4 ms·

Google forces employee to disavow MVP status

32 points by madair 17y ago

prat 17y ago
Unless there is a contractual clause saying that google employees shall have no services provided to them from another company (and from the word "forces" I assume there is not), google should not have forced this employee. Insecurity is not a hallmark of a genuinely better company.
- jriddycuz 17y ago
  I don't see what's different about this and, say, the Minnesota Vikings asking Brett Favre not to wear a Packers hat.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    This is more like them asking him not to receive an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      The honorary degree doesn't include a contract.
      - jrockway 17y ago
        If signing a contract is prohibited, do any Google employees have credit cards, bank accounts, or mortgages?
        tptacek 17y ago
        Because none of those contracts affect Google's IP.
        jrockway 17y ago
        Nor does the MVP contract.
        mr_luc 17y ago
        He would have to sign a Microsoft NDA. So he does X at Google based on his knowledge of something he can't disclose. MS says "Google did X because their employee broke NDA." Come on -- basically any prudent company would do what Google did. That doesn't make it good or bad, in and of itself, but it seems silly to say some of the things people are saying on this page just because a company took the standard, cautious route.
        InclinedPlane 17y ago
        Neither does MVP status. Does google force its employees to forgo doctor patient confidentiality, or attorney-client privilege? Does google force its employees to avoid signing up for game beta programs that might require an NDA?
        tptacek 17y ago
        Don't be silly. Doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege are matters of state and federal law. NDA's are matters of contract law. Google and Microsoft are archcompetitors. Any number of things could happen that could cause MSFT to sue GOOG over violation of that contract, starting with tortious interference.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Google is not party to the contract, so they have nothing to fear. You can not be sued over a violation of a contract that you are not a party to, that's just plain silly. In fact, any number of google employees could have singed any number of NDAs with other companies without ever having disclosed those to google or being required to do so. And google could never be sued for violating those contracts, tortious interference would be limited to those cases where google would force the employee to breach their NDAs, naturally limited to any confidential information that that employee might have (my guess: not much). As long as that's not the case I really don't see why simply letting this guy have his 'status' could ever be a problem. If microsoft wants to sue google I'm pretty sure it won't be over something as petty as that, and if they do it'll be a minor blip on googles legal bill and a bit of bad PR for microsoft. Now it's significant bad PR for google, they come across as petty and paranoid.
- pmorici 17y ago
  doesn't say he was forced to just suggested. If he didn't want them to say "no" he shouldn't have asked.
  - madair 17y ago
    Ah, yes, "suggested"
- natrius 17y ago
  It is perfectly reasonable for Google to discourage employees from entering into non-disclosure agreements with competitors.
  - patio11 17y ago
    But its an NDA about their upcoming C# news, something Google has less-than-zero interest in. This rationale makes about as much sense as a corporate directive to avoid signing NDAs for MMORPG betas.
hussong 17y ago
Heh, I'm amused by the term "Mountain View Chocolate Factory" -- but where's Charlie?
jriddycuz 17y ago
Did anyone else catch that guy's name? Ah Skeet!
nixme 17y ago
Jon Skeet also has the highest rep of any user on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656 http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656
- Evgeny 17y ago
  Not only that, but his status there is of a legend. "Jon Skeet Facts" - http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts Some of those are quite hilarious Oh, and this site http://askjonskeet.com/ http://askjonskeet.com/
jrockway 17y ago
Google is pretty nice to this guy, though, as it's clear from SO that he must not do very much work for them.
- wyday 17y ago
  I must say this is pretty shitty thing to say about someone. A backhanded compliment at best.
  - mpk 17y ago
    I usually refrain from making 'me too' comments, but sheesh, really, what a lousy remark to make.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    His post rate is around 15 answers a day. Considering that most of these are highly-rated (and thus, not stuff like "lol you r dum"), it is likely that this eats up a good portion of his workday.
    - kevingadd 17y ago
      Maybe that's what he spends his '20% time' on?
- codexon 17y ago
  Everyone talks about Jon Skeet's reputation. But Alex Martelli ("Google Uber Tech Lead") is far more ridiculous. He has netted 37,778 rep / 130 day = 290.6 rep/day. Jon Skeet only has 102,115 rep / 371 day = 275.2 rep/day. I know this because I started my goal of getting 10k rep shortly before Alex joined Stackoverflow, and I saw him answering every day, usually within 1 minute of people asking a question, and even when I was on vacation.
  - aleax 17y ago
    @codexon, my deepest respect for _noticing_ this -- I had kind of started to wonder if anyone ever would (except a couple of my colleagues, also active on SO but less openly, had already commented privately to me about this;-). Still, seniority counts for A LOT on SO, and of course I'll never catch up to Jon -- if I keep gaining 15.4 points/day on him, bridging the 64337-points gap would take me almost 12 years from now... I kind of doubt it will happen!-) BTW, I made a "lateral career shift" within Google -- since about a year ago -- I'm not "uber tech lead" now, I'm "senior staff engineer" (no people-management chores -- I get to hack on code/design/debugging/architecture, nag^H^H^H evangelize on proper development methods, &c, in >80% of my time, vs ~40/50% of my time -- and that, with an effort!-) -- averaged over the many years in which I was uber tech lead, saddled with people management, budgets, strategy staff meetings, and the like... management at google is cooler than anywhere else I had ever managed, but, it IS still management in the end;-).
madair 17y ago
It's like being a vassal. People can worry about contract this and contract that, but that's all a distraction from the feudal servitude that developers are under to their corporate lords.
ironsam 17y ago
I'm not sure why Google would care as they don't have a product competing with C#, although the two companies definitely compete in more and more areas. For Jon Skeet, the only thing he loses is the free software from Microsoft, as his reputation in the C# community right now is much higher than that of your average MVP.
willwagner 17y ago
I think this is bad PR for Google but the fact that Microsoft makes MVPs sign non-disclosure agreements might be a contributing factor. IANAL, but if it were me and I had been working on technologies for which there may be information that I potentially couldn't disclose to my day job, I would be worried about the conflicts that might result. For instance, if you are spending several days working around a bug in the OS and Microsoft gives you a pre-release version of a service pack that fixes that bug, would you continue to work on the work around or just tell your boss it's not worth the effort? As an employer, I'd be even more worried about a bogus lawsuit that might result. Sometimes you can't have it all.

32 points by madair 17y ago

prat 17y ago

Unless there is a contractual clause saying that google employees shall have no services provided to them from another company (and from the word "forces" I assume there is not), google should not have forced this employee. Insecurity is not a hallmark of a genuinely better company.

jriddycuz 17y ago
I don't see what's different about this and, say, the Minnesota Vikings asking Brett Favre not to wear a Packers hat.
- jrockway 17y ago
  This is more like them asking him not to receive an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    The honorary degree doesn't include a contract.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      If signing a contract is prohibited, do any Google employees have credit cards, bank accounts, or mortgages?
      - tptacek 17y ago
        Because none of those contracts affect Google's IP.
        jrockway 17y ago
        Nor does the MVP contract.
        mr_luc 17y ago
        He would have to sign a Microsoft NDA. So he does X at Google based on his knowledge of something he can't disclose. MS says "Google did X because their employee broke NDA." Come on -- basically any prudent company would do what Google did. That doesn't make it good or bad, in and of itself, but it seems silly to say some of the things people are saying on this page just because a company took the standard, cautious route.
        InclinedPlane 17y ago
        Neither does MVP status. Does google force its employees to forgo doctor patient confidentiality, or attorney-client privilege? Does google force its employees to avoid signing up for game beta programs that might require an NDA?
        tptacek 17y ago
        Don't be silly. Doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege are matters of state and federal law. NDA's are matters of contract law. Google and Microsoft are archcompetitors. Any number of things could happen that could cause MSFT to sue GOOG over violation of that contract, starting with tortious interference.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Google is not party to the contract, so they have nothing to fear. You can not be sued over a violation of a contract that you are not a party to, that's just plain silly. In fact, any number of google employees could have singed any number of NDAs with other companies without ever having disclosed those to google or being required to do so. And google could never be sued for violating those contracts, tortious interference would be limited to those cases where google would force the employee to breach their NDAs, naturally limited to any confidential information that that employee might have (my guess: not much). As long as that's not the case I really don't see why simply letting this guy have his 'status' could ever be a problem. If microsoft wants to sue google I'm pretty sure it won't be over something as petty as that, and if they do it'll be a minor blip on googles legal bill and a bit of bad PR for microsoft. Now it's significant bad PR for google, they come across as petty and paranoid.
pmorici 17y ago
doesn't say he was forced to just suggested. If he didn't want them to say "no" he shouldn't have asked.
- madair 17y ago
  Ah, yes, "suggested"
natrius 17y ago
It is perfectly reasonable for Google to discourage employees from entering into non-disclosure agreements with competitors.
- patio11 17y ago
  But its an NDA about their upcoming C# news, something Google has less-than-zero interest in. This rationale makes about as much sense as a corporate directive to avoid signing NDAs for MMORPG betas.

hussong 17y ago

Heh, I'm amused by the term "Mountain View Chocolate Factory" -- but where's Charlie?

jriddycuz 17y ago

Did anyone else catch that guy's name? Ah Skeet!

nixme 17y ago

Jon Skeet also has the highest rep of any user on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656 http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656

Evgeny 17y ago
Not only that, but his status there is of a legend. "Jon Skeet Facts" - http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts Some of those are quite hilarious Oh, and this site http://askjonskeet.com/ http://askjonskeet.com/

jrockway 17y ago

Google is pretty nice to this guy, though, as it's clear from SO that he must not do very much work for them.

wyday 17y ago
I must say this is pretty shitty thing to say about someone. A backhanded compliment at best.
- mpk 17y ago
  I usually refrain from making 'me too' comments, but sheesh, really, what a lousy remark to make.
- jrockway 17y ago
  His post rate is around 15 answers a day. Considering that most of these are highly-rated (and thus, not stuff like "lol you r dum"), it is likely that this eats up a good portion of his workday.
  - kevingadd 17y ago
    Maybe that's what he spends his '20% time' on?
codexon 17y ago
Everyone talks about Jon Skeet's reputation. But Alex Martelli ("Google Uber Tech Lead") is far more ridiculous. He has netted 37,778 rep / 130 day = 290.6 rep/day. Jon Skeet only has 102,115 rep / 371 day = 275.2 rep/day. I know this because I started my goal of getting 10k rep shortly before Alex joined Stackoverflow, and I saw him answering every day, usually within 1 minute of people asking a question, and even when I was on vacation.
- aleax 17y ago
  @codexon, my deepest respect for _noticing_ this -- I had kind of started to wonder if anyone ever would (except a couple of my colleagues, also active on SO but less openly, had already commented privately to me about this;-). Still, seniority counts for A LOT on SO, and of course I'll never catch up to Jon -- if I keep gaining 15.4 points/day on him, bridging the 64337-points gap would take me almost 12 years from now... I kind of doubt it will happen!-) BTW, I made a "lateral career shift" within Google -- since about a year ago -- I'm not "uber tech lead" now, I'm "senior staff engineer" (no people-management chores -- I get to hack on code/design/debugging/architecture, nag^H^H^H evangelize on proper development methods, &c, in >80% of my time, vs ~40/50% of my time -- and that, with an effort!-) -- averaged over the many years in which I was uber tech lead, saddled with people management, budgets, strategy staff meetings, and the like... management at google is cooler than anywhere else I had ever managed, but, it IS still management in the end;-).

madair 17y ago

It's like being a vassal. People can worry about contract this and contract that, but that's all a distraction from the feudal servitude that developers are under to their corporate lords.

ironsam 17y ago

I'm not sure why Google would care as they don't have a product competing with C#, although the two companies definitely compete in more and more areas. For Jon Skeet, the only thing he loses is the free software from Microsoft, as his reputation in the C# community right now is much higher than that of your average MVP.

willwagner 17y ago

I think this is bad PR for Google but the fact that Microsoft makes MVPs sign non-disclosure agreements might be a contributing factor. IANAL, but if it were me and I had been working on technologies for which there may be information that I potentially couldn't disclose to my day job, I would be worried about the conflicts that might result. For instance, if you are spending several days working around a bug in the OS and Microsoft gives you a pre-release version of a service pack that fixes that bug, would you continue to work on the work around or just tell your boss it's not worth the effort? As an employer, I'd be even more worried about a bogus lawsuit that might result. Sometimes you can't have it all.