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Comment by dibstern | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand people on here complaining about the Senate demanding that the leaders of a business answer for its actions. Sending your lawyer or an underling is (1) a show of disrespect, (2) it shows you’re not taking responsibility for your company, and (3) when the person answering the questions isn’t really in charge, they can’t answer properly and they can’t commit their companies to behaving differently.

People just seem propagandistically pro-Google on here. You’re mostly pretty darn smart people. I don’t get it.

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Treating everyone except the CEO, including seasoned executives who are much more competent at answering trick legal questions, as "some underling" is itself petty political posturing.

Also, making commitments in the middle of a high-stress congressional hearing without taking time to think about it would be a terrible idea, which is why people don't do it.

I don't think it's pro-Google, I think it has to do with the fact that these hearings are made up of a gang of angry old people with God complex that not only do not understand technology, but don't really have a desire to understand it nor the desire to really change anything. I don't blame Google one bit for not wanting to waste time and be ridiculed by these clowns.

What you wrote could easily be applied to Google.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/09/13/breitbart...

> these hearings are made up of a gang of angry old people with God complex that not only do not understand technology, but don't really have a desire to understand it nor the desire to really change anything.

Those angry old people were chosen by their constituents to represent them in public affairs. Supposedly their roles and their actions are the basis of a democratic regime.

> Sending your lawyer or an underling is (1) a show of disrespect, (2) it shows you’re not taking responsibility for your company, and (3) when the person answering the questions isn’t really in charge, they can’t answer properly and they can’t commit their companies to behaving differently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Walker

"Kent Walker currently serves as Senior Vice President for Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer at Google"

"He served as an Assistant U.S. attorney with the United States Department of Justice and advised the US Attorney General on technology policy issues"

Google has more than 85,000 employees - with a good chunk of those being technical positions. And they take getting their employees to 'drink the kool-aid' very seriously. What percent of those employees do you think browse or post on hacker news?

I'm not suggesting the employees or Google are doing anything wrong but it's going to result in a visible bias that one should keep in mind.

See Zelphyr's comment just below yours (for the moment) at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17978894

It's a crap double standard that people fall over themselves to explain how CEOs deserve to get paid 1000x their employees because of how deeply and personally accountable they are for the success and behavior of their companies—yet shrug when they clearly eschew this role under a bit of pressure.

If you get paid the big bucks, you'd better be ready to face the music.

Google takes HN extremely seriously. They frequently respond quickly respond to complaints that make the front page. Given that it's not unreasonable to think that there are loads of Google employees on here looking to defend the company

I’d say google learned from Gates and Zuckerberg getting grandstanded at.

> I don’t understand people on here complaining about the Senate demanding that the leaders of a business answer for its actions.

The Senate didn't demand anything.

Some members of the Senate are just engaging in theatrical complaints about someone declining a voluntary invitation.

If they wanted to demand compliance, they have the power to do that. That they chose not to indicates their real view of the substantive importance more clearly than their fake drama does.

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