Google is a company that wants to have access to all the information in the world.
But if somebody rightfully publishes some information that is sensitive to Google, look what happens...
But if somebody rightfully publishes some information that is sensitive to Google, look what happens...
Not all of their crawlers respect robots.txt
Like the time they didn't feel the need to harass everyone into signing up for G+ any time one used an unrelated service?
X is a Y that wants to have all information int the world. But if somebody ... look what happens....
you'll find several solutions for Y='company' and many more for other Y in {'Secret Service', 'Tax Collection Agency', ...}
In fact if getting info is getting money/an advantage/..., then wanting all of it while not wanting others to have it, and not liking yours being given away, makes total sense.
Not taking side for or against Google here (and if I did, I would be all for salaries being publicly accessible), but you can't blame them or accuse them of being hypocrite when they do what they believe makes sense for them.
Well, the whole definition of being a hypocrite is to subscribe to a belief for others while doing something entirely for yourself.
In fact, it potentially hurts their bottom line because then they'd have to have pay equality amongst their ranks - and I don't mean pay equality from a male/female standpoint (though that is a concern), I mean from an employee to employee standpoint. Pay transparency gives everyone an equal footing on the negotiation playing field. This also means that even the worst negotiator in the room can potentially earn the same as the top superstar on the team. What do you think that does to Google's bottom line? They could have been paying the superstar with the shitty negotiation skills peanuts to earn them millions, now they've gotta pay him the same as the pretty good developer with excellent negotiation skills because he has them over a barrel and he knows he is the only one that has the ability to provide what they need to get where they need to go.
I wouldn't say this is hypocritical, this is accounting. Accountants want to keep the bottom line at the absolute minimum. When this means paying people different amounts to do the same job, salary discussion pisses people off. In the interest of keeping the peace and getting the job done, salary discussion must be suppressed or people figure what they're worth amongst themselves and they have more negotiation power. More negotiation power causes the bottom line goes up, counter to the accountants' mandate. You would have to completely upend accountants' viewpoints on capitalism to turn that perspective around, and until you do, law or no law, practices like this will continue.
Salary negotiation since the dawn of capitalism has been like a game of poker. You need to figure out their motivations and what value they're trying to extract from you. Once you know what your value is to them and what return on their investment you are capable of providing them, the negotiation begins. People make the mistake of comparing themselves against others in order to negotiate their salary when in fact it comes down to the game you play at the negotiation table. The game is to understand what value you provide to the company in the role you're pursuing and figure out a number you're both comfortable with. Too high and you don't get hired, too low and you get exploited. It doesn't matter whether you're male or female, it all comes down to figuring out the value they know you will provide them and exploiting that.
I work at an enterprise with ~5,000 employees, and attitudes toward topics like transparency vary wildly, even in cases where there is an official company stance. This is because it is common to give managers a lot of freedom to manage their departments without interference. So, for example, our company has a pretty good work-from-home policy, but your manager is completely allowed to ban it in your department if he or she feels like it.
Basically, it is possible that both sources are mostly accurate, and they represent the perspectives from different parts/levels of the company at Google.
And we have HN posters reposting it like it means something.
I think we just hit the peak of this "do anything to discredit a woman who has a beef with a tech company" thing.