
Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration - Jerry2
http://watchdog.org/265844/google-obama-revolving-door/
======
philip1209
I met some of the former Googlers working for the USDS. They seemed to be many
pre-IPO SREs who decided that improving government was more important than
being an LP at a VC fund. They were motivated by getting tens of millions of
people healthcare, and along the way they encountered huge challenges - like
figuring out how to reconcile VA and Pentagon records. Their passion was
inspiring, and the work they do affects millions without much glamor.

If you think healthcare.gov was a mess, in the USA there are more branches of
federal government, 50 state governments, and countless local governments
whose technology is inadequate for serving its constituents.

Things like healthcare, visas, and electricity all rely on aging software
projects. Yet, some of these systems don't have strong backups, are not
automated, and may run on infrastructure like Windows XP. Some parts are
ticking timebombs in terms of security and upkeep costs.

~~~
TheSageMage
So I'm a software engineer in SF who would love to work on projects like you
mentioned. Where do I look and what do I look for?

~~~
alexose
USDS is hiring! [https://www.usds.gov/join](https://www.usds.gov/join)

If you want to work remote from SF, check out 18F:
[https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/](https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/)

~~~
Abundnce10
It looks like 18F isn't hiring currently:
[https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/open-
positions/](https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/open-positions/)

 _We 're briefly pausing accepting new applications while we evolve how 18F
plans for open roles._

~~~
rmason
You might also want to try becoming a Code For America fellow for a year
working in cities:

[https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-
us/fel...](https://www.codeforamerica.org/do-something/work-with-
us/fellowship-application)

~~~
hiram112
Looks interesting. Unfortunately they are not currently accepting
applications.

------
justinlardinois
> More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal
> government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office.

Google has over 30,000 employees in Mountain View alone, and that's just a
portion of its workforce. The term "Obama administration" in the headline is
somewhat misleading considering that the above quote says it's surveyed from
"the federal government," which is a _huge_ workforce regardless of where you
draw the boundaries.

Statistically, is it really that anomalous that ~250 people flowed between the
two in 8 years?

~~~
jzwinck
Some back of the envelope math:

50% of total staff are at Mountain View. Of 60k staff, maybe 20-25k are
engineers. So in the US it's probably 10-15k engineers total.

In my experience, software engineer attrition is around 20% per year in firms
with good employee satisfaction. That's 2-3k engineers excited to be tackling
new opportunities each year. In 8 years: 16-24k employees.

Of course Google is a great place to work and they weren't as large 8 years
ago, so let's guess 10-15k employees turned over. Of that, 250 is 2%.

The government says around 2700 people work for the executive [1]. That is
0.002% of the total workforce in the US.

Google could replace the entire executive with castaway engineers _every
year_.

[1] [https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-
docu...](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-
documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-
employment-since-1962/)

~~~
argonaut
You're reading the table (egregiously) wrong. It says around 2.7 million
people work for the executive branch of government. That is about 1.8% of the
employed US workforce. 2700 doesn't pass the smell test, anyways.

------
CydeWeys
I would love to see numbers for other companies. I would be surprised if large
defense contractors like Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin didn't have way
more than 250.

Also ... government has been notoriously bad about grokking software. They
just couldn't manage large projects effectively at all, and they were
completely getting fleeced by their usual contractors (witness the initial
launch of healthcare.gov). So it's good that they're getting competent people
to be in charge of things now, which I suppose naturally means they'd be
getting people from the top tech companies in the world.

~~~
ivanca
A lot of info at:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I](https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I)

~~~
bduerst
Not really - it's just a pie chart by industry. It doesn't say anything about
other companies.

If you search by organization you can get some numbers but it's not
comprehensive. For example, it says that only 28 people (not hundreds) are
profiled with "google", 30 with "microsoft" and 1 for "hewlett packard", etc.

------
morgante
Articles like this are a great example of why the so-called revolving door is
a _good_ thing.

Government technology has been a disaster for quite some time. I think we can
all agree that the best technologists aren't usually looking to accept a low-
pay, low-prestige job in government.

So the Obama Administration has taken steps to try to improve government
technology, primarily through USDS but also with direct White House hires. Of
course many of the best technologists are employed at Google, so you'll see a
lot of people coming from there. Especially since there are significant
network effects in recruiting.

Naturally, the best technologists aren't typically interested in a long-term
government career. So they shift back out after their "tour of duty." In fact,
I believe 18F explicitly requires limited term contracts.

Despite good intentions (including willingness to take substantial pay cuts),
people inevitably attack these attempts.

I wonder how much of the "Google Transparency Project" funding is coming from
existing federal contractors. Perhaps they should be transparent about
themselves for a start.

------
oxymoron
I think the Google Transparency Project needs some transparency:
[http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/google-transparency-
project/](http://fortune.com/2016/04/27/google-transparency-project/)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
This article contains no data. Merely speculates or insinuates that if it's
investigating Google, clearly it has to be part of some plot against them. I
know it's hard to imagine, but sometimes people may just want to know what a
giant evil international conglomerate is doing in backrooms with the most
powerful people on the planet.

~~~
morgante
I think it's a little suspicious that they won't reveal who is funding them.

More importantly, I don't see any clear reason to target a specific company.
There are lots of organizations like The Center for Responsive Politics which
investigate lobbying and corruption without doing targeting a specific company
with whatever they can find.

This organization clearly seems to have an axe to grind. For example, what is
the point of naming and shaming programmers who dared to quit their cushy
Google jobs to come work for USDS? [0] This is symptomatic of a hatchet job:

> suggests that many former Google employees working for USDS today may return
> to their Google jobs tomorrow with inside knowledge and relationships that
> could prove invaluable in securing large IT contracts for Google.

The notion that programmers are going to work for Google so they can secure IT
contracts is ludicrous. I know people working for USDS—they definitely are not
interested in making a career out of government consulting.

If this group cares so much about transparency, they should be transparent
about who is funding them. I suspect it's several corporations which are even
more corrupt than Google.

[0] [http://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/us-digital-
ser...](http://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/us-digital-service)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's hard to imagine big IT contracts isn't a part of it. Bear in mind, Google
Cloud Platform is Google's big push these days, and they're currently in a
distant third place. Now, with all those Google employees who are then also
going back to Google after their USDS stint... how many of them do you think
will recommend or even consider Azure or AWS when they recommend a cloud
platform for the government project they're working on? Google Apps for
Government is a thing too.

And at the end of the day, basically all Google wants is... all your data.
Good way to accomplish that is getting your employees to write the software
too.

~~~
morgante
It's really hard for me to imagine regular Google software engineers doing
stints in government just to procure IT contracts. Do you really think that's
how things work? It amazes me that people will look for corruption in
anything. Is it really that implausible that people might not just feel a
civic duty to help improve government?

For the record, 18F and USDS both seem to have pushed for multiple cloud
solutions, including their own cloud.gov.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Many of these aren't "regular Google software engineers". Eric Schmidt is the
former CEO and is on an advisory board at the DOD, while still chairman of the
board for Google. Matt Cutts, USDS and still employed formally at Google as
well, is one of the most public faces of the biggest and most profitable
division Google has. If Google was a single color, I'm confident Matt Cutts
would bleed it.

I'm not "looking for corruption in anything". I'm looking for corruption in
one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington DC that has very close ties with
our administration, and strangely, has managed to avoid any sort of legal
action against them, despite the fact that almost every other first world
power finds cause to do so.

The previous FTC Commissioner, who is tasked by our government to regulate
companies like Google, was a former paid Google shill who fabricated pro-
Google "studies". After being paid under the table by Google, and then
squashing an FTC investigation against Google during his term there, he's now
working for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm who has a notable
client... Google.

I'm not "looking for corruption in anything". It's just that it's incredibly
implausible that Google does not have a corrupt relationship with the
government.

~~~
morgante
You didn't answer my question about why you think Google software engineers
would work for government just to sell Google products. Instead, you pointed
to much higher-level and isolated cases. The vast majority of the 250+
Googlers working in government are likely mid-level employees without
significant policy responsibility.

I gave a specific link to this "Transparency Project" targeting mid-level
Google engineers. [0] You seem to think the people on this list are
mercenaries working in government just to sell Google contracts.

Since you seem to be uninterested in having a conversation on this and instead
have an axe to grind, I'll see myself out.

[0] [http://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/us-digital-
ser...](http://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/us-digital-service)

------
BinaryIdiot
> "it’s hard to know for sure how more than 250 people moving between Google
> and the federal government since 2009 compares to other corporations, but
> “it sounds like it’s a very significant number.”"

Considering we're talking about a time span of 7 years and Google has over
50,000 employees (took a rough average from the crazy range of source I saw)
I'm surprised it's not _more_. The quote above seems to be someone guessing
without any type of information to back up their assertions.

I'd love to see the numbers for other companies but this article is somewhat
lackluster and seems to be trying to point to a possible conflict of interest

> Amey said he’s not as concerned about programmers moving over – and quite a
> few data engineers who worked on Obama’s re-election campaign have ended up
> in White House jobs – but top level executives changing jobs can raise “red
> flags.”

I can understand this a bit more. Not sure there is any direct evidence of
conflicts of interest but like the investigation I could see it easily
appearing so regardless of the truth. Hard to avoid though. After working in
the government space they need lots of help.

------
nthitz
Matt Cutts, who was/is a semipublic Google employee wrote on Quora today about
his work at USDS.

[https://www.quora.com/session/Matt-
Cutts/1](https://www.quora.com/session/Matt-Cutts/1)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Matt_Cutts](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Matt_Cutts)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It is crazy to me that Googlers no longer even "revolve the door" to shift
back and forth to working for the government. Matt Cutts is merely 'on leave'.
Similarly, Eric Schmidt is on a panel at the DoD while simultaneously still in
his position at Google.

It's impossible for someone to make the best decisions for American citizens
while they're simultaneously employed by a giant international corporation
which is evading billions of dollars in taxes, causing the rest of us to have
to pick up all the slack.

~~~
ubernostrum
Recalling from what I was told when I went through the interview process at
18F (got to the point of the gigantic "dump your whole life in a massive form"
bit, right after the OPM hack was news, and decided not to do that), the
positions are legally time-limited: it's a two-year contract which can be
renewed once. So maximum of four years in the job, and then you're out.

Also USDS is a bit more "do this mission" style job: basically you're being
dropped into a federal agency to try to turn their tech story around. 18F is
there to promote longer-term change in the model of how the federal government
does technology.

------
bbarn
Is it so hard to believe that one of the biggest tech companies in the country
and the government wouldn't both respect success in the other's organizations?

~~~
azakai
Similar arguments are made when the close ties between the government and say
Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants are discussed. There is a revolving
door there too.

Even the most forgiving interpretation of the facts implies that Google and
Goldman Sachs and other corporations have massive influence in government.
There is no need to posit a conspiracy theory. It's just that the same people
flow back and forth between the government and those corporations, and there
are friendships as well as shared perspectives and ideals, all creating a
close relationship that is highly beneficial to those corporations.

~~~
rtpg
The most forgiving interpretation doesn't imply massive influence at all.

US gov't needs help regulating banks. Employees with experience in finance
will likely have an easier time navigating things. Same argument for tech.

Is it really that shocking that you hire former finance people to regulate the
finance industry? Experience in the domain means knowledge about how things
work. It's the same argument as putting a technical person as PM for a
technical project.

Of course, this doesn't work in the "regulation as punishment" mindset. But
gov't regulators aren't looking to kill banks, they're looking to keep the
economy healthy. Yes, that means working with banks to improve things (see
regulators coordinating the purchase of failed banks by other ones).

Inversely, you are Goldman Sachs. You need help navigating regulation... a guy
with regulation experience sounds good right?

Of course there are potential conflicts of interest to watch out for.

~~~
adrianratnapala
But regulation is supposed to provide an impartial set of rules that defines
how people go about their buisness fairly.

One of the great criticisms of regulation is that incumbents with access to
government can influence the rules to favour themselves and avoid competition.
Having employees of particular large companies work as beaurocrats encourages
this, especially if they return to those companies.

In it's early phase -- such as with these googlers in the US gov, the
revolving door brings dynamism. But over time it brings stagnation because
parties have an interest in making current practice the only thing allowed.

------
traek
The "Google Transparency Project" [1] seems like a deliberately misleading
name. They're not at all associated with Google yet they're going as far as
using Google's logo in their logo. I wonder how legal that is, and if Google's
comms team is aware of them.

[1]
[http://googletransparencyproject.org/](http://googletransparencyproject.org/)

~~~
gedrap
And a color scheme somewhat similar to Google's. Well, there's "Campaign for
Accountability" logo in the header, however, it's probably still a bit too
deceiving than it should be.

------
koluft
Is "Google employee leaves Google and gets job in Executive Branch" a
"revolving door"? Even when the job is technical not policy?

~~~
hueving
Most of the examples in the article are non-technical. High level advisory
roles for policy advise.

~~~
Godel_unicode
I don't really understand why having people who know about technology advise
in the creation of technology policy and strategy is a bad thing.

~~~
jokero
maybe because of how they use this 'force' to keep themself at the top or to
make life better.

------
CPAhem
US News did a good report on this a few weeks ago:
[http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-
is-...](http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-
worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated)

------
ivanca
...just like thousands of people on every industry does:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I](https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I)

If you didn't want this to happen perhaps you should make it illegal?

~~~
enneff
And then there would be a bunch of unqualified and inexperienced people
working for the government.

------
doctorpangloss
Google has a huge number of interactions with regulations. Whether or not
there is a revolving door ought to be orthogonal to your opinion on whether or
not Google is in the right on many of its legal positions.

Like many other companies, Google uses the Double Irish to minimize its tax
bill. Assuming the law were updated to affect all Double Irish users equally
(like to e.g. Facebook), do you think we should prevent such tax evasion? The
answer seems to me obviously yes, regardless of your political persuasion.
Clearly lobbying must have some impact on its favorable tax treatment.

In a manner of bundling similar to other tech companies, Google promoted
Chrome on www.google.com. It seems reasonable to describe that promotion as
using its dominance in the search market to become dominant in the browser
market. Likewise, its complex deal with Android manufacturers results in
Google Search (among other applications) being the default on their phones.
The EU is in the process of sanctioning Google for the later. Supposing the
spirit of anti-trust law were applied equally to application bundlers (like to
e.g., Apple), do you think we should prevent such bundling from occurring? The
answer to me seems to be yes: I think unbundling software makes the software
ecosystem healthier and more innovative. Clearly lobbying in the U.S. must
have some impact on its favorable anti-trust treatment versus the E.U.

Like few other funnels, Google monetizes content in ways that minimize the
value to the producer. This could mean monetizing copyrighted material, like
searches that lead to movie torrents or whole copies hosted on YouTube. Or its
dominant place in search makes previously subscription-only newspapers have to
go free on-the-web, because news cannot be copyrighted and anyone can read an
NYTimes article and write a free (but plagiarized) destination for search
results. How much value should go to producers, and to the extent that it
extracts a rent from the transaction, should Google be the entity that
transfers the value from the producer to the consumer? The answer to this
question isn't obvious. But Google has won a complex set of legal victories,
like the Google Books Search settlement lawsuit and lawsuits by newspaper
publishers around the world. It's likely, though not as clear, that its
extensive relationship with government (and for that matter, consumers) has
earned it a favorable view of its rent extraction from producers.

The controversy ought not to be the revolving door. You would have to be a
real blowhard to believe that Google doesn't receive favorable treatment from
the government. Furthermore, you should be allowed to campaign against
Google's favorable treatment without simultaneously campaigning against Apple,
Facebook, and all of corporate America.

Instead, I think the controversy should be whether or not you actually think
Google is in the right on these matters.

------
transfire
I remember when Google had basically pledged to stay out of politics. Then the
Government sued them. You see, when you've got that kind of money, politicians
don't allow you not to bribe them.

------
qaq
This is horrible where will all the GS guys go now?

------
cjrjfufjdvfhz
You don't get to be one of the largest corporations in the world without co-
opting the government in your favor. This is exactly what ancaps are missing.

~~~
hahla
Ancaps really? I'm sure Google is co-opting with the government in some sense,
but you obviously have to at that scale, but what kind of tin foil hat do you
need to start believing ancaps are missing.

~~~
mintplant
I believe cjrjfufjdvfhz is not saying that ancaps are involved in some sort of
scheme but rather that anarcho-capitalist ideology is deficient in that it
does not take this idea into account ("You don't get to be one of the largest
corporations in the world without co-opting the government in your favor").

~~~
webXL
Not sure I understand. Is the goal to produce the world's largest company or
to offer value to consumers as a whole? (com-pet-i-tive-ly and _fair_ ly?)

------
sxcurry
I wonder what the Google Transparency Project "poured" over the data?

------
known
Sounds like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World)

