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Comment by cromwellian | Hacker News Reader

Sundar Pichai had to deal with dozens of Google Employees who were away on holiday visiting family who were being blocked by Trump's executive order from returning to the country, like a dual-nationality Canadian/Iranian scientist.

Did it ever occur to you that in a company with a huge immigrant population, or 2nd generation immigrants with family, many of whom were impacted by this wave of xenophobia and nationalism in this last election, that they felt under attack? That people who immigrated here and fell in love with America, suddenly were shocked into reality when they discover that so many of their fellow Americans were easily manipulated by the politics of Steve Bannon into voting for xenophobia and scapegoating?

Damn right people were legitimately upset at the social fabric coming undone.

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Then run for office. But it's Google, not Congress, and taking company time (and how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of productivity?) to whine about the outcome of an election seems at best a horrendous waste of resources, especially when it's likely 80% or more of the room agrees with you or is indifferent.

So Trump is objectively bad and it's important for business executives and higher-ups to openly acknowledge this. In the workplace. Got it.

Since this is a Bay Area Tech Company Bashing Thread, let's throw in a Texas Oil Company perspective, from the Obama era

1. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "working with the Saudis" to "tank oil prices locally."

2. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "forcing premiums up for the contractor's insurance."

3. Complaints about liberals in general for "forcing us to have men in our girls restrooms" despite the fact that this never happened. General complaints about how it'll be impossible to get an oil platform bathroom in line with "retarded liberal standards."

4. Complaints from engineers making 250/k/year untaxed in the UAE about all the "damn Indians" taking jobs from hardworking Americans. General blaming of the Democrats.

5. Directions from management to not submit resumes with "foreign" last names.

6. Refusal on the part of a major EPC engineering manager to hire the perfect candidate for the job because he was Mexican origin (US citizen via green card route), despite the fact that he had unsuccessfully searched for a good candidate for 3 months.

So let's not pretend that politics don't invade business.

Despite the fact that all of these are uncited, how are engineers making $250k/yr untaxed in the UAE? Americans still need to pay income tax on income earned overseas. And if you know someone refused to hire a candidate because of their ethnic background, I'm assuming you blew the whistle and got them fired? The candidate certainly has a case and has a lot of money coming their way.

UAE didn't tax them, and they didn't report their income back home.

If I blew the whistle, there would be no evidence to support my claim, I'd lose my job, my recruitment firm would permanently be blacklisted by the EPC, there would be no repercussions for the EPC manager, and the world would continue along. I did refuse to work the position after that, but it's not like a recruiter is going to "solve racism in Texas." I do that on my own time, outside of work.

EDIT: Yes, hearsay internet stories, just like the OP that started this thread. Grain of salt and all that.

I think the argument being made is that Trump being elected president immediately and negatively affected business; therefor, it was a business decision to acknowledge the negative impacts his presidency had on business.

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