

Wael Ghonim: A "One-Off" for Silicon Valley? - cwb71
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20031608-501465.html

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michaelchisari
The first comment on this article is the best:

 _I will not, NOT be using Google again until he is FIRED! Go to Egypt Wael
Ghonim, you are no longer welcome here!! Going to Bling now, not Google._

I wonder what kind of features Bling has.

~~~
spitfire
Gold, Lots of gold. and diamonds.

------
joshu
Best 20% time project ever.

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nostrademons
I think it's more his 100% time project now.

(Or more realistically, his 300% time project.)

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michaelty
"There’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home.
And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around
your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what did you do
in the great World War II, you won’t have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in
Louisiana.""

\--Patton

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blueben
<http://twitter.com/#!/google/status/36521734542868480>

"We're incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back
when you're ready - cf. <http://goo.gl/2BDGp>

I don't understand why anyone would think Google would fire Ghonim for taking
personal time to help bring democracy to his homeland. That just isn't the
kind of company Google is.

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kbatten
US Companies, including Google involve themselves in politics (both domestic
and international) all the time. I think it is a bit silly to say that "tech
companies don't want to take political positions".

~~~
techdmn
Agree. Also interesting that an employee protesting on his own time is
considered a "political position", while selling equipment used by dictators
to oppress their people is not. The article does imply that this is not always
the case, but in my experience it seems much more acceptable to engage in the
latter than the former.

~~~
ChuckMcM
If Google follows its internal policies it will have to fire him. (err let him
go) And while I agree that he did it on his "own time" as you will recall all
of the news reports pegged him as a "Google Executive" which certainly gives
the impression that its Google sanctioned (which it wasn't according to the
article). I've been on both sides of this question at various times in my
career and it really requires the employee to decide which is more important
to them and then to dedicate themselves to that and step away from the other.
I think Wael made his choice, and I admire him for it.

(I find that he keeps getting demoted too, he started out in charge of
everything in the middle east and now he is down to a mere product manager :-)

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blueben
Which policy dictates that he must be fired?

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ChuckMcM
When I was there the Code of Conduct required that all employees abide by the
(US version) of the foreign nations laws which precluded (among other things)
advocating for the overthrow of any legitimate government, colluding with
government or non-government agencies in the public policy area without
registering as a 'lobbyist' (there are different terms in different
countries), doing anything that would suggest a conflict of interest between
Google and the legitimate government. Responses available to the company when
an employee had been found to violate the code included things like
prosecuting the individual for damages and of course termination.

It was all pretty standard boilerplate kind of stuff. There were higher
standards for managers than rank and file as well. But mostly I think it is in
there to try to mitigate retaliation from countries against Google corporate.

But let me re-iterate, I don't claim that they would or should fire Wael, I'm
just saying that a strict reading of it would make that their next step.

Imagine what happens if Mubarak sues Google for lost income, personal
distress, Etc, because their employee lead the effort to displace him? Never
under estimate the gall of a plaintiff lawyer if their target has a huge cash
reserve.

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tokenadult
I'd love to see what could be done by some of Google's Chinese-speaking
managers.

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redthrowaway
Not much, considering they're all in Hong Kong.

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tokenadult
Wael Ghonim wasn't based in Egypt for his most recent position with Google.

[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-
go...](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-
google-20110212,0,7159629.story)

"A year ago, he moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for Google. His mother,
Iman, saw that he would be crestfallen by the poverty when he returned for
vacations."

There are still plenty of Googlers who have family ties to China and who have
occasion to travel there.

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hasenj
I've seen a 45 minute interview[0] with him. His activism doesn't have much to
do with his hackery. He's clearly an NF[1] (Keirsey's Idealist temperament).
Most hackers are NTs (Keirsey's Rational temperament), say, about 75%[2] of
them.

He's very emotional.[3]

[0] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlBAzvX9Xw4>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealist_temperament>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946249>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kafxFOTepSo>

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hasenj
Not sure why I was down voted.

Here's clip [3] with subs (can't edit parent post).

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V690GO7YzgA>

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sunir
Armchair psychology is inappropriate.

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hasenj
Fair enough, I guess.

I still think his activism is not related to any quality in the archetypal
hacker personality.

