Google CEO: we need to “take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior” | Hacker News Reader

Google CEO: we need to “take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior”

arstechnica.com

36 pointsAnalemma_21 comments

Googlers internally are like children with a lot of petty squabbles. There are some with quite 'far out' views, and rather than accept differences of opinion, they like to squabble about it, pick sides, get offended, and, more often than not, fire a bunch of people.

Googles CEO has the very hard task of trying to calm the crying ones, punish the ones stirring the pot, all while not making others stomp off because they think the whole thing is unfair.

Uh, the topic is sexual harassment. How is that a "pretty squabble"?!

As evident from oodles of press, it can be anything. From a damore memo, to search in China. From a deal with the Pentagon, to Trump's election. Anything and everything is outrage worthy for the average Googler, if you believe the press.

And the CEO keeps reacting. At some point, he needs to ask those who aren't aligned with business deliverables, and wallow in externalities to walk away - they aren't just unproductive themselves, but drag the whole company into the mud in the press

I do not believe that standing up to sexual harassment or other morally objectionable things as "dragging the company into the mud in the press". They are calling Google out on a multitude of shady business practices like any good employee would do. Keeping sexual harassment under wraps will just cause it to ferment inside the inner workings of the company and eventually it will boil over in an even larger scandal. It should be taken care of as soon as it comes up.

I don’t think, I hope, that anyone thinks sexual harassment is petty. But there are different lines depending on lots of factors.

For other issues, it’s realky variable as to what needs to “be taken care of as soon as it comes up.”

The tough part is that so many people have so many topics they could focus on rather than build mission stuff.

Are you ok with a decent chunk of the workforce forcing abortion restriction be taken care of because they are pro-life? Or anarchists demanding that no government be supported?

Recent press has shown Google all over the place on topics of various importance. As an outsider, I’m not sure what is a priority for Google or what its values are that allow for firing sexual harassers, but not reporting privacy breaches.

It seems to me that the CEO makes statements once the outrage gets loud enough.

If it's illegal, get the police involved. The company shouldn't even know.

If it's not illegal, perhaps it's time to change the law?

A company shouldn't be policing it's employees like this. The police should do it. That's why they're called the police.

Clearly one can have petty squabbles about any topic, regardless of the seriousness of that topic. It isn't helpful to start requiring every single conversation be taken as life or death.

I take GP's comment to be more in general, that the CEO is operating in a high-noise/distraction environment, rather than throwing shade on the particular instances in the article.

The noise can make it difficult to have a consistent and clear set of decisions while still remaining responsive to the population.

This is one of the truest descriptions of Google I've seen, especially in the last few years.

Source: I'm a Googler.

would it not be easier if they just had the work rule that no one can date google staff who works for Google...?

They already have a similar rule. This alleged misconduct violated that rule. Presumably that was why he was asked to leave the company.

What happens when you take a professional workplace and try to make it a "lifestyle".

Okay, insofar as those words go, I can agree with that statement.

But what is he actually going to do?

Because otherwise they’re just empty words.

It goes without saying, but still worth pointing out that the official line from google is now:

Inappropriate = Grossly unprofessional behavior where "even one person experiences Google the way the New York Times article described."

Appropriate = Collaborating with a communist country to manipulate their populace with censorship and surveillance.

Inappropriate = sexual harassment

Appropriate = operating within a country according to that country's laws.

The US* trades with China. How many other US* companies have manufacturing in China that exploit cheap labour and have done for decades?

You're at the entrance of a deep, winding rabbit hole that very few individuals come out of smelling like anything but a hypocrite of epic proportions.

* Replace with almost any other country and it remains true.

well, maybe that's the point.

I mean Google can do what it wants, but asking someone for a topless back massage at Burning Man is kinda like asking someone for a cup of coffee when you enter starbucks.

Yes, guys shouldn't sketch on their interviewees, but this seems like firing a guy for a level 2 offense to make up for the fact that the $90m horse just left the stable.

At some point the CEO needs to put his foot down and call bluff on those threatening to quit. There are plenty of talented, ambitious individuals who'd love to code and get rich, without all the externalities of holding the company hostage over __insert__trendy__issue__here.

Until those disgruntled ex-employees run to the blog outlets of the web and make a viral story about Google being mean.

> DeVaul’s accuser, Star Simpson, did not know that X had already decided not to hire her before the two met at Burning Man in 2013, where according to the Times, "he asked her to remove her shirt and offered a back rub. She said she refused. When he insisted, she said she relented to a neck rub."

Say no and walk away from that man?

I sit in a cubicle for 10 years getting the life sucked out of me by some tedious job. I'd love to give some guy a back rub to get a higher up position.

But she wasn't going to get the position anyway.

It shouldn't matter if she was going to get the position or not. This interaction between an interviewer and (recently) interviewee is just wrong. It is an abuse of power. If she HAD received the job offer, who knows if the advances would have ever stopped?

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