If your goal is to change the companies behavior, then protesting and getting fired and getting a WaPo story is more effective than resigning in protest.
Idk, these guys looked unplanned and childish, which lightens the credibility of their claims. They went zero to occupying an executive’s office—there wasn’t even a petition stage. That’s not the kind of escalation anyone wants precedent for, because if you provide it you’d better be ready to make space for a perpetual environmental and MAGA lobby in every leader’s workspace.
And while the PR impact of this hasn’t been negligible, it’s also been light. Outside HN it hasn’t really registered.
I divested all my GOOG stock when the Gemini debacle happened. I figured they were too entrenched in political ideology to compete with AI and would just slowly decay. For me, this is a positive PR impact as it shows GOOG is getting back to competing instead of collecting rents on technology they created decades ago.
I think it's silly that people will protest like this with the expectation that they won't immediately get fired but that's the play if you want to make noise.
I bet they are equally ineffective.