
Google CEO says company genuinely struggling with employee trust - andrewstuart
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/25/google-ceo-leaked-video-says-company-is-genuinely-struggling-with-employee-trust/
======
ChuckMcM
I don't think anyone is surprised by this struggle.

I have noticed in my life that there are people who operate on a principle
that is sometimes called out as "It's not illegal if you don't get caught."
Clearly that statement isn't literally true. The essence of the colloquialism
is that rules are "arbitrary" and following them, when you don't have to fear
the consequence of breaking them because you are unlikely to get caught
violating them, is for "chumps." (sorry, another colloquialism).

What is lost on people is that people who don't follow rules erode trust.
Especially when they could have easily followed a rule and didn't anyway. That
trust erodes and is difficult if not impossible to recover. And not
surprisingly those same people who are so happy to have "gotten away with it"
have no idea that at some point in the future they are going to need that
trust and it won't be there.

~~~
jariel
This is not about people skirting the rules, this is a poignantly political
concern.

"Hiring an exec who supported Trump's travel ban" is purely a political issue.
Temporarily halting travel from a list of countries designated by the Obama
administration as 'dangerous' \- specifically because there's a degree of
lawlessness and/or the governments can't/won't cooperate with background
checks etc. has very reasonable arguments supporting it. (FYI the nations were
Libya/Yemen/Syria/Somalia/Sudan/Iraq - all of which have dysfunctional
governments unable to provide reliable identity information - and Iran, which
has other problems). Note that Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Indonesia,
Saudi, Oman, Pakistan etc. etc. and the vast majority of states with many
Muslim citizens were not affected.

Contextualising this within Trump's ugly rhetoric is another thing entirely
and this part subject to interpretation.

If Googlers are going to be discontent about an issue like this then I'm
afraid it's game over for their peace - because they are effectively
internalising American political discord.

Google's direct participation in China etc. is another issue entirely, much
more salient as it directly reflects 'what Google is doing' \- but even this
can be very complicated.

Google is essentially 'choosing' a very specific political ethos which is
problematic in itself because most of us tend to confound our own version of
morality with that of others in a very intolerant manner.

~~~
ChuckMcM
> "Hiring an exec who supported Trump's travel ban" is purely a political
> issue.

Yes it is. And that issue is that the person did something in a previous job
which many employees found repugnant.

But the _trust_ issue, is that the employees also don't trust that Google has
the integrity to hire someone who did that, without understanding the whys of
it. Or being sensitive to both their existing and new employee on the issue.

If I were in Google management, and I had the trust of the people I managed, I
could explain to them the reasoning that went into the hire; The skills that
came with the candidate, the business need, the qualities of the candidate.
And the sensitivity around their previous job choices and how they made those
choices (most people do what the boss tells them to do) and what was expected
of them at a place like Google. And the people who trusted me would expect me
to hold the new hire to those standards and to fire them if they didn't live
up to them. I would be able to lean on that trust and say, "Hey, we need to
give this guy a chance to prove he can do the right thing and we and he both
understand he is held to a higher standard here."

Folks I managed wouldn't trust me if they had found out that I had allowed a
sexual harasser to work for me after I knew that they had a problem. That is
because they would lose trust in me saying that I would hold people to a
certain standard.

That is the difference in a "only if you get caught" situational morality
play. Someone with principles and integrity will take the necessary action,
even if it is painful, even when they could "get away with it because nobody
else knows."

It is a good litmus test. That test being to evaluate how you respond to
people who do the right thing even when no one is looking, and to people who
do the right thing only after the need to do it comes to light through some
other path. In my experience, I trust people who do the right thing even if no
one is watching way more than I trust the opportunists.

------
phaedryx
Well, here's a few things off of the top of my head that have eroded my trust:

1\. Contracts with the Department of Defense

2\. Participation in project PRISM

3\. The Google Graveyard
([https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/))

4\. Abandoning "Don't be evil"

~~~
asuffield
> 2\. Participation in project PRISM

I'm an ex-Googler, and I know how PRISM worked. This did not happen. All the
statements made in
[https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html)
are true at the time they were written. The sentiment in the title of that
post accurately reflects how everybody involved felt about it.

(I can't talk about whether they're still true because I've not been there in
nearly two years, I wouldn't know)

~~~
mdrachuk
> I'm an ex-Googler, and I know how PRISM worked. This did not happen.

But from the blog:

> We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

Does not match up

~~~
Youden
Sure it matches up.

The poster, today, is aware of how PRISM worked.

The blog author, then, was not aware that PRISM existed.

------
diveanon
Google is struggling with "transparency at scale" which is just business speak
for "our employees won't just shut up and do their jobs".

~~~
arcticbull
In a way. Transparency at scale is truly challenging because as you grow
bigger you naturally end up with more diversity of opinions and thoughts.
Diversity (and transparency) isn't _easier_ \-- though it is of course
valuable. When you combine autonomy at the lower levels with large quantities
of diversity your company moves in lots of directions. What they're struggling
with IMO is either (1) front-line folks have too much autonomy and are moving
in directions that no longer reflect the views of leadership or (2) the
beliefs of the executive team do not materially line up with those of the
majority of employees anymore.

In either case, it's a tough problem to be sure.

------
rkagerer
Got news for you, it's not just employees.

------
pnako
I'm not convinced that it would be bad for shareholders to properly split the
company, instead of having a holding like Alphabet.

I don't think you can mix a defense contractor and an advertising company that
has a lot of public scrutiny, for the same reason tobacco companies and
breakfast cereal companies tend to be separate entities (despite doing
essentially the same thing: selling agricultural commodities to consumers).

~~~
cactus2093
What I genuinely don’t understand about all these split up tech companies
arguments, is I don’t see how you’ll end up with a small company from this
process (I also don’t see why smaller is necessarily better, but that’s a
separate point). If you split google search and ads from everything else in
alphabet, it’s still a multi hundred billion dollar business. If you split
Facebook proper from Instagram from the rest, you’ll have a couple of multi
hundred billion dollar companies. What makes a 500 billion dollar company less
likely to do shitty things than a 900 billion dollar company, for any given
definition of shitty?

~~~
goatinaboat
_What makes a 500 billion dollar company less likely to do shitty things than
a 900 billion dollar company, for any given definition of shitty?_

Because it’s constrained to its niche. Let’s say split search/ads from the
rest of Google. It’s still a money-printing machine but what can it spend that
money on? It has to pay dividends to shareholders rather than propping up
YouTube and GMail and Google Cloud and cross-pollinating data with them. Ditto
if any of them become profitable. Shareholders win, regulators win, its good
for everyone.

Us split-advocates aren’t just knee-jerks, we have thought about this.

------
adamsea
“ But many of the questions related to software embedded internally in
Google’s Chrome browser that employees worried was designed to monitor large
gatherings. The software engages when employees try to create meetings for 100
or more workers. Pichai and others said the intent of the software is not to
prevent meetings or to stifle conversation, but they acknowledged that its
implementation was flawed. ”

------
dwoozle
As soon as TGIFs started leaking, Pichai had to start treating them like
public press conferences, resulting in them now being completely devoid of
content.

------
repolfx
Googlers are overwhelmingly young compared to what they used to be. What these
people want most, beyond the usuals of money and perks, is for their employer
to give them moral structure in life and the constant reassurance that they
are good people - something they've been told since birth is the most
important thing to be but with nearly no guidance on what that means, beyond
the plots of Disney movies.

In effect they want Google to be a church and executives to be priests,
preaching a moral code and equally importantly railing against heretics,
sinners and apostates.

This need for a new religion can be seen in many walks of life but it seems
strongest amongst those immersed in the university system for longest. They've
never been judged by any system that wasn't artificial and based purely on the
opinions of superiors - from school to college to promo committees and peer
bonuses, very few of them have ever really hunted hard for a job, made a
product themselves or taken any risky decisions. They've got nothing to give
them self confidence and thus fall back on membership of a group identity
defined by a mishmash of whatever ideas they picked up from others just like
them. Google struggles with them the most because it has hired so many and
because Google internally is such a poor approximation of the real world:
absolutely stuffed with "rewrite X in Y" style projects and people that don't
have any strong reason to be there.

The best way for Google to solve this is a major reduction in headcount, least
experienced first. But I think headcount is rather sacred there as it's used
as a proxy for ambition, so instead they will continue struggling to be as
holy as their student staff demand.

~~~
Traster
I strongly disagree with this. In fact, what this criticism boils down to is
akin to whining about the younger generation. What is happening at Google is
actually the opposite of your first paragraph, the employees aren't looking to
Google to give them moral structure, their using their own moral code to judge
whether google is behaving morally and holding Google to account for it.

The fact that the employees are speaking out and in many cases actually taking
direct action that will effect their career prospects is the antithesis of

>They've got nothing to give them self confidence

People with 0 confidence aren't conducting walk-outs, they aren't
whistleblowing on Google's questionable military deals. The problem Google has
is exactly the opposite- they market themselves as a morally good company and
so they end up with a high number of people who view that as important working
for them. When they fail to live up to those actual standards, the employees
protest. I think trying to ascribe the protests to a lack of courage is a very
strange conclusion.

~~~
repolfx
I think you missed my point, which is quite tricky to put into words so I may
have not done it well.

"Google" in that context doesn't mean exclusively its management, but rather,
the whole group of people. When Googlers stage walkouts and so on they don't
care much about the specific situations at hand. If it wasn't one thing it'd
be another thing. This is clear from scratching the surface of their
complaints in any detail: it's all built on very brittle foundations.

What they want is the feeling of collective moral action, of clarity of
purpose, of being a part of something bigger than building the next chat app,
and they're able to get that at Google where it wouldn't be tolerated at most
companies. It's exactly because this sort of activity does _not_ affect their
career prospects or might even enhance them that is why they do it: remember
that their promotions aren't decided by management at Google but rather, by
committees of the same sorts of people who are protesting.

 _People with 0 confidence aren 't conducting walk-outs, they aren't
whistleblowing on Google's questionable military deals._

This is exactly what people with no self confidence _in their own goodness_
would do.

If they were secure in their own morality, in their own sense of living a
right life, they wouldn't be attempting to find it by engaging in constant
cultural crusades inside their own place of work. It seems quite clear to me
that many of their supposed moral positions aren't well thought through and
exist primarily so they can protest. In other words, the protests aren't a
means to an end (change of policy by Google's management), the protests _are_
the end, in and of themselves, because it's via noisy displays of moral virtue
that they find what they're truly looking for.

If you like I can go through some of the inconsistencies in the various
positions their employees have taken.

------
klingonopera
I don't see where the problem is with hiring someone who supports Trump's
travel ban. I disagree with it and I wouldn't want to drink a beer with that
person, but on which level would this hinder me professionally working with
that person so long as that person does not abuse their power for their
political views, which we must assume, until it can be proven otherwise? Isn't
that what democracy is all about? Has the work environment become so casual,
that we cannot set aside our differences in a professional setting?

~~~
riversflow
>I disagree with it and wouldn’t want to drink a beer with that person.

Wow, are you projecting an image with that statement? Just realize that your
attitude of blind judgement of others perpetuates this partisan divide. Not
wanting to talk to someone based on a differing policy perspective is
/exactly/ the problem. This breaks our republic. You should desire to try and
understand their perspective and enlighten them to yours. Honestly sickening
to read that.

~~~
klingonopera
Erm? I'm saying that I wouldn't want to spend my personal time with someone
who supports that, that's my own business, but that I wouldn't mind working
with them, because that's a professional environment.

The Googlers are the ones who'd do neither, so what do you think of them?

~~~
riversflow
>that’s my own business

And I’m saying that by not engaging with people you disagree with based on
politics in your personal life you are shirking your civic duty. It’s selfish,
short sighted, and intellectually dishonest behavior. Seriously reconsider
because it reveals a certain closed mindedness and breeds partisanship and
tribalism in others; things I’m guessing you aren’t for based on parent
comments.

I think a business is a business, it has its own charter to follow and it
seems fair that it’s within the abilities of that charter to limit the speech
of at-will employees to some extent.

I can’t believe Google is putting up with this behavior from employees, and
makes me think their hiring process needs a rework and reaffirms the feeling I
have that Google has a culture of immaturity. It just seems like a personal
attention grab to me on the part of the Googlers. They should leave if they
feel so strongly. People who really think the people they work for are evil
defect, possibly after leaking information or making a mess, but usually
posthaste. Google is letting them make a mess right now.

------
finnthehuman
I'm surprised they still had any trust at all. I thought it was pretty obvious
- especially after dragonfly - that the company is only going through the
motions of caring to pacify their employees concerns.

The moral questions that face google's rank and file are so poorly discussed
in the tech sector or by society at large I'm not surprised that they only get
rankled when the company does something that can be blogged about with a hot
take. I guess it's good that things like "military contracts" and "former
Trump staffer" can penetrate thick skulls, but they're many many years past
nip-it-in-the-bud phase. They have no intention of establishing an overarching
moral philosophy and have set themselves up to just rationalize questions away
as come up.

------
andrewstuart
Google could improve.

~~~
justicezyx
Well you underestimate how complicated it is to run Google, and assumed Sundar
isn't doing the best possible job.

~~~
viraptor
Even if you don't underestimate Google, there are really 2 options: current
management is not doing the best job, or they're doing the best job but the
company size prevents improvements (Google itself should be changed).

------
rambojazz
Non-paywall link?

------
Porthos9K
Gee, I wonder why.

------
3xblah
"But many of the questions related to software embedded internally in Google's
Chrome browser that employees worried was designed to monitor large
gatherings. The software engages when employees try to create meetings for 100
or more workers.

Pichai and others said the intent of the software is not to prevent meetings
or to stifle conversation, but they acknowledged that its implementation was
flawed."

 _If I am not mistaken_ Google has recently made a change to its Chrome
browser (77.0.3865.105) that removed the ability to disable javascript,
cookies, etc. (via chrome://settings/content or clicking to the left of the
address -- "site information" \-- in the address bar) for all websites _when
in Guest mode_. It can still be disabled for individual websites.

 _Assuming I am not mistaken_ , suprisingly, I have not read anything about
this change. Is it possible there was no intent to stop users from turning off
javascript and cookies and this was simply another example of a "flawed
implementation".

~~~
3xblah
One theory is that the update is making it impossible for Chrome to save
settings when in Guest Mode and chrooted in Developer Mode. Probably not
intentional but frustrating because it will neither be noticed nor fixed by
Google.

~~~
3xblah
ChromeOS/Chrome gets new update and sure enough, problem is partially "fixed".
Now there is a new settings page: chrome://settings/content/all

These settings seems to stick, however the ability to globally turn off
cookies and javascript remains broken. Also, it is so time consuming to change
settings for each site, one has to wonder if this inconvenience is deliberate.

