Google employees are a loud bunch. They always seem to be making statements, protesting or petitioning.
That there is so much controversy over there seems like the company has a values problem: nobody knows what they are.
At Apple, there is likely dissent about various decisions, but overall it seems like at a far lesser degree because the culture tends to reinforce the core values of the company. While at Google, it seems like there isn’t any leadership. Management sure, but no real leadership reinforcing values. It’s like they’re an old ship where the captain is wanting to go north, but the rowers are all rowing in whatever direction they want with no sense of mission, direction or purpose.
It’s a luxury that Google has because they essentially own a money printing press. A long way from the Don’t be Evil days.
Apple keeps its employees and contractors isolated from each other, with multiple teams working on the same project (and producing similar results) which middle upper management then picks the "best" of. Operational secrecy is a high priority, Apple does not operate anything like Google or other tech companies in this regard.
Dissent got many people I know fired from Apple, even over the most minor things that wouldn't have been issues at nearly any other company. It was a place to "think different" so long as those thoughts were expressed in a way that conformed with what your lead wanted.
I know this is presented as a negative and will likely be taken as a negative, but I think it's actually largely in agreement with parent comment.
Apple is an opinionated company and takes a "this not that" approach to the world. As someone once said, they're one of the biggest companies in the world and their entire product line still fits on a dining room table. That's a lot of saying "no" to things!
Google seems more inclined to believe it can be anything, or do anything. Look at the breadth of concepts they work on through various subsidiaries like Google X.
Extend that perspective to their employees. At Apple you'll know whether you're an Apple person or not, just like their approach to products. Whereas Googlers are more likely to believe they can be anything. Thus, you get a lot more public disagreements among Googlers... there's just so much more to disagree about!
I don't think either approach is necessarily more moral. While Apple does a lot of good product work related to privacy, there is basically no questioning of their fundamental decision to do business with anyone, anywhere. Whereas, while Google's products are worse on privacy by features, there's a lot more discussion about who they do business with.
> That there is so much controversy over there seems like the company has a values problem
It's also a lack of clearly defined leadership as well. Maybe because there's so many different 'teams' all working on different things?
This is conflicting, on the one hand if I have a bunch of employees all whining like these guys are I would simply replace them all, regardless of cost. On the other hand, aiding a hostile oppressive regime isn't cool. But screaming like privileged babies on Social Media really isn't the answer either.
Saying ‘I won’t stand for building a system explicitly designed to control and oppress people’ is “whining” and “screaming like privileged babies”?
Have you read the reporting on this? The Intercept described Beaumont, G’s head of ops in China, as intentionally excluding security and privacy teams from key meetings about the project, undermining privacy reviews, and taking whatever measures he could to make Dragonfly a fait accompli with no oversight. One googler says that “[Beaumont’s] ideal circumstance was that most people would find out about this project the day it launched.”
So I’m not sure what choice there would be other than to make these objections publicly. Google management doesn’t want people knowing about this because they understand how bad it looks, and they’re going to great lengths to circumvent the normal processes that would prevent this kind of product from seeing the light of day. My favorite bit was that Dragonfly would blacklist the term “Nobel Prize” from being searched. Is there really an argument that participation in this kind of oppression isn’t morally reprehensible? And if there isn’t, don’t employees who are able have a responsibility to try and prevent it?
Complaining about your company’s vacation policy might be whining, being incensed that the company’s stopping free lunch might be privileged, but speaking out against building the machinery of oppression definitely isn’t.
If you look it up all these things you keep hearing about are generally in the order of 1% of their workforce. If you had an articles when other companies had 1% of their employees think something you would see tons of articles about them, too.
Larry Page always encouraged internal dissent because he had a healthy appreciation for what he didn't know, and would rather get early warning within the company, where he could change his mind, than commit to a course and find that everyone who was right now works for a competitor. This actually paid off in a large way with several key decisions, like switching to the auction-based ad system, sponsoring GMail & Chrome, buying Android & YouTube, killing Google+, and putting Sundar in charge of day-to-day operations while kicking himself upstairs to Alphabet.
The flip side is that many Googlers do have a sense of entitlement that wouldn't fly at any other company, and it can be hard to focus the company to react quickly to threats or opportunities. But in some way that doesn't matter when some segment of the company is already reacting on its own to threats and opportunities; you just have to shift resources to get behind the folks that are already working on the right thing. (This is part of the motivation for Alphabet, where the idea is that Larry can quickly move capital into whatever random team happens to be working on a promising idea and double-down on winners.)
A bunch of employees working for one of the biggest publishers/distributers of spyware are able to rationalize themselves into beliving Dragonfly is a good thing. I'm not suprised.
As with most issues, this isn't black or white. There are many legitimate reasons why an insignificant number of employees do support Dragonfly and it's not rationalization from their perspective.
The letter says Google should explore how to enter China, not to enter China on the terms already known. The opposition letter is opposed to the terms already known. The difference is in whether a person trusts management to use that exploration responsibly. Judgments differ, based on recent evidence.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 59.8 ms ] threadThat there is so much controversy over there seems like the company has a values problem: nobody knows what they are.
At Apple, there is likely dissent about various decisions, but overall it seems like at a far lesser degree because the culture tends to reinforce the core values of the company. While at Google, it seems like there isn’t any leadership. Management sure, but no real leadership reinforcing values. It’s like they’re an old ship where the captain is wanting to go north, but the rowers are all rowing in whatever direction they want with no sense of mission, direction or purpose.
It’s a luxury that Google has because they essentially own a money printing press. A long way from the Don’t be Evil days.
Dissent got many people I know fired from Apple, even over the most minor things that wouldn't have been issues at nearly any other company. It was a place to "think different" so long as those thoughts were expressed in a way that conformed with what your lead wanted.
Apple is an opinionated company and takes a "this not that" approach to the world. As someone once said, they're one of the biggest companies in the world and their entire product line still fits on a dining room table. That's a lot of saying "no" to things!
Google seems more inclined to believe it can be anything, or do anything. Look at the breadth of concepts they work on through various subsidiaries like Google X.
Extend that perspective to their employees. At Apple you'll know whether you're an Apple person or not, just like their approach to products. Whereas Googlers are more likely to believe they can be anything. Thus, you get a lot more public disagreements among Googlers... there's just so much more to disagree about!
I don't think either approach is necessarily more moral. While Apple does a lot of good product work related to privacy, there is basically no questioning of their fundamental decision to do business with anyone, anywhere. Whereas, while Google's products are worse on privacy by features, there's a lot more discussion about who they do business with.
It's also a lack of clearly defined leadership as well. Maybe because there's so many different 'teams' all working on different things?
This is conflicting, on the one hand if I have a bunch of employees all whining like these guys are I would simply replace them all, regardless of cost. On the other hand, aiding a hostile oppressive regime isn't cool. But screaming like privileged babies on Social Media really isn't the answer either.
Have you read the reporting on this? The Intercept described Beaumont, G’s head of ops in China, as intentionally excluding security and privacy teams from key meetings about the project, undermining privacy reviews, and taking whatever measures he could to make Dragonfly a fait accompli with no oversight. One googler says that “[Beaumont’s] ideal circumstance was that most people would find out about this project the day it launched.”
So I’m not sure what choice there would be other than to make these objections publicly. Google management doesn’t want people knowing about this because they understand how bad it looks, and they’re going to great lengths to circumvent the normal processes that would prevent this kind of product from seeing the light of day. My favorite bit was that Dragonfly would blacklist the term “Nobel Prize” from being searched. Is there really an argument that participation in this kind of oppression isn’t morally reprehensible? And if there isn’t, don’t employees who are able have a responsibility to try and prevent it?
Complaining about your company’s vacation policy might be whining, being incensed that the company’s stopping free lunch might be privileged, but speaking out against building the machinery of oppression definitely isn’t.
(Intercept article: https://theintercept.com/2018/11/29/google-china-censored-se...)
Where is this "screaming like privileged babies"?
Reminds me of The Circle.
Larry Page always encouraged internal dissent because he had a healthy appreciation for what he didn't know, and would rather get early warning within the company, where he could change his mind, than commit to a course and find that everyone who was right now works for a competitor. This actually paid off in a large way with several key decisions, like switching to the auction-based ad system, sponsoring GMail & Chrome, buying Android & YouTube, killing Google+, and putting Sundar in charge of day-to-day operations while kicking himself upstairs to Alphabet.
The flip side is that many Googlers do have a sense of entitlement that wouldn't fly at any other company, and it can be hard to focus the company to react quickly to threats or opportunities. But in some way that doesn't matter when some segment of the company is already reacting on its own to threats and opportunities; you just have to shift resources to get behind the folks that are already working on the right thing. (This is part of the motivation for Alphabet, where the idea is that Larry can quickly move capital into whatever random team happens to be working on a promising idea and double-down on winners.)
Oh okay, it links to https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/28/google-dragonfly-letter, which says that a source within Google provided it to them, and they print it "in full", but sans signatures.
Mods please change link to https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/28/google-dragonfly-letter/