Hacker News Reader

Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

I'm also from a poor background and agree with a lot of this. It was a huge mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize the workplace. No one will be happy in the end. They should have stayed focused on being excited about making the best technology they can, background and politics aside.

Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in. Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies to return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically quagmired megacorp's lunch.

View on HN

> It was a huge mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize the workplace.

I wasn't aware this was a thing. Did Google openly support one candidate or party? How did they promote politics in the workplace?

> Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in. Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies to return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically quagmired megacorp's lunch.

How? What do new companies change or do differently? Are the FANGY companies doomed by a toxic culture they can't undo? And why can't they?

I'm curious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/technology/leaked-google-...

Food for thought, something can be political without directly referencing domestic politics and political parties. Definition: "the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power."

Discussing structural inequality is inherently political because it is a discussion about power.

However, I disagree with parent. You cannot have a diverse workforce that numbers the thousands and expect there not to be a discussion about power structures and inequity. Imagine if you applied that lens of thinking to a company that employs both blacks and whites in the Jim Crow era-- who loses?

>Did Google openly support one candidate or party?

Serious? I mean, you can be right or left as much as you like, but to ignore that Google has been entirely sided with the DNC is to just ignore reality. This isn't even getting into the recent leaks of Google search blacklists that overwhelmingly target conservative outlets [0]. Or their internal documents that talk literally and explicitly about "preventing the next Trump situation". [1]

I'm no Trump fan... But it's tough to stick your head in the sand here.

Here is Google's Eric Schmidt wearing a STAFF badge at Hillary Clinton's election night headquarters. [2]

[0] https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/11/tech-insider-blows...

[1] https://humanevents.com/2019/06/24/google-admits-it-wants-to...

[2] https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.jvJbsV3FTMMC7PwzPY_XIgHaG-&pi...

edit: More and more like reddit everyday. Don't like the content, don't try and dispute it. Try and hide it.

Project Veritas is credible now?

It's a video with a senior Google engineer explaining the documents he turned over to DOJ, how he retrieved them, and those documents clearly viewable.

It's pretty hard to say they selectively edited anything here.

Your link is to an article about Pinterest not wanting people to pin a site which presumably has pictures of dead and aborted fetuses

You're right, those are the leaked docs from June. Here is the one I meant to link, August's. The interview is alright, a little self-congratulatory at the end, but the documents are pretty hard to argue.

https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/08/14/google-machine-lea...

Are you claiming that a video of Eric Schmidt wearing a Hillary staff badge is faked?

Do you legitimately believe that it was edited?

That link isn’t to PV.

What?

Do you think the photo was faked?

Yes, or no.

Every person can support whatever candidate or party they like. Same goes for companies, especially in a democracy like the US where big donors and big money are an essential part of every election. Should be accepted by everyone or generally frowned upon. So yeah, Eric Schmidt supporting is OK. As much as I don't like it but it would be ok as well if he had supported Trump.

Some of the politicization at Google may have been born out of the "Bring your whole self to work" philosophy playing out on their internal Google+ network and "Coffee Beans" discussion forum. You can see many examples/screenshots of what was tolerated internally in the Damore lawsuit[1]. I've worked exclusively for large orgs (outside of the Bay Area) and it completely blows my mind.

[1] https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/201804...

Wow, just from briefly scrolling around I'm appalled by the sort of stuff that people are willing to put in writing and send to their coworkers at Google. e.g. managers admitting to having shit-lists of people that they won't let on their teams

Damore's memo isn't 1/10th as disturbing as these comments from his coworkers.

"I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you." - Alex Hidalgo, SRE at Google

And he's still employed. Yeesh.

> How did they promote politics in the workplace?

"Bring your whole self to work". Example of people bringing their whole selves to work: When Trump won the election we had executives crying on stage talking about the catastrophe. Not something you would see at a conventional company, I best most executives didn't even mention the election in front of their employees.

Note that I didn't say that Google promotes a specific political party, just that it promotes people bringing politics to work.

Would Google also support Trump supporters celebrating the victory as openly as other people took the stage to cry about the catastrophe?

>Did Google openly support one candidate or party?

Yes

https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric...

> Did Google openly support one candidate or party?

Maybe not openly, and they will (unconvincingly) try to deny it:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/google-resources-target-lati...

You cannot avoid a politicized workplace because companies don't exist in a vacuum and neither do the workers. You can do your best to ensure things remain respectful but you can't avoid certain topics unless you outright refuse to hire people of color or minorities, in which case you achieve a political monoculture which is in itself a politicized workplace.

There is no such thing as an apolitical workplace or company.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com