Wael Ghonim: A "One-Off" for Silicon Valley? | Hacker News Reader

Wael Ghonim: A "One-Off" for Silicon Valley?

cbsnews.com

24 pointscwb7120 comments

The first comment on this article is the best:

I will not, NOT be using Google again until he is FIRED! Go to Egypt Wael Ghonim, you are no longer welcome here!! Going to Bling now, not Google.

I wonder what kind of features Bling has.

Gold, Lots of gold. and diamonds.

Best 20% time project ever.

I think it's more his 100% time project now.

(Or more realistically, his 300% time project.)

"There’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what did you do in the great World War II, you won’t have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana.""

--Patton

http://twitter.com/#!/google/status/36521734542868480

"We're incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back when you're ready - cf. http://goo.gl/2BDGp

I don't understand why anyone would think Google would fire Ghonim for taking personal time to help bring democracy to his homeland. That just isn't the kind of company Google is.

US Companies, including Google involve themselves in politics (both domestic and international) all the time. I think it is a bit silly to say that "tech companies don't want to take political positions".

Agree. Also interesting that an employee protesting on his own time is considered a "political position", while selling equipment used by dictators to oppress their people is not. The article does imply that this is not always the case, but in my experience it seems much more acceptable to engage in the latter than the former.

If Google follows its internal policies it will have to fire him. (err let him go) And while I agree that he did it on his "own time" as you will recall all of the news reports pegged him as a "Google Executive" which certainly gives the impression that its Google sanctioned (which it wasn't according to the article). I've been on both sides of this question at various times in my career and it really requires the employee to decide which is more important to them and then to dedicate themselves to that and step away from the other. I think Wael made his choice, and I admire him for it.

(I find that he keeps getting demoted too, he started out in charge of everything in the middle east and now he is down to a mere product manager :-)

Which policy dictates that he must be fired?

When I was there the Code of Conduct required that all employees abide by the (US version) of the foreign nations laws which precluded (among other things) advocating for the overthrow of any legitimate government, colluding with government or non-government agencies in the public policy area without registering as a 'lobbyist' (there are different terms in different countries), doing anything that would suggest a conflict of interest between Google and the legitimate government. Responses available to the company when an employee had been found to violate the code included things like prosecuting the individual for damages and of course termination.

It was all pretty standard boilerplate kind of stuff. There were higher standards for managers than rank and file as well. But mostly I think it is in there to try to mitigate retaliation from countries against Google corporate.

But let me re-iterate, I don't claim that they would or should fire Wael, I'm just saying that a strict reading of it would make that their next step.

Imagine what happens if Mubarak sues Google for lost income, personal distress, Etc, because their employee lead the effort to displace him? Never under estimate the gall of a plaintiff lawyer if their target has a huge cash reserve.

Minor update, as you can see there are now governments accusing Google of formenting insurgencies. Credible or not, it started with Wael's press coverage as a "Google Executive." I believe that is why employers rather their employees don't engage like this.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/russia-glenn...

I'd love to see what could be done by some of Google's Chinese-speaking managers.

Not much, considering they're all in Hong Kong.

Wael Ghonim wasn't based in Egypt for his most recent position with Google.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-go...

"A year ago, he moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for Google. His mother, Iman, saw that he would be crestfallen by the poverty when he returned for vacations."

There are still plenty of Googlers who have family ties to China and who have occasion to travel there.

In Egypt, the revolution succeeded because the army didn't fire on protesters. In China... things have been different, and they probably still are.

I've seen a 45 minute interview[0] with him. His activism doesn't have much to do with his hackery. He's clearly an NF[1] (Keirsey's Idealist temperament). Most hackers are NTs (Keirsey's Rational temperament), say, about 75%[2] of them.

He's very emotional.[3]

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlBAzvX9Xw4

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealist_temperament

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946249

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kafxFOTepSo

Not sure why I was down voted.

Here's clip [3] with subs (can't edit parent post).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V690GO7YzgA

Armchair psychology is inappropriate.

Fair enough, I guess.

I still think his activism is not related to any quality in the archetypal hacker personality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com