Folks dealing with mental health issues might end their lives for a variety of factors. This is very sad to hear, but the headline (and article) that attempts to connect an employer to a person's death without any evidence is unfair.
Note: I do not work for Google.
so it is misleading to say he “jumped” if it ends up being an accidental fall.
there’s plenty of people who climb ledges in NYC to take photos at night, so would not be surprised if this ends up being entirely accidental as a result of trying to take photos
I’ve seen dozens of “daredevil” skyline shots of NYC where people climb rooftops/bridges to take photos. Someone intentionally jumping does not “hang” on the side, they just jump.
Why does this indicate anything other than the fact that he chose a building he’s familiar with and to which he had access?
What if their personal life was not in good shape and they wanted someone to find them?
There is no basis at this point for speculation that Google was a primary causal factor.
Layoffs are happening across industries. Are you suggesting that there is something specific about the way Google did theirs?
Suicides are higher across all demographics right now, and there's a pretty clear emerging consensus that there's a growing mental health crisis, and that it's not tied to a single employer.
Does this mean that Google had nothing to do with it? We don't know. But for anyone suggesting a connection, at least provide a plausible reason the connection exists, how it explains this scenario, and why that explanation is specific to Google. Otherwise why would such speculation provide any value?
The HN community is pretty good about demanding evidence and eschewing simplistic narratives that have no evidence to back them. Suicide is a tragic subject that evokes emotional responses, but that does not excuse baseless speculation.
That’s all I was saying. Did not state if I think it’s relevant or not.
My comment was about the basis for such speculation - for which there is none - and a criticism of this kind of speculation due to the problems it causes.
It’s uninteresting and is often the precursor to misinformation/disinformation.
If this engineer had killed themselves in another manner besides jumping off the top of their workplace, they might not be described as a Google engineer.
Edit to add: Statistically, I suspect that there have to have been many instances of Google employees committing suicide outside of work. I doubt those got headlines at all, let alone headlines including Google's name.
EDIT: I added "statistically" in the last sentence to clarify my intended meaning.
Also how is > Maybe there is a real issue but two suicides within such large number of employees isn’t really significant.
NOT minimizing?
As for the minimizing, remember that on HN we aim to take the best possible interpretation of our fellow members' comments. I'll assume that the person who wrote "isn't really significant" isn't a heartless monster, and therefore what they meant what that "this didn't merit a Google-focused NYPost article."
I was trying to say that linking it to Google and implying it is a trend based on just two suicides given their extremely large employee count isn't statistically sound without additional supporting data. I was speaking about the link to Google rather than the suicides themselves.
However, there are externalities to this suicide that may affect others who work at Google or in NY, and so the story is worthy of being contextualized. It might be clickbait to put the word "Google" in the title but not because of probabilistic irrelevance. People who kill themselves at work have an impact on coworkers and company, no two ways about it.
It's clear that the journalist is crafting a "Why are Googlers killing themselves?" narrative.
How many of those 13/100,000/year have jobs?
The factors that play into suicide are numerous, and there is no apparent reason that Google was a causal factor.
This is also not to say that they aren’t, but to point out that speculation about this has zero standing.
Of all the ways one can die, suicide stems from the most deeply complex and systemic factors in one's life. To sit here and speculate about the cause with no information is irresponsible and I'd argue at the heart of what's wrong with social media today. For some reason people feel the need to have answers, even poorly considered speculation. I'd argue that it's far better to be willing to accept that there are times that require us to just withhold speculation until there's enough information to do so responsibly.
Whatever the cause turns out to be, these early discussions are the last contact most people will have with the topic, meaning whatever speculations are shared are likely to be the primary memories of those involved.
This community is quick to demand evidence and citations on most subjects (and rightly so), and this should be no different.
Google says that Alphabet had 190,234 employees in 2022. The annual age-adjusted suicide rate is 13.42 per 100,000 individuals. Males die by suicide 3.5 times more often than females. A real actuary (I wish I had known that was a profession!) could work the numbers better than I, but I don't think this is out of line on a statistical level, sad as it is to say.
I think the difference is obvious.
It's total clickbait and highlights the shameful narrative on HN and Reddit about "Mmm, Google bad." A guy just died and people are trying to push their own narrative without any sort of validity. Shameful and disgusting.