
Press leaks during Google's all-hands meeting enrage insiders - tareqak
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-insiders-press-leaks-at-meeting-backfired-gave-sergey-brin-moral-high-ground-china-2018-8
======
MrLeap
I've managed to write 15 pages on a topic this aligns with over the last few
weeks. The thesis is that Feudalism never went away, it just transitioned from
kingdoms to corporations.

Putting ramparts and a moat around your primogeniture home owner's association
lost to the advantages afforded by consolidation of production and trade. The
traditions, structures and expressions of human nature have changed very
little.

I'm sure this is probably some high octane confirmation bias, but this story
just sings to me about what I've been writing about.

The landed members in this council meeting are outraged that one of their own
is ignoring the duties of their vassalage. Is anything sacred when peasants
who aren't even in your kingdom can listen in on your chancellors, stewards
and spymasters? To the landed of the realm, this is a legitimate affront to
the value of your titles! That's casus belli if I ever heard of it. I wonder
how many employees are trying to rainbow table the journalist.

~~~
whack
If you reveal sensitive information to someone in confidence, and they betray
your trust, of course you're going to feel betrayed. And of course you're
going to hold back on other sensitive information in the future.

Most Googlers realize this as well, which is why they too are upset with the
leakers. It shuts off any visibility that they would have otherwise.
Visibility that can be used productively to alter company policy, like was
done with the defense contract.

Ultimately, preserving the confidentiality of sensitive discussions, is part
of the social contract that benefits the employees themselves in the long
term. Going on an anti-corporate diatribe and tearing up this social contract
isn't doing anyone any good.

~~~
MrLeap
You're accusing me of engaging in diatribe? Audacious!

Google has 88,000 employees. I don't know what their definition is for "All
Hands", but it's probably a lot of people. I think there's a saying about
this. 88,000 people can keep a secret if 87,999 are dead?

I know you're hardly the first, but I laughed when you called them "Googlers"
instead of Google Employees. I can't wait until Google calls up its levy of
Googlers to arms and they hit the campaign with retinues holding bright blue-
red-orange-blue-green-red standards. I believe the feeling of betrayal is real
but it's still funny.

I assert this is more about loyalty to your liege/realm/company than a
practical thing to be upset about. The people doing the cursing on a hot mic
seem to have built their identity around the company they work for. I get how
that could happen but it's still peculiar to me, I firmly believe that no
matter how many times they say it, the company you work for is NOT your
family, unless it's a family owned business and they are.

It just occurred to me that you might think I'm being anti-corporate because
of the comparisons to feudalism. Maybe you felt an instinctually negative
reaction when you read the word. I'm much more dispassionate myself. Taking
the emotion out of the words allow you to see that the systems have enormous
similarity with merely different vocabulary, like angular vs. react, except
feudalism isn't as dystopian as angular (Ha Ha, google joke). Peasant::Non
Managerial Employees, Youtube:Google:Alphabet::Duchy:Kingdom:Empire. It's
there, you just have to look!

------
skookumchuck
Seattle has an open-meetings law, where the City Council cannot conduct any
substantive meetings that are closed to the public. Sounds like a good idea,
right?

The reality is, the meetings have devolved into events where the councilors
engage mostly in political grandstanding for the press, and each faction shows
up with with their activist signs, chanting, and yelling.

~~~
nabla9
Anyone who starts to study how deliberative democracy works, discovers this
quickly.

Transparency and publicity in deliberative democracy does not mean that
everything is just public and open discussion, because it just don't work.

Most areas should be maximally public, like results of meetings, meeting
agendas, who is attending, decisions and laws of course with very rare
exceptions (personal privacy, ongoing criminal investigations, ...).

But sometimes the meetings themselves should not be public to enable honest
discussion and ideas. Just make sure that every party involved has a
representation. Chatham House rule is often good choice when full privacy is
not needed (you can talk about what was said, but not about who said what).

~~~
pytyper2
Remove the cameras and only allow electors to attend. It's the tools and
outsiders that cause this to occur, there are many thousands of cities around
the country that have peaceful productive council meetings.

------
skookumchuck
> The person or people who shared the information with The Times gave Pichai
> and Brin an excuse to stop discussing anything substantive about China at
> the meeting

Of course. Just like any press release would be run through the lawyers before
going out the door. Can't have a frank discussion with an Omarosa in the room.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next such meeting requires all phones to be
left outside the door.

------
staticautomatic
If it is true that, following the display of the subject tweets, "all the
momentum and sympathy swung in the direction of management," then the so-
called leaks are actually of benefit to Google.

 _" Where I come from, that means you're about to steal a mirror."_

~~~
tareqak
That's an excellent point: they get a lot of potential benefits

1\. A business reason to not divulge sensitive details about any projects in
future meetings.

2\. Employee support for 1.

3\. Actually being able to keep employees in the dark about this Google Search
in China endeavor.

Now, the questions that present themselves are:

1\. Was the leak planned to have that effect?

2\. Was the leak planned and/or executed by one or more members of Google's
management team?

~~~
fatjokes
And thus qanon was born.

Let's not rush too quickly into conspiracy theories and false flags.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
"Who stands to benefit from this?" is the easiest way to determine _any_
leak's source.

~~~
Coincoin
Assuming all actors are rational, which they often are not.

~~~
perl4ever
Rational _and_ have perfect knowledge of consequences.

------
gurumeditations
Loyalty to a super powerful organization whose only goal is more power and
whose loyalty to you only extends as far as they can make money using you is a
fool’s game. The person who feels like inciting mob hate towards someone who
is telling truth to power is the same person found in all of the worst
movements of destruction across the world and throughout history.

~~~
gsnedders
While you might not owe the company loyalty, one can imagine being scornful
towards those who might get rid of the openness within the company because it
makes it harder to collectively oppose actions the company is taking (or
talking about taking).

~~~
humanrebar
The Damore thing was basically leak of an internal conversation that was
considered justified. Maybe the leaker thought the convention was arbitrary
anyway.

------
skookumchuck
"Many people inside and outside the company consider government censorship to
be a human-rights violation."

It's right there in the US Constitution Bill of Rights.

~~~
zerealshadowban
Maybe we should parse this slightly differently -- what do these people think
of corporation-operated censorship that is designed to exactly please a
generally oppressive government?

In 1964 America, some types of rights-violating discrimination that (as
generally understood due to the victory of the Union in the Civil War) the
government ought not to engage in, were suddenly also banned from the sphere
of corporate activity. [1] I wasn't born at the time, but I understand that
there were many US locales where the discrimination forbidden to government
had been retained, and remained widespread, via delegation to businesses.

Are we headed to a similar battle around online free speech? I personally
don't want Western businesses to help implement censorship in any country,
whether express or local, whether administrative or corporate.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964)

~~~
skookumchuck
I certainly am concerned about media giants censoring material under the guise
of eliminating "hate speech", "fake news", "russian propaganda", or anything
they imagine I am too tender to be trusted to view. That sort of thing has
gone on throughout history (such as people who translated the Bible into
English got burned at the stake), never with good results.

------
engi_nerd
I'm curious why Google is okay with doing more business in China, but they
have moral issues doing business with the US Department of Defense?

------
madengr
Government censorship is bad, but YouTube censorship is just fine. Many
hypocrites.

~~~
duxup
If I censor something on a site I own... is that the same as government doing
it?

~~~
sidlls
Ever hear of privately owned public spaces? At what point does a medium of
communication with wide enough adoption (perhaps to the point of being a de
facto monopoly) merit consideration for the same regulations as apply to
those?

------
zorpner
Most of these people only know about the Dragonfly project because of previous
leaks. I would agree that there are productive leaks, and unproductive leaks,
but getting mad at leakers/the press in a general sense is shortsighted.

------
sidcool
Hold on, did someone say 'fuck you' to the face of Sundar Pichai in the all
hands meeting?

~~~
badlucklottery
They addressed the "fuck you" to the anonymous leaker.

~~~
sidcool
Who did? I didn't get the context.

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knuththetruth
It’s of course totally beyond imagining that execs would plan such a leak to
avoid further disclosure and sway favor to their side. Especially when they
just lost to employee organizing on Project Maven and their entrance into the
Chinese market is on the line...

