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At a certain size, corporate roadmaps and people management are inevitably political. Google modifying their search criteria to participate in China's market.. is political. Google's HR department working towards demographic goals.. is political (I'm not judging its political-ness, but it ended up being political, didn't it?).

Each of the major FAAMG companies has a political/dominance issue of some kind, one that comes to mind more immediately than all the political issues associated with those companies. Taking a swag at it:

* Facebook: privacy - exploitation (personal data exploitation)

* Amazon: automation

* Apple: privacy - enforced (withholding from gov't)

* Microsoft: [I'm not even sure, they're flying low.. perhaps monopolization, or government backdoors?]

* Google: politicization/curation

I would suggest that Google's the clearest "ideation" company here, where censorship/curation is the most core part of their business model (Facebook is social media, Google is a borg-like machine collection all of the Internet and then putting algorithms around access to it), and most prone to politicization crossing the internal/external cultural barrier. [edit:spelling]

Microsoft is the oldest of them all. Microsoft had its own "teenage years" problems... maybe it has less problems these days because it's more mature?

The article mentioned participating with China in state surveillance and censorship.

Yes, but, they're not taking as much public heat for that as other companies, I would say.

True, if we're talking about PR problems and not just moral and ethical issues, Microsoft seems to be faring relatively well at the moment.

I agree completely with this.

Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive.

Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

Did you just compare Google's advertising business to assassination, murder, and war crime?

He was contrasting them.

He literally said they do not even compare.

Yes and no, some of the projects mentioned in the article, like Project Dragonfly, involved developing the kind of censorship tools necessary to prop up dictators like the ones you mentioned.

That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here.

We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative to not let something like that happen again.

We should all be disturbed that the executive team at Google felt that Project Dragonfly was appropriate.

My opinion is that someone is going to be providing that service, so it might as well be me (better the devil you know than the devil you don't).

Exactly the reasoning used by arms dealers.

The world is not absolute. It would be nice to be able to take an absolutist, moral stance against things I disagree with. But as I get older, I realize that one must be able to compromise and see in shades of grey.

Compromise is important, and one doesn't need to go the way of the Sith, but giving in on your morals is pretty much what leads to problems in this world.

I agree! But also being able to compromise so that you still can wield influence is important. For example, if an American company (such as Google) does not fill the need for this service for China, that leaves the door open for other countries to fill this void -- countries which America might not want to be furnishing this service.

So by that logic, US and like minded allies should ban their industries from working with China / Russia / Middle Eastern dictatorships? Are you advocating for complete trade barriers?

If not, why single out Google when Apple / Walmart / ... are allowed to benefit from Chinese market?

...or invading and destroying countries and countless communities across the globe with a smile on your face.

I agree with you completely!

true evil is...

This is a straw man argument. The critique made of Google is not that has come to embody "true evil". But that it has (by degrees) slouched towards moral ambivalence, and acquiescence of (yes) evil.

Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

I think you are perfectly aware that Google is engaged in a lot more than simply the business of serving banner ads.

True evil would be if the Kremlin were to warn about the threat posed by Belgium or France to Russian security and the need to contain this threat and even declaring a national emergency. Like the USA did in their backyard, "that little region over here" aka South America. Crimea was a very logical step after NATO kept violating the promise made to never move an inch geographical beyond Berlin.

True evil is also believing all crap that yellow press and country-level echo chambers produce and then to bring it at someone’s table.

While I completely disagree with a commentor who calls “not interested in politics” an euphemism, as if they were disgusting and uneducated, your set of scary factoids likely falls right into this category.

true evil is threatening countries who wont sell oil strictly for USD with nuclear warfare

My BigTechCo experience has mostly been people working a 9-5 shift, and politics doesn't play into it at all. There is a general desire to avoid conflict and not be an asshole, and maybe do some occasional good with spare cycles.

The vocal minority you refer to doesn't influence my day to day or month to month. You get people posting manifestos, and people whining about XYZ, but you only butt heads with them if you actively seek them out and want to get offended.

The idea that there are some kind of political commissars reprimanding me for "whitelisting" features for certain customers, or giving out demerits for using gendered pronouns in promo packets, is a paranoid fantasy.

That majority of people can afford to focus on work or put in their 8 hours and go back to their families thanks to a "vocal minority" which was able to convince others in the past to fight for new rights and for what's right.

Obviously some people think there's more to life than cashing a large paycheck and writing code. "Not interested in politics" is an euphemism for clueless and easy to manipulate by those that are.

>That majority of people can afford to focus on work or put in their 8 hours and go back to their families thanks to a "vocal minority" which was able to convince others in the past to fight for new rights and for what's right.

That it is due to a vocal minority doesn't mean it is due to this vocal minority. Not all vocal minorities are equal, and nor should all vocal minorities be treated alike.

Freedom of speech is a great thing. That doesn't mean everyone exercising their freedom to speak results in a positive.

>That it is due to a vocal minority doesn't mean it is due to this vocal minority. Not all vocal minorities are equal, and nor should all vocal minorities be treated alike.

This is obvious and should go without saying. The parent comment gave an example of a positive consequence of an instance of this so-called "vocal minority", since the grandparent comment left no room for any positive angle on this.

I'm seriously confused how this translates into treating all "vocal-minorities" equally or that they all result in a positive.

>since the grandparent comment left no room for any positive angle on this.

I do not see this. Grandparent said "a vocal minority", which I interpret as a specific vocal minority. Like when someone says "there is a vocal person in my team who is obnoxious" - it does not imply that all vocal people in all teams are obnoxious.

My point was the example given by the person I responded to is kind of irrelevant. Yes, vocal minorities have done great things for many, many people. The GP to my comment was not talking about those, and listing positive vocal minorities that exist or have existed is irrelevant.

My interpretation of the initial comment you replied to was that pointing out that there are consequences of "vocal minorities" in the past that have led to great improvements and considering such examples almost always have significant pushback implies the possibility that perception is misplaced.

However, I see where you are coming from and thank you for clarifying.

It's not irrelevant at all. The ex-Google poster was using the fact that only a minority of Google employees are fighting for those causes to dismiss their views.

I countered by saying that vocal minorities were able to achieve great things in the past, so implicitly their arguments should be evaluated on their merit.

I was drawing a comparison between the people inside Google fighting against e.g. censorship and military contracts and others which fought similar fights before them.

I did not say that the same vocal minority is responsible for all progress. Neither did I say that all vocal minorities are alike. All of this should be blindingly obvious to any adult, unless they're trying to twist words, be pedantic or generally argue in bad faith.

> "Not interested in politics" is an euphemism for clueless and easy to manipulate by those that are.

Or a polite way of saying "I fundamentally disagree with you but don't feel like getting into a debate at work, please leave me alone."

That there exists a vocal minority does not mean they are right. There exists vocal minorities calling for the dissolution of most of your most fundamental rights.

> "I [snip] don't feel like getting into a debate [snip], please leave me alone."

I do this for all manner of things, including political discussions at work. That other people don't hold this as a default position is astounding to me.

My comment was posted on an article about Google, so it follows that it's connected to the minorities inside Google which were fighting against e.g. a censored search engine in China or military contracts.

Notably absent on their list of demands was the dissolution of most of anyone's fundamental rights.

"Not interested in politics" is an euphemism for clueless and easy to manipulate by those that are.

Conversely, there are also those who are "too political" and want to bring their politics into every aspect of their lives and the lives of those around them. People like this can be as toxic as those they are speaking out against.

My experience also aligns with this. Probably, Google's open culture was okay in the early days of internet and the company. Now that political activism has spread across all the SV companies, I sincerely wish that leadership across entire tech industry squashes the noisy vocal minority. If someone is really passionate about their political cause, they should pursue it in their personal time using their personal resources.

Indeed, reading this I have to wonder how some of the characters have time to do the jobs they were presumably hired for.

This matches my experience 100%.

> My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics

...or perhaps they're not interested in talking about politics with you.

Reminds me of Nassim Taleb's minority rule.

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

I so agree with you. You seem cool and smart.

>>My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work

In other words, you could end up having absolutely no conflicts about scenarios like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Or maybe even end up patting yourself in the back at the end of the quarter for outperforming KPI (e.g. ISP marketshare increase) and get a nice bonus while you are at it.

The problem with your reasoning is that your actions at FAAMNG does not happen in a vacuum.