Read Google's memo warning employees to 'think again' | Hacker News Reader

Read Google's memo warning employees to 'think again'

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68 pointscyclecount78 comments

Personally, I like Google's response to this, and the whole idea of publicly campaigning against your employer (especially during normal business hours) is completely foreign to me. Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but "back in my day" you'd earn lots of money and then go use that money to advance your social causes on your own time and in your own way.

If you disagree with the company's direction, then do what you can through normal channels to change it. If you don't have that kind of power, then vote with your feet and leave. Go work somewhere else. Go start your own company and run it how you want.

And BTW, if your protest can't have any meaningful consequences to you - if there's no real potential "cost" to you - then it's not a protest but a performance.

This protest did have a cost for them - they were fired.

Exactly, and that's how it should be. But all too often (both with this protest and earlier ones at Google), the people who receive consequences seem shocked about being fired.

This is the classic fallacy of "outrage == surprise". You can expect a person or entity might do something you personally find morally wrong and still sound angry when it happens - that's not hypocrisy or ignorance. You might even use words like "shocking" to describe their behavior, because, no matter how expected it might be, immoral behavior is shocking - and should be!

Long story short, sometimes people try to use "expectation" to downplay bad behavior, and that's clearly irrelevant. The "expectation" for a business to do absolutely anything legal for profit is perhaps the most common manifestation of this fallacy.

No, no fallacy - in interviews with activist employees who got fired, it's not uncommon to see both surprise as well as outrage.

Regardless, I was commenting on the ones who seem genuinely surprised that being fired was a possible outcome of their protests. It's as if that possibility never crossed their minds, which is itself surprising.

They didn't know (expect?) that will happen when they started the protest.

as someone pointed out in one of the other threads, they may have been acting like it was a college protest

almost as if there is an intuitive sense of fairness here, that the rules are/should-be different for institutions that are socially-significant "gatekeepers"...

To clarify this a little further: I don't think you can do a sit-in and not expect retaliation. And that's how the labor-managment pushback works. It doesn't mean the labor retaliation won't be justified either - and if Taft-Hartley becomes so neutered that it's no longer sufficient to hold the center, well...

But I generally do think that Google, Apple, etc employees should probably enjoy broadly similar protections to government employees in their private-time expressions. Saying "because you work for bell labs, you can't have opinions" is brutally suppressive of what amounts to today's idle intellectual class. Engineers are almost uniquely in a position to have a think about it all.

"Back in my day..." Labor disputes have been around since the beginnings of capitalism. Look at the Luddites or the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Of course. But there's a huge difference between labor disputes - renegotiating your relationship with the company - and folks in the trenches trying to steer top level decisions according to their personal world views. Most companies simply are not very good vehicles for bringing about social change.

But that's ok, that's not what they are for, and there are much better avenues. It's fine to use the money you earn from a company to fund your efforts to further your cause, but trying to use someone else's company to further your cause directly is almost always a mistake.

"Most companies simply are not very good vehicles for bringing about social change."

That's just not true. Corporations have been maybe the single biggest driver of social change in the last couple of centuries, short of military overthrows of governments (although, even then such overthrows are often done to benefit corporations). For good and ill, corporations have transformed the world, and they set and maintain the status quo, especially in the Unites States.

Just the idea that immense piles of wealth and resources can "belong" solely to one person or a very small group of individuals is a status quo set by capitalists to maintain their own interests. Why are they not allowed to be challenged? Their actions affect the lives of others, and it is right and good to challenge their decisions that cause harm.

>> "Most companies simply are not very good vehicles for bringing about social change."

> That's just not true. Corporations have been maybe the single biggest driver of social change in the last couple of centuries

I'd wager that most experts of modern history would vehemently disagree with your assertion, but even if they didn't, what you said and what I said are not contradictory.

> right and good to challenge their decisions that cause harm

This right here is, in a nutshell, why. Speaking generally, today there is a desire to distill all big, complex issues down to a binary right and wrong. I think that urge has always existed, but in the era of tweets and hot takes and memes, the yearning for everything to fit into a sound bite is overwhelming. And terms like 'harm' have come to mean just about anything.

The problem, of course, is that no big, complex issue is that simple - if it were, there wouldn't tend to be much debate about it. Instead there is nuance, there are tradeoffs or different paths to get to a goal, different priorities. Even when there is that occasional something that is unambiguously a question of right vs wrong, there are umpteen options for what to do about it.

So you have a company that has tens of thousands of different customers. And then you have some middle-to-bottom employee who decides that one particular customer is anathema, and that it is completely wrong to do any business with that customer at all. There's no room for debate because that employee sees things completely black and white - that customer is evil, period, and they speak of that customer with lots of hyperbole. No company can thrive when it can be steered by a random employee like that (and heaven forbid you get into a situation where you have 2 of them who see issues as black and white but take the exact opposite sides, haha).

Yeah, if they are unwilling to be pragmatic, then really the best option for everyone involved is for those types of people to leave the company - if they want to make those big direction decisions, their best bet is to start something of their own.

I recently watched the HBO show Enlightened (co-created/written by Mike White, of White Lotus fame), which is largely about an overly idealistic employee trying to steer her big evil corporate employer towards social change. Lots of parallels here re: naivety/surprise/outrage when this doesn't work out quite how she envisioned.

Interestingly, that show is from 2011!

While the whole "activist employee during business hours" thing feels like a far more recent phenomenon to me, apparently it's been happening for a while? Maybe it's just becoming more widespread lately.

This happened two days ago, but I didn't hear anything about it until today. I am a heavy HN user. Why wasn't this on the front page?

Edit: it appears that every post about Israel is getting flagged (often after receiving tons of upvotes and often hundreds of comments): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...

where is this censorship coming from? @dang?

It was.

https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news+google+protest+s...

Discussion about it has been constantly flagged and removed (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087063)

Wow. I left my parent comment 2 minutes ago and this thread has already been removed from the front page.

Story has 46 points and is 29 minutes old at the time I'm writing this comment.

Are we not allowed to discuss the actions of one of the largest tech companies?

The comments are just a flame war about Israel. Maybe that's why so many people are flagging it.

There are ~0 comments in any of the linked threads that are pro or anti war/Israel/Palestine. The discussion is about this specific situation at Google, and is flagged by people who want to censor it.

That's just not the case here. Most of the comments are taking a stance on Israel/Palestine and arguing from there. There are a ton of comments likening Israel to the Nazis. That's pretty anti-Israel, no matter what side you're on. I mean, even look at the sibling post to yours. Its anti-Israel conspiracy theories.

This post most likely was identified and went out to Israeli disinformation groups to be spam flagged.

Or HN and it's mods are bias because other political piece's are posted here often.

Pretty disappointing to see this kind of censorship on this site - but lotsa googlers hang out here

I know lots of googlers-- many hadn't heard about this as well.

I also think many googlers are opposed to Google's military contracts with Israel, but likely don't know this is happening.

what’s very funny is i made this comment well after the thread was flagged and removed from the front page, it garnered a bunch of upvotes, but then hours after it suddenly gets a spike of downvotes.

I see this trend a lot on this site whenever saying anything even slightly derogatory about google. Might be a fun side project to work on to quantify this.

What is there to talk about? Seriously. This is just status quo behavior for businesses, and why do we care about some tiny minority of Googlers protesting and being fired?

The only thing I can think of to say about this is how disconnected people are if they think this is so problematic. How is work supposed to be done if everyone complains, protests and disrupts work? The top comment on the thread right now says as much too.

It was on every major news network I follow. Maybe most people on HN thought it was already old news.

Email the mods and ask them to correct the issues you’re seeing. @dang doesn’t work at HN, and you’ll need to send that email to get his attention and reply here.

It was plastered all over Twitter and elsewhere. I think it's good that there's a platform that is mostly unmoderated, you can go there (like I do) for news and social/politics issues or whatever. Make your own conclusions. But I prefer the tighter moderation here, interesting techy stuff, that's what makes me come back here, not random drama and flamewars.

The points to comments ratio on the first few on the list are out of whack.

I’m pretty sure if # of comments exceeds the number of upvotes, the story is down-weighted automatically.

Flagging stories also automatically downweights if enough people flag, I believe

That’s not the only variable though.

"heavy user"? Hundreds of comments on multiple posts that made the front page. They've been there for people to see, and direction to the main posts via dupes. The discussion continues on flagged posts.

I have a strong preference for non-activist workplaces. If I'm not values-aligned with an employer I can always leave. So I'm glad to see Google take a firm stance here. I'd expect the same reaction if the protesters were chanting about the Israeli hostages held by Hamas rather than in support of the other side.

Meta: this thread is much more useful and relevant to HN as a discussion of workplace culture than a flamewar about Israel.

I suspect for many of the employees this was an intentional way of leaving. Personally I could never work for a company that profits from war like Lockheed or Raytheon. Few people think of Google in that light, so bringing attention to it on your way out seems reasonable. That's not how I'd handle it, but it seems understandable to me.

Google's motto used to be "don't be evil." If someone is looking for a company that aligns with their values, Google might've seemed like a good fit. They work hard and become invested in their workplace. It's not absurd to see how several people would be disenchanted with Google's stances on a very controversial and deadly war. And in an effort to live up to the motto "don't be evil," the workers took a stand to change Google's actions. That's a good thing to do.

If people think that workers should just keep their heads down and politely obey, well, I don't know what to say. That's bleak. That's a sad society. It's like the American propaganda representations of sad, dreary authoritarian communist countries. Stay quiet and work, or face the consequences.

I dont want to be chanted at during the commute while the freeway is blocked. Chanted at during lunch at the cafe. Chanted at while looking at artwork defaced with mashed potatoes.

I dont care about your values. I trade time for money. Go away and stop telling me what to care about, I have a life of my own.

What are your values? What do you care about in your life?

something like individualistic hedonism. i dont spend anytime trying to change other people or the world at large.

You're missing the fundamental problem, which is that people have different opinions about what is evil. There may well be more Googlers who think it would be evil to _stop_ working with Israel.

And it's not just counterproductive, but corrosive, to have a workplace environment where employees are debating these things.

>"If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again," Google said in the memo. "The company takes this extremely seriously."

Sounds like past protests and symbolic gestures on other topics were tolerated because those views had no effect on Google's bottom line, or because management agreed with those views. Not on this one, though. When it really counts dissent will not be tolerated.

It was tolerated because such groups had a lot of political power within the company and outside. As little as 5 years ago Google would have been crucified for daring to silence employees and taking action against them for protesting at the office. Today people are generally in support of the action.

Yeah, maybe, but there are also laws in the US that makes some forms of protest against israel illegal for federal employees. These protests aren't just about the outrage du jour, they're about israel, the us government's greatest i̶n̶f̶l̶u̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ally.

Probably 6 (?) years too late but it's about time Google handles their vast amount of employees who feel like they own the company.

Shame it happened after they lost LLMs to OpenAI through misguided AI "ethics" groups who are really the same people as above

Problem is the "leaders" who survive longest within corporate wonderland, dont really stand for anything, beyond their own survival. Its like dealing with a race of machines.

That's the banality of evil.

a better example of the banality of evil:

denying the holocaust through comparing it to other dissimilar events in order to minimize the catastrophe and reduce cultural complicity

What is? It's a workplace. You don't like what the company does? You're free to quit, and/or to say whatever you want. Post online, go to the park and have a march. Stop using their products. Put a big banner in front of HQ. Or even...do a sit-in of the CEO, if you like. Just don't be surprised when you get arrested. If you work there, don't be surprised if you get fired. Your right to free speech does not extend to private property, and Google does not have to respect your opinions.

But it is the pinnacle of entitlement to think that you can storm into a private place and not suffer consequences for your actions. Even more extreme, to do so as an employee of a company and believe you will not get fired for doing so...I don't know where people get these ideas.

I mean, regardless of the opinion on the issue at hand, the 'protesters' did what they set out to do. They brought attention to google's polices that are in relation to the war. At any rate, if you are taking over your employers' campus, preventing others from working, your expectation should be that you will not be working there anymore. The thing that confuses me is the narrative that them being fired is a kind of unexpected move.

Read the interview of one of the fired engineers – https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-i.... He was genuinely shocked that the company would take action against him, and compared it to fascism.

I'd wager that most/all of them expected to keep their jobs, as has happened before with similar protests at Google and other tech companies.

Is there any deeper reporting on this?

There seems like a big disconnect between Google's claims: "defaced our property, physically impeded the work of other Googlers... and made co-workers feel threatened" and the claims of the arrested employee: "The group of employees sat in the office and gave chants and speeches every 15 to 20 minutes until about 6 p.m."

"The office" is also where other people work. If people were waving flags, chanting, giving speeches, barricading doors and blocking entry/exit, resisting security and police...I wouldn't exactly feel safe as a regular employee.

Especially a Jewish one.

> The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing.

Do they?

Google CEO: Building for our AI future

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40085758

not at all related

I wonder if the reaction from Google would the reaction be the same if they were protesting for LGBTQ? or BLM? or would they be happily cheered on here.

And should those employees had been fired, would HN have a melt down about free speech and expression? I could absolutely imagine a full investigation into Google's leadership in that case.

Let's not pretend that certain causes gets a free pass while others don't. Will there no longer be politics at Google now? I guess we will have to wait until the BLM outbreak to determine but I doubt it.

For the record I don't have any specific comments on this war and I think what Google thing was right and politics don't have a place in the workforce but I feel obliged to point out the hypocrisy.

Either you are a company full of activist and embrace it or you shut it down entirely. You don't get to pick and choose your favorite cause; it just makes you look spineless.

> The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing.

Who's defining "right", here?

> Google fired 28 employees involved in protests

This is incorrect; every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-i...

>Like we had no reason to suspect that someone who wasn't affiliated with us or wasn't even wearing a shirt or anything related to our sit-in—we had no reason to think that they would be retaliated against.

This is from one of the organizers of the sit-in/protest. I'd want to get third party confirmation and/or google's side of the story before confidently claiming "This is incorrect; every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated".

[deleted]

1. Note that I'm not demanding for smoking gun proof like an internal email saying "fire this guy because they spoke to the protesters". I thought that was obvious in my previous comment, because I was asking for "google's side of the story" (ie. a public statement from them), not some sort of internal memo proving their guilt. In other words I'm just looking for any sort of additional information to corroborate the claim that "every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated", and to clarify what "uninvolved" in that context meant (does that only mean they weren't involved in the protest, but made a ruckus on company communication channels? or did they only DM the protesters involved?). Right now the only thing we have supporting that claim was a comment from the protest organizer. There isn't even anything from the people who were actually fired. In terms of quality of evidence demanded I think there's a wide gulf between the evidence presented so far and "impossible burden of proof" that you're implying.

2. If it's a he-said-she-said type of situation as you admit, maybe you shouldn't confidently claim that others are incorrect? At best, you can say that others dispute google's statement.

I have removed my viewpoint and I concede the argument to you. It was inappropriate of me to speak my views as I am unprepared to substantiate them. I apologize for doing so.

Sounds like one of America's "Best Places to Work".

While it is within Google's rights to do what they did. I find myself less and less inclined to use Google's products.

Flagged again. Is HN like this now?

'Don't be evil'

...to our shareholders and nation-state partners.

Who?

Exactly. Don't support the side that doesn't wear uniforms, hides among civilians and targets mainly civilians.

Pretty disappointing to see this site censoring this story

Did Nazi Germany's media brandished people protesting Germany's extinction of Jews as a fringe group and a bit wacky?

I think people lost their jobs and sometimes killed for protesting extermination of a population.

Today we remember them as brave heroes.

I'm struggling to find any accounts of jews in 1930s germany raping and kidnapping and murdering a bunch of germans people and then hiding in tunnels under hospitals and schools.

Has anyone asked the palestinians if they consent to being used as human shields? If they do, then well they're getting what they asked for but if not, then the only bad guy here is hamas.

Are you reading from the latest Israeli propaganda guide? Because you have covered all the latest talking points.

The world and recently David Cameron called on Israel to stop illegal occupation/settlements. Occupation and invasion it is, and it's recognised by most of the world.

> Has anyone asked the palestinians if they consent to being used as human shields? If they do, then well they're getting what they asked for but if not, then the only bad guy here is hamas.

I usually don't comment on these things, but I found this comment so evil... I want to remind you that Israel and the US have consistently denied peace talks, and Israeli leadership talks about the Palestinians like they are vermin.

Care to share some links on how they speak about Palestinians? I like to remind myself how evil a human can be.

Israel and US run HAMAS?

I've seen a lot prominent folks deriding the employees. It's well known that IBM played a key role in the Holocaust [1]. It's also clear at this point that Israel's offensive has reached or is close to 'Genocide' status [2]. It's incredibly poor taste to deride these employees for doing whatever means are in their disposal to prevent what happened with IBM. What would you do if you worked at IBM during the Holocaust?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...

There are people who think Israel is committing war crimes. There are also people who think that HAMAS/Houthis/anti-Israel Arab states are the ones committing these crimes. There are people who strongly feel that AI will destroy humanity. There are people who are pro nuclear power and people who are vehemently anti nuclear power. There are people who feel that advertising and social media are a cancer to society.

Google is involved in all of these causes (and lots more) one way or another. If they accommodated every employee protest and shut down projects as and when a random group of 20 was opposed to it, there would be no company left.

So no, they are under no obligation to stop selling cloud computing to Israel or the US DoD or anyone else. Whether they are judged to be the same as IBM during the holocaust or as the saviors of humanity will be decided by historians 50 years from now.

The holocaust cost 6 million lives before counting homosexuals, roma people, soviet pows and others.

The Gaza war amount of casualties according to hamas numbers, is currently 6% of the casualties in the syrian civil war, which happens 400km away from gaza and no one calls a genocide.

by comparing that war to real genocides or the holocaust you simply minimize the word which refers to systematic murder of a people.

by minimizing that word you deprive the real people that are being murdered all around the world from political protection as all war is now 'genocide'

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