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Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

Just one question, why?

Google is a company that has explicitly stated its ethics over and over and over. Obviously they have been under fire for the rumors regard a censored Chinese site, and their AI contracting with the government, but firing high level executives who have been investigated and found liable for sexual harassment COMPLETELY aligns with the values that they state to the rest of the world. No one would've batted an eye if they said: "Hey, we're firing Andy because of these claims that we investigated and found credible, and he's not getting a dime because he violated his contract".

Now, due to the cover-up this looks awful. I just don't understand it. Intel's CEO was let go after an extra-marital affair was uncovered and there was very little controversy around it.

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> Google is a company that has explicitly stated its ethics over and over and over.

Isn't it usually the company or person who shouts loudly about virtue that end up being the least virtuous? Whether it is the most vocal anti-gay republican who is caught having sex with a man in an airport bathroom or the most vocal pro-woman and anti-racist democrat DA who is found to have assaulted his "brown slave".

This is why I roll my eyes whenever someone talks in a virtuous evangelical manner. It usually hides a guilty conscious. ( Ahem, cough such as Tim Cook's recent media blitz about privacy )

> Now, due to the cover-up this looks awful. I just don't understand it.

Maybe rubin knows a thing or two about the co-founders or top execs in the company. The reason why execs get glorious golden parachutes isn't because they were such hard working people, it's because they know too much and you want them to be quiet and beholden to you.

Keep in mind that it isn't a secret in the tech industry ( especially silicon valley ) that people use their position for sex. Many times it's reciprocal. One side gets sex, the other side gets cushy jobs/advancement/etc.

Maybe Rubin knews $90 million worth of secrets?

> Maybe Rubin knews $90 million worth of secrets?

I am not very familiar with the monster sums of money that are paid in SV (read: I'll never see 1/100 of them in my whole life), but do you really think that to justify a $90M severance pay to the creator of Android you need to assume knowledge of secrets and whatnot? That sounds like a rather typical sum to me in this context.

I think the answer to your question is they paid Andy not to compete with them.

If they fire him and didn’t pay him a dime, he could walk into Samsung or Apple and take all his domain knowledge with him and get paid that $100mm to make a competitor’s products better.

And yet, ultimately, Rubin went out and started his own hardware company (Essential Phone) and it didn't work out well.

Maybe Rubin's domain knowledge wasn't really much of a threat after all. In hindsight, one might argue that Android's success hasn't depended on Android quality/innovation nearly as much as it depended on Google's already powerful position in the search market.

Although I'm not taking a position on whether the numbers are correctly reasoned, I think evaluating the value of the noncompete after the fact and as a static value (was his domain knowledge worth $90 M) isn't likely how it was thought about.

It was probably looked at as insurance against a catastrophic tail risk, the existential threat to the whole Android ecosystem. It might have only been a 10% chance that he could have blown up Android by going to a competitor, but insuring against a 10% chance of multi-$B loss was worth $90 M (for example).

I'd argue that they paid him to STFU and not drag anyone else into tis with any of the things he knows or has seen them also do...

Rubin launched a smartphone company immediately after leaving Google.

The ceo of intel was fired because it was one of his employees and it is specifically against compaby policy, not because he was cheating on his wife by comitting the act.

> Google is a company that has explicitly stated its ethics over and over and over

Dude. Those are facade. Its the PR and marketing which makes you think so.

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