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Google Businesses

Google To Employees: 'We Are a Workplace' 260

Google, once known for its unconventional approach to business, has taken a decisive step towards becoming a more traditional company by firing 28 employees who participated in protests against a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government. The move comes after sit-in demonstrations on Tuesday at Google offices in Silicon Valley and New York City, where employees opposed the company's support for Project Nimbus, a cloud computing contract they argue harms Palestinians in Gaza. Nine employees were arrested during the protests.

In a note to employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said, "We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion... But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics."

Google also says that the Project Nimbus contract is "not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services."

Axios adds: Google prided itself from its early days on creating a university-like atmosphere for the elite engineers it hired. Dissent was encouraged in the belief that open discourse fostered innovation. "A lot of Google is organized around the fact that people still think they're in college when they work here," then-CEO Eric Schmidt told "In the Plex" author Steven Levy in the 2000s.

What worked for an organization with a few thousand employees is harder to maintain among nearly 200,000 workers. Generational shifts in political and social expectations also mean that Google's leadership and its rank-and-file aren't always aligned.
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Google To Employees: 'We Are a Workplace'

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  • I mean, it's decades late to say this but inevitably any large company turns into the cliche machine-like corporate office. Too many executives grew up in these places so they tend to turn anything they touch into it these soul destroying, profit driven, amoral hellscapes.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      PHB's are like prions.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kaatochacha ( 651922 )
      What's wrong with profit driven? It's honest. Without profit driven, you end up with what LA has: 5 Billion dollars missing in various "help the homeless" scan non profits.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by HBI ( 10338492 )

        The problem with profit driven is that it devalues humans in a quest for efficiency, and hence profit. I don't have a solution really, but you asked 'what's wrong'.

        • by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:40AM (#64408042)
          "The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." -Margaret Thatcher
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
            "The problem with capitalism is eventually there's nothing left to take" - rsilvergun.

            I write pithy nonsensical things that don't actually mean anything too. Can I run the UK for 11 years? I couldn't possibly do worse than Thatcher.
            • I couldn't possibly do worse than Thatcher.

              Depends. Is your name Liz Truss or David Cameron?

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              I write pithy nonsensical things that don't actually mean anything too.

              and I'd add that you have no credibility or standing to even be saying that much, either. Everyone knows you're a Communist idiot, even if they've only been on Slashdot a few days.

            • I couldn't possibly do worse than Thatcher.

              LOL, you've clearly been in an 8 year coma. The only thing we have learnt about the UK in the past 8 years was that Thatcher for all her faults and horrendous policy was far from the low point.

          • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @12:19PM (#64408206) Journal

            Pithy quotes prove nothing and often hide deception.

            Margaret Thatcher said that while more or less giving away a ton of publicly owned stuff to indirectly buy votes. We now have a massive housing and water quality crisis (among other things) thanks to the conservatives running out of other people's money.

            • by boskone ( 234014 )

              It seems like you are running out of housing and resources because the population has grown massively.

              In 1980 the UK population was 50M, in 2024 it is 68M. That's 18M more people to house, food, water, educate, etc. A 36% increase!

              Of that 9M were foreign born, so basically 1/2 of the growth was due to immigration. Probably a touch higher since it doesn't look at children of immigrants. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep... [ons.gov.uk]

              37% of London is foreign born. How would housing be in London with 1/3 less people?

          • In 1982, Thatcher blocked the sales of arms to Israel.

          • The problem with Margaret Thatcher is that she eventually ran out of neurons.

        • Without some sort of heavy handed government, you can't force a company to give their money away to workers without them expecting the workers to do the work efficiently and cost effectively. You can't force companies to be charities. The most you can really do without going full on short-term doomed dictatorship is demand that they treat the workers well, follow rules, etc.

          Even in the Soviet Socialist Republics (if that's not socialist then nothing is), companies were to an extent still profit driven. A l

      • by sodul ( 833177 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:42AM (#64408046) Homepage

        When I worked at Google for a few years over 15y ago, they were advertising pretty hard internally and externally that they are not just an other corporation (don't be evil, 20% time, etc...). Sure a few vest and resters played volley ball, swam in the infinity pools, while others actually worked. Overall this was pretty much just marketing for recruiting which lead some employees to feel bait and switched. I learned from my mistakes and moved on to better pastures.

        • It was an experiment to build "communism" within the confines of the corporation: satisfy people's all basic needs and they will work harder and be productive. It failed. Again. While some people worked harder, it eventually attracted majority who exploited the situation for their own gain or pleasure.
          • by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @12:58PM (#64408386)
            No, it didn't fail. Arguably it was a roaring success. Look how much the company has accomplished. But, I don't think it's navigating the transition to big, mature business very well. Not many new products lately and even fewer that last. Employee morale isn't prioritized. They're trying to boost profits by cutting costs instead of creating more revenue at this point.
        • What are you arguing for here? What if you are a Jewish national working on Google's campus. These people would make me extremely uncomfortable. Would it okay for someone with KKK ties to protest diversity? There is no way to decide what is a good thing to protest, so there shouldn't be any of it.
          • by sodul ( 833177 )

            I was not commenting about the protests here, but about the fact that Google is indeed just another for profit corporation and has been for a long time even when they claimed to be different.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        Without profit driven, you end up with what LA has: 5 Billion dollars missing in various "help the homeless" scan non profits.

        Or three [tampabay.com] bankrupt [forbes.com] casinos ("The money I took out of there was incredible."), failing golf courses [forbes.com], a failed airline [simpleflying.com], a failed "university" [nbcnews.com], and other businesses which never turned a profit. It's almost as if the point was not to generate a profit, but scam people out of their money.
        • Profit motive doesn't guarantee a profit. And the Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa is doing quite well as are many Florida golf courses. Yes there are some "private enterprises" that are scams. There are also some quite profitable ones (like Google!)
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > LA has: 5 Billion dollars missing in various "help the homeless" scan non profits.

        Much of that is due to the ongoing power-struggle of local govt's versus county and state gov't (C/S). Local gov'ts don't like C/S telling them how to run things, making it hard to regulate monitor funds given to them to solve problems.

        Local gov't is conservative mainstay, but when it backfires, they blame liberalism.

        • by sfcat ( 872532 )
          My dude, there isn't a Republican within 50 miles of the LA homeless complex. The idea that conservatives have anything at all to do with how LA County is run is absurd. It is exclusively run by Democrats.
    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:20AM (#64407978)

      I mean, it's decades late to say this but inevitably any large company turns into the cliche machine-like corporate office. Too many executives grew up in these places so they tend to turn anything they touch into it these soul destroying, profit driven, amoral hellscapes.

      Yes, but I trust you are not advocating for employees to take over because the company is doing something they don't like.

      According to Chris Rackow writing in a companywide memo:

      “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in the memo obtained by The Post. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”

      Now we can say that these are pacifists of course, but other "sit ins" have occasionally involved kidnapping and death, and at least for my part, I have no plans of waiting for the first person to die before coming to the conclusion that fuckery is afoot.

      I'm not at all wild about the centuries old fighting among the relatives there either, because much of the American support is based on religious fundamentalists working their prophecies, and greasing the skids for armageddon, but that ain't the way to do it.

    • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:30AM (#64408014)
      Er what? Staging a political protest at a workplace should be a common sense thing NOT to do as an employee. I do not know why that should be considered "soul destroying". If the employees wanted to express themselves outside the workplace, they are free to do so.
      • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @12:03PM (#64408156) Homepage

        California Labor Code 96(k) [ca.gov] would keep Google from firing them for "lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer's premises" -- but even if we assume the protest was lawful, they violated both the "nonworking hours" and "away from the employer's premises" parts.

        • For Google's legal defense it is good that it is written in law not to do that, but it should be common sense not to do that. But I suppose in a world where a jar of peanut butter must have a disclaimer saying "Contains nuts", some people do not have common sense.
        • California Labor Code 96(k) [ca.gov] would keep Google from firing them for "lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer's premises"

          Exactly how would this apply given that they were protesting _at_ the employer's premises and disrupting other employees who were trying to work there? It seems very reasonable to me that if you turn up at your place of employment and use your access to that place to disrupt the normal business of your employer by staging a sit-in that you should get fired for doing so.

          After all, if these people really believed in what they were protesting then the honourable thing to do would be to resign from Google f

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        Er what? Staging a political protest at a workplace should be a common sense thing NOT to do as an employee

        As an employee, or as a believer in their cause? If they are a believer in their cause, given the circumstances, this seems exactly what they SHOULD do as a human being. Their employer is, in their view, being immoral in a way they cannot abide. This sort of protest is exactly a reasonable course.

        Losing their jobs should be considered a likely outcome, but given what Google is doing then they should be willing to pay that price for the sake of their cause. They might have preferred an outcome where Google

    • I've heard a philosopher say somewhere that one of the great paradoxes of American society is that we demand liberty in the public sphere, but we demand authoritarian control in the workplace. No kings, no lords, but your boss deserves your submission.
      • Itâ(TM)s not a paradox. Your boss does not have any authority over you - you are in a contractual relationship with your boss. With the government though, you do not have the right to contract out of certain things, hence why people get quite het up over liberty and freedom as it relates to government.

      • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @02:23PM (#64408670) Homepage

        If I pay a guy to come mow my lawn, and instead he comes and pickets my house because he disagrees with my political views, and doesn't mow my lawn, why would I pay him?

        Now, if he does the work, and then pickets my house, I'd still be obligated to pay him, but I'd probably also not ask him to come back.

        Google is no different. They pay people to do work for them. If those people spend their hours protesting instead of doing the work that Google is paying them for, and prevent others from doing the work Google is paying them for, why should Google be obligated to pay them?

        It gets a little murkier if they protest on their own time, it gets a little murkier, but not much. If you are actively working against the interests of your employer, they do have the right to fire you. And there is no ethical issue.

        Uri Berliner criticized NPR on his own time, publishing a scathing article in the Free Press. https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-ed... [thefp.com] NPR suspended him, then essentially forced him to resign. As a conservative, I support NPR's right to punish and even fire him, even though I happen to agree with his criticisms.

      • Wanting your co-workers to follow some basic rules of decency is hardly authoritarian.
      • I've heard a philosopher say somewhere that one of the great paradoxes of American society is that we demand liberty in the public sphere, but we demand authoritarian control in the workplace. No kings, no lords, but your boss deserves your submission.

        Unfortunately what I see here in America is - people demand liberty in their own public sphere, but authoritarian control over that of others. At least for those who gravitate towards either end of the political spectrum.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yes, pretty much. An important step in the Enshittifcation process.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Being a workplace is a norm at... a workplace. You're not supposed to "become" a machine like corporate office. You're supposed to "start" and "remain" that when it comes to office work. Because that's what a productive office looks like.

      Google's problem is that they haven't hired people to work in a long time. Instead they hired for racial and sexual quotas and then selected from those candidates for with very specific extreme political opinions. And so they got exactly what they hired. Disruptive revoluti

    • I think many Google employees, especially those who've never worked anywhere else, treat Google like it as a university. And in the early days Google to promote this style of view. The main google buildings are clustered together and the employees treat the entire area as their own, including all the public streets which are NOT google property, which is why you see them not paying attention to stop signs or stop lights (drive extra slow if you're a visitor). They used to allow stude.. employees to work o

  • DUH (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:13AM (#64407940)

    Some people have a really warped perspective on what the 1st amendment actually entitles them to.

  • perhaps having to give up what made your business worth existing is a sign that maybe you shouldn't be hundreds of thousands of employees big. maybe it would be better for everyone, including the competitive economy, if such large companies just weren't allowed.

  • by Subgenius ( 95662 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @11:52AM (#64408100) Homepage

    It is about time that Google stopped coddling its workers. You have a job, so do it. If your job includes protesting, then do THAT. It is doesn't, then STFU and GBTW.

    Sorry 'whatever generation' this pisses off, but A:recognize how lucky you are to get those jobs and B: there are lots of people behind you that would snap them up in an instant if you keep playing games.

    • In this instance, I think the protesters were fools and they should have been fired and escorted out immediately.

      However, "just shut up and be grateful you have work" is not a good attitude. That's how you get widespread abused of people who don't happen to be CEOs. And eventually violence.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Companies with that attitude aren't good to work for I avoid them. If I worked for Google I'd have left once the early days were over and it went corporate.

      So take your pick. Be ethical and address employee concerns, or have more staff turnover and the good people with options leaving.

  • Sorry but this is just a load of horsecrap. At no point was Google ever some kind of altruistic company that would change massive and lucrative contracts on the basis of the whining of a couple of low level employees.

    That Google never existed, even in the do no evil days. It was always a for profit enterprise and it always hired and fired employees who didn't perform like any other company.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      To be fair, they put on a reasonable show about not being evil in the beginning when they needed to hire smart but clueless people. They clearly never believed any of that. I attended one of the Page/Brin recruitment shows way back and it gave me very strong cult vibes. That type of environment is not conductive to truth at all.

  • ... in a democratic society, employees have the right to protest their employers providing material support to a regime that is committing genocide according to the ICJ, the UN, & many other credible organisations observing the matter. The ICJ's finding was that Israel is "plausibly breaching the Genocide Convention." That's about as strong as it gets without actually putting the perpetrators in the dock.

    I bet Chase National Bank, Ford, & General Motors had similar attitudes to their workers whil
    • Please post citations regarding that right that you claim works have.

      Go ahead, I'll wait ... I brought a book to help pass the time. /sarcasm

      • The same right that all of us have under the Geneva Conventions. If we know that someone is committing war crimes &/or crimes against humanity, it's not just our right but out duty to do everything within our power to stop it.
  • There's a big disconnect here. OK, sure, Google is a "workplace", but a place for doing what kind of work? They talk about being on a mission of social change. Their list of Commitments [about.google] is long on sociology, but very short on engineering.

    What normie Google consumers want is just solid products and services. There's a lot of excellent work in the Google product lineup, but there's still so much farther to go. Just yesterday I ran into another brain-dead limitation: regular expression replacement groups only

  • by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @02:39PM (#64408708) Journal
    As far as I am concerned, not being subjected to political BS and protest at work is the not evil option.
    • If you believe the company you work for is doing something that qualifies as 'evil' you have some choices. Depending on the degree of evil the options range from 'look the other way' to 'sabotage'. In the middle are 'speak up' and 'quit'.

      I can't imagine how anyone thinks a sit-in in the boss's office is anywhere on that spectrum. Google's certainly better off with those adult children off the payroll.

  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Friday April 19, 2024 @03:45PM (#64408918)
    The situation in Gaza is, at minimum, tragic. It's also extremely complex and nuanced. I do, at least, understand the feelings have over it, though.

    And yet, as an employee of a business, a fairly basic expectation is that you will not deliberately disrupt business operations. If these individuals went into this expecting to lose their job and did so anyway, that's commendable; they stood up for what they believed in at substantial personal cost, even if I think they may have an oversimplified and naive view of the situation. If they were expecting any other outcome than this, though... I don't know what to say besides "welcome to the real world."

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