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.