4 ms·

The smiley at the end is rough. However, I'd like to point out that Google took the action of firing the employee so quickly and strongly. Job's simply asked th

by a2tech 13y ago

The smiley at the end is rough. However, I'd like to point out that Google took the action of firing the employee so quickly and strongly. Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop.

incision 13y ago
>"Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop." Hardly. When one executive contacts another directly the intent is implicit. If destroying this person was not the clear desire this communication would have taken place at another level.
- javert 13y ago
  What you said is just made-up nonsense. You can claim that when somebody says X they really mean Y, but without evidence for that, it is a bogus claim. Sipmle logic states that Steve Jobs actually cared about maintaining the scheme he had with Google and couldn't care less about one particular Google employee. Why would he? If he really were some kind of perverted power-luster he had plenty of his own employees to torture, but he just wasn't like that. He was always pursuing HIS GOALS ruthlessly, he wasn't out to get his rocks off by hurting people or exercising power. (None of this is from direct experience, but it's evident from public information.)
  - jroseattle 13y ago
    But alas, we don't live in a world of simple logic. It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand-picked in its entirety by Jobs. These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls. To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons; otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs) said "jump"?
    - jsymolon 13y ago
      > show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google Such locker room / schoolyard pissing contests show lack of leadership, creativity, compassion and humility. Very Wall Street. Without a source of what was in the policy manual it's really hard to armchair quarterback, but such 1 strike and you're toast really sends the wrong message to everyone. The message back to Jobs should have been, It's taken care of. Won't happen again. Internally, IF the policy said violate A,B or C and termination applies, I can't quibble. Otherwise, people make mistakes and should be handled as such. That what makes companies "Great Places to Work" and not the next job to pull a paycheck before the next one.
  - SimHacker 13y ago
    Dude: think it through. Steve Job's unprecedented :) is overwhelming evidence of his intent. When an animal trainer gives a dog a cookie for jumping through a hoop, it's beyond question that the trainer intended the dog to jump through the hoop. Even the dog understands that. That is exactly the situation here.
    - Cederfjard 13y ago
      In your analogy, what dog got what cookie for jumping through what hoop? From context it would seem you're saying that Schmidt recieved the email with the smiley as a "reward". It wasn't sent to him though, but to some HR person at Apple (probably the one who escalated the issue to Jobs).
  - seestheday 13y ago
    From your comment I get the sense that Steve might as well be speaking a language you don't understand. I recommend reading this: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i...
- SimHacker 13y ago
  Agreed. There's no question that the smiley face in response to the consequences makes the intent perfectly clear.
  - salgernon 13y ago
    I have to disagree because there 16 bits isn't enough to encode ACK of the intent of the original email. To me, he's saying "Hey, look what I made Eric do!" which is undoubtably more satisfying than getting some line level employee fired.
JeremyMorgan 13y ago
Very good point. He didn't demand the termination, that was a power play by the heads of HR who seem to be the real bad guys here. But I'm sure there was a mirror image of activity going on at Apple.
- circlefavshape 13y ago
  To me that's almost as sickening as the dismissal - the obsequiousness of the HR department
- lostInTheWoods3 13y ago
  He didn't demand the termination He didn't have to. And learning of the consequence, he didn't seem to care. a power play by the heads of HR who seem to be the real bad guys here Really? Blame the minions? They offered someone's head to save their own.
bicx 13y ago
Yes. The smiley seems like a response to the almost humorous over-reaction and display of subservience on Google's part.
iQuercus 13y ago
Well, the article doesn't try to hide that it's trying to instigate an emotional response. In the big scheme of the moral calamity that this whole thing is, this particular exchange feels oddly trivial to get its own article. But I think it's just the sort of thing that people can and will latch on to easily.
- yardie 13y ago
  The reason for the firing was trivial the firing was not. And people can latch onto being fired because almost everyone has experienced it at least once. That moment, of "what do I do now?", is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. And the glee these assholes have in actually doing it (remember no one is supposed to enjoy firing anyone, MBA101) is even more enraging since it confirms everything the 99%ers have been protesting about. These guys are fucking with other peoples' livelyhoods and making a joke of it.
  - iQuercus 13y ago
    Setting aside what the policy meant in the context of keeping salaries down, the company's policy on its own was not illegal. The employee in question was presumably trained on the policy upon starting work and presumably informed of the costs of violating the policy. The employee violated that policy, damaging company relations in the process, and was fired. That's a separate issue from the whole salary debacle. That Steve Jobs replied with a smiley face is immaterial to the broader problem at hand. Steve Jobs would in all likelihood reply to the end of the world with :-O. Who cares? That Google terminated an employee in violation of what they indicate was a clear policy, is again, irrelevant to the discussion. It serves as nothing more than an attempt to get emotional response using something only tangentially related to the core issue. If the said employee felt the policy was unethical and possibly illegal, violating it is not the answer. There is no indication that the employee was making a moral stand. More than likely, he couldn't follow directions. And he got fired.
    - yardie 13y ago
      > the company's policy on its own was not illegal. This logic would not fly in any other industry. I don't see why SV thinks it is exempt. You never see a "policy" like this being defended in banking or whiteshoe law firms. Also stop calling it a policy. Policies are written down, recorded, and published. One manager having an informal meeting about an unofficial policy doesn't make it policy. The reason this lawsuit is making waves now is because the policy was never put to ink. It was never put to ink because these companies wanted as little evidence as possible. Does that sound like a good policy?
corresation 13y ago
Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop. By emailing the CEO of Google. Jobs knew exactly what he was doing, and what the outcome would be. And boy, what an absolutely embarrassing response by Google.
JanezStupar 13y ago
To me the smiley implies: You bitches danced for me, I like that very much.
- papasmrf 13y ago
  That is about how I took it too. I see much worse in what Google did here.
jmccree 13y ago
It's only "simply asking" if you ignore context and subtext. When Jobs said he would be "greatly pleased if google stopped", it carries the implication that jobs would be greatly displeased if google did not. The email is a thinly veiled threat sent by Jobs ceo-to-ceo to carry the implied whole weight of Apple's resources, and the smiley is acknowledgment that google, did in fact, "get the message".
sin7 13y ago
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i... It's all power talk.
theorique 13y ago
Stop ... with extreme prejudice.

by a2tech 13y ago

incision 13y ago

>"Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop." Hardly. When one executive contacts another directly the intent is implicit. If destroying this person was not the clear desire this communication would have taken place at another level.

javert 13y ago
What you said is just made-up nonsense. You can claim that when somebody says X they really mean Y, but without evidence for that, it is a bogus claim. Sipmle logic states that Steve Jobs actually cared about maintaining the scheme he had with Google and couldn't care less about one particular Google employee. Why would he? If he really were some kind of perverted power-luster he had plenty of his own employees to torture, but he just wasn't like that. He was always pursuing HIS GOALS ruthlessly, he wasn't out to get his rocks off by hurting people or exercising power. (None of this is from direct experience, but it's evident from public information.)
- jroseattle 13y ago
  But alas, we don't live in a world of simple logic. It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand-picked in its entirety by Jobs. These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls. To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons; otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs) said "jump"?
  - jsymolon 13y ago
    > show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google Such locker room / schoolyard pissing contests show lack of leadership, creativity, compassion and humility. Very Wall Street. Without a source of what was in the policy manual it's really hard to armchair quarterback, but such 1 strike and you're toast really sends the wrong message to everyone. The message back to Jobs should have been, It's taken care of. Won't happen again. Internally, IF the policy said violate A,B or C and termination applies, I can't quibble. Otherwise, people make mistakes and should be handled as such. That what makes companies "Great Places to Work" and not the next job to pull a paycheck before the next one.
- SimHacker 13y ago
  Dude: think it through. Steve Job's unprecedented :) is overwhelming evidence of his intent. When an animal trainer gives a dog a cookie for jumping through a hoop, it's beyond question that the trainer intended the dog to jump through the hoop. Even the dog understands that. That is exactly the situation here.
  - Cederfjard 13y ago
    In your analogy, what dog got what cookie for jumping through what hoop? From context it would seem you're saying that Schmidt recieved the email with the smiley as a "reward". It wasn't sent to him though, but to some HR person at Apple (probably the one who escalated the issue to Jobs).
- seestheday 13y ago
  From your comment I get the sense that Steve might as well be speaking a language you don't understand. I recommend reading this: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i...
SimHacker 13y ago
Agreed. There's no question that the smiley face in response to the consequences makes the intent perfectly clear.
- salgernon 13y ago
  I have to disagree because there 16 bits isn't enough to encode ACK of the intent of the original email. To me, he's saying "Hey, look what I made Eric do!" which is undoubtably more satisfying than getting some line level employee fired.

JeremyMorgan 13y ago

Very good point. He didn't demand the termination, that was a power play by the heads of HR who seem to be the real bad guys here. But I'm sure there was a mirror image of activity going on at Apple.

circlefavshape 13y ago
To me that's almost as sickening as the dismissal - the obsequiousness of the HR department
lostInTheWoods3 13y ago
He didn't demand the termination He didn't have to. And learning of the consequence, he didn't seem to care. a power play by the heads of HR who seem to be the real bad guys here Really? Blame the minions? They offered someone's head to save their own.

bicx 13y ago

Yes. The smiley seems like a response to the almost humorous over-reaction and display of subservience on Google's part.

iQuercus 13y ago

Well, the article doesn't try to hide that it's trying to instigate an emotional response. In the big scheme of the moral calamity that this whole thing is, this particular exchange feels oddly trivial to get its own article. But I think it's just the sort of thing that people can and will latch on to easily.

yardie 13y ago
The reason for the firing was trivial the firing was not. And people can latch onto being fired because almost everyone has experienced it at least once. That moment, of "what do I do now?", is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. And the glee these assholes have in actually doing it (remember no one is supposed to enjoy firing anyone, MBA101) is even more enraging since it confirms everything the 99%ers have been protesting about. These guys are fucking with other peoples' livelyhoods and making a joke of it.
- iQuercus 13y ago
  Setting aside what the policy meant in the context of keeping salaries down, the company's policy on its own was not illegal. The employee in question was presumably trained on the policy upon starting work and presumably informed of the costs of violating the policy. The employee violated that policy, damaging company relations in the process, and was fired. That's a separate issue from the whole salary debacle. That Steve Jobs replied with a smiley face is immaterial to the broader problem at hand. Steve Jobs would in all likelihood reply to the end of the world with :-O. Who cares? That Google terminated an employee in violation of what they indicate was a clear policy, is again, irrelevant to the discussion. It serves as nothing more than an attempt to get emotional response using something only tangentially related to the core issue. If the said employee felt the policy was unethical and possibly illegal, violating it is not the answer. There is no indication that the employee was making a moral stand. More than likely, he couldn't follow directions. And he got fired.
  - yardie 13y ago
    > the company's policy on its own was not illegal. This logic would not fly in any other industry. I don't see why SV thinks it is exempt. You never see a "policy" like this being defended in banking or whiteshoe law firms. Also stop calling it a policy. Policies are written down, recorded, and published. One manager having an informal meeting about an unofficial policy doesn't make it policy. The reason this lawsuit is making waves now is because the policy was never put to ink. It was never put to ink because these companies wanted as little evidence as possible. Does that sound like a good policy?

corresation 13y ago

Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop. By emailing the CEO of Google. Jobs knew exactly what he was doing, and what the outcome would be. And boy, what an absolutely embarrassing response by Google.

JanezStupar 13y ago

To me the smiley implies: You bitches danced for me, I like that very much.

papasmrf 13y ago
That is about how I took it too. I see much worse in what Google did here.

jmccree 13y ago

It's only "simply asking" if you ignore context and subtext. When Jobs said he would be "greatly pleased if google stopped", it carries the implication that jobs would be greatly displeased if google did not. The email is a thinly veiled threat sent by Jobs ceo-to-ceo to carry the implied whole weight of Apple's resources, and the smiley is acknowledgment that google, did in fact, "get the message".

sin7 13y ago

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i... It's all power talk.

theorique 13y ago

Stop ... with extreme prejudice.