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Comment by sidibe | Hacker News Reader

I remember they successfully got Google out of a military contract in the first admin (and briefly vilified by the right for that). that's not going to work now. Workers have a lot less power and the CEO is buddies with Trump

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As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

My one concern in this whole thing is that if these slightly less benevolent, but still have some morality, companies don't engage, we'll be left with companies like OAI and xAI engaging and you just know that's not going to make things better for anyone.

It’s not a great situation, no doubt, but after Kristi Noel’s luxury jet I’m willing to hope that their capacity for grift outweighs their competence.

Which companies are these? Google and Facebook already bribed Trump under the cover of “settling” a frivolous case he personally brought forward. Tim Cook personally donated to his inauguration fund and gave him an expensive trinket. The Netflix CEO is now kissing up to him trying to get the WB acquisition approved. Even companies that are hurt by the tariffs won’t say anything bad about him. The only CEO that has spoken out against any of his policies is Chase’s CEO.

> it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

Wouldn't it be more like he would leave on his own and the company would keep moving along? Why would they fire him?

I mean, right. Why would they fire him? The Pentagon isn't demanding some concrete technical action that Jeff Dean has to personally perform or could personally obstruct, so it wouldn't make any sense. That's why I don't think Google executives can realistically stop him from announcing a similar policy if he wants to.

> If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say

It's Demis they need to convince, not Jeff Dean.

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