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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

If you zoom out far enough, all these companies are making business decisions - not emotional ones. They have to kiss Trump's ring and bend the knee for Elon in order to not get destroyed. When they had DEI, it was created for business reason too - to be seen as socially just so you should buy their products. Now Google thinks it's better for business if they fall in line with what Trump wants.

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> When they had DEI, it was created for business reason too - to be seen as socially just so you should buy their products.

You don't think that was "to not get destroyed" too? Such as when New York city was sued (and lost, having to pay out $1.8 billion) because too many minorities failed its test for teachers:

https://www.thecollegefix.com/nyc-will-pay-out-1-8-billion-t...

There's a big difference between obeying laws (which all companies pretty much have to do if they want to stay in business) and voluntarilly aligning with what they think a new president wants without there being any specific law forcing them to do that.

I actually think the business reason FOR the DEI stuff (to appeal to customers by coming accross as fair and progressive) made more sense. Have the customers really changed their minds just because someone else is in the Whitehouse?

Appealing to customers by coming across as fair and progressive is great. But Google has a huge anti-trust lawsuit that can wreck them. Trump can probably make that go away.

If they stay more "woke", Trump is guaranteed to try to destroy Google.

Google has done the calculus and likely concluded that kissing Trump's ass is better for their shareholders than continuing to align more left.

I think this is a business decision, as it was for Meta, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Blame US citizens for giving so much power to Trump.

I think it is more than just Trump. We do have to remember that some companies are currently being sued by shareholders for attempting to keep DEI around. Or at least was threatened to be.

I don’t know if these lawsuits would win or not but given the current political climate I sure wouldn’t bet against it. From a purely business prospective on that alone, I can see why they would do it. And do it so quickly.

This is the latest symptom of a very powerful opposition that just gained almost unlimited power. Or at least unchecked power. To be clear here Trump is also a symptom, this didn’t come out of nowhere with him.

Be mad and hold these companies accountable but we also can’t afford to be distracted by the symptoms when those in power are going to make it so much worse.

Unironically, the comments such as yours are downvoted. I had an idealised view about our industry, but it has now shattered during the course of the last year.

College grads have an idealized view of tech industry. But it's all about money at the end of the day and tech is turning into something similar to other industries like oil or pharma.

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