
- dang 4mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496396
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4mo agoThe title is comical Google's founders never had a moral compass, at least not one that ethical people would understand Perhaps some employees thought they could make one up. It didn't last long
- aliasxneo 4mo agoI left Google four years ago after being there for a decade. It was really obvious at the time of my leaving that the moral compass was _long_ gone and that no one internally could even define what "evil" was anymore (I'm sure the prevailing post-modernist view that seem to come from the top didn't help). But it was when I started spending time in mandatory compliance meetings where moral preaching was becoming the norm that I really lost all love for the company. My mental health has jumped leaps and bounds since leaving that place.
- sharts 4mo agoThey lost their moral compass over a decade ago. Perhaps the blinders slowly eroded from inflation and salary stagnation