Andy Rubin Takes Leave of Absence Amid Report of ‘Inappropriate Relationship’
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
Leaders and board at Essential seem to be aware of his relationship at Google prior to the press reports. So, it is not clear why is this suddenly a big deal and requires leave of absence. Are they embarrassed that they got publicly caught and doing this for optics? What are they embarrassed about?
But I think it's a little funny if this is how he ended up getting pushed out at Google given that Sergey Brin had an affair with a Google X employee while working on Glass and is none the worse for it.
Anyway, my understanding was that it has historically been OK at Google to date subordinates, so I'm waiting for more to come out because I can't imagine that "he had a consensual relationship with a subordinate" is all that's going on here.
But maybe someone who has worked there for a long time can correct me?
Google has a pretty open-minded approach about relationships: you won't get fired for starting a relationship with a report/manager, but you are required to disclose it to management and take the appropriate steps to fix the power imbalance. Moving the parties to two different teams is one of the suggested solutions. I could see that being hard to achieve if you are in the board of directors, but it should work for the vast majority of employees.
So my guess about this "inappropriate relationship" was that it wasn't reported and the proper actions weren't taken. I hope for everyone involved it was consensual and just an indiscretion, rather than something more perverse being at play.
You may be right about the real issue here
One interesting aspect people are missing in this thread is that the power dynamic goes both ways: a manager could coerce a report into a relationship or a report gets unfair advantage over their peers by exerting influence on their manager. Or both. Not only that, it opens the door to blackmailing.
That's why the dynamic is bad and people trying to make a defense of it (I've seen co are misguided or haven't considered all the factors. There's a reason why there's a legal-approved training on this.
There's two couples who are married (with children) at work and I think they met at work too. It's a nice dynamic... but only because it worked out :).
Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/GrlEQ15mVPM
Did you miss this^^? She complained. Maybe she complained to get back at him but still, she complained.
Bill Gates also dated and married a subordinate. Poor woman, where was Gloria Allred to save her...
My point was that sleeping with subordinates is not historically the kind of thing that gets people fired at Google. I make no claim about whether that's good or bad (whether or not that should ever be ok is a different discussion), just an observation that that's the way it has been, which (along with the HR complaint) indicates to me that this wasn't a simple case of Rubin sleeping with a subordinate.
"Google reportedly launched an internal investigation into Rubin’s relationship with a subordinate after _a woman_ complained to Human Resources. The woman who filed a complaint to HR is said to have worked on the Android team, which Rubin ran. There are no details in the report on the nature of the woman’s relationship with Rubin. "
Definitely not a lot of information to go on right now, especially considering that the original source of the report is paywalled. (The Information does some great work, I'd actually be really tempted to buy in if not for the $400 price tag.)
What has been reported thus far is this:
> Google reportedly launched an internal investigation into Rubin’s relationship with a subordinate after a woman complained to Human Resources. The woman who filed a complaint to HR is said to have worked on the Android team, which Rubin ran. There are no details in the report on the nature of the woman’s relationship with Rubin. Google has a policy that does not allow relationships between supervisors and subordinates on the same team.
Until we get more information and confirmation that the complaint involves a consensual, non-entangling relationship between Rubin and a subordinate and that maybe they're even halfway into planning their wedding -- and yet Rubin is still going to be given an ax, then maybe we can go into the culture wars.
BTW, having a relationship with your coworker is not the same as having a relationship with your subordinate, though the latter is a subclass of the former.
Relationships between supervisors and subordinates are not illegal, but can open the company up to legal liability, for good reason. In America, we believe workers should be able to go to work free from various forms of harassment, whether based on religion, race, or gender. Romantic harassment falls into the same category. Women should be able to go to work and just do work, without being subjected to inherently coercive romantic overtures from their supervisors. When companies permit such situations to occur, they can be legally liable for failing to maintain an appropriate work environment. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to allow them to have personnel policies that address such potential liabilities.
That said, if Germany explicitly forbids setting rules... well, that's neither here nor there.
Every time a power imbalance exists there is always a chance it will be exploited and people must be protected from this.
It is possible to have a relationship with a subordinate that's nothing but equal and fair. People do it all the time.
Where the problem comes in is when there's a problem, either somebody did something wrong or the people just don't get along anymore. Suddenly every little piece of the relationship is now the company's business -- and there's no way anybody can go back in time and piece together what happened in private between two consenting adults. This makes what is usually a private emotional mess between two adults (and possibly a criminal case if something was done wrong) into this huge corporate-wide drama that can never be resolved well. The only thing to do when something like this is discovered, crisis or not, is to fire both parties immediately for violating policy.
So there's nothing puritanical going on at all here. And manager/subordinate relationships are not always bad and evil. Just from a practical standpoint, it makes the employer's job impossible to do well, so it has to be avoided.
You are quite mistaken. Though “broken” is the wrong word: it’s simply not bound by it, it’s bound by treaties with the host countries, which supersede current local law (but were obviously legal in the previous framework). In particular, the treaties explicitly declare immunity from local law, law enforcement and jurisdiction, as well as inviolability of the premises — there’s no room for interpretation. There are exceptions to this immunity but they do not pertain to our discussion.
For context, I am somewhat familiar with these treaties, as I was part of an employee initiative that was in dispute with our employer at the time. I can’t go into details for obvious reasons but suffice to say that we were disputing clauses in our contract which did contravene some (though not all) member states’ rules. We managed to get those changed, but not without substantial push-back and compromises (some rules are still not in agreement with all host countries).
On the one hand we're puritanistic when it comes to sex and relationships (VP won't dine with opposite sex if not accompanied), while at the same time exalting sexual revolution, freedom of association, etc. But we want to control how people behave at work in a proscripted manner.
It's like we can't decide what we want.
Obviously harassment is detrimental to the affected, but also, we should not be told to shy away from forming relationships at work. People spend upwards of third of their lives at work. It makes little sense to deny that to people out of hand.
That said, clear directives about abuse and harassment are necessary so people can work in an exclusive environment where they feel welcome.
Discouraging relationships at work serves that important end. Moreover, it seems that most of the voices demanding the right to inflict romantic overtures on coworkers are comin from men. I’ve never heard a professional woman say “you know, what I really want is for more guys to ask me out at work!”
I don't see why I'd impose my preference on others, when coworkers hooking up is as natural as coed students hooking up in university. The one thing id agree upon is people needing to be behaved, and if they can't, ie, engage in harassment, then we should have strong structures to handle those cases.
If what 1/Nth of a group (the harassers) do, is applied to "all men" or "all VCs" or wharever, and are all "presumed guilty" then you can also blame those doing that lousy extrapolation.
The idea that "all X are Y", is of the same nature as the racist notion that "all blacks are criminals" because they know of some black criminals.
I'm not discussing the parent comment itself (that would be extremely narrow focused).
I'm answering the ideas expressed in the comment, based on the general context, and how we've seen things play out in the world.
I understand where you are coming from, but I feel like jumping to conclusions about anything related to this story is way too soon.
Yes, on the toxic role SUCH (not ALL) generalizations have. So no need for sarcasm ;)
(Generalization, I'd say, is both the start point of knowledge, and the start (or maybe end?) point of prejudice. It's a tool. If it's not representative, or if it's representative but misreads the causes why it is so -- e.g. "blacks are overrepresented in jails because they're an inferior race with crime in their dna", it's harmful. Otherwise, it allows us to use abstractions, which elevate our thinking just like a higher level programming language does).
In Andy's case it's not even clear if he indeed was a harasser or just played favorites/had a perceived bias towards his subordinate girlfriend that was not liked by other women in his team.