

Google fires employee who leaked memo on raises - variety
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/google-fires-employee-who-leaked-raise-memo_n_781941.html

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throwaway1675
I work at Google, and I am _really happy_ that someone got punished for
leaking this memo. A firing like this increases accountability and shows that
loyalty and keeping confidentiality mean something. When it is done fairly and
with cause, firing an employee can make a huge positive difference in an
organization. The best situation is where a problem employee who was lowering
the morale of others is fired.

~~~
loewenskind
You sound really naive and honestly it might do _you_ good to get fired so you
learn a simple life lesson: Google is a company that only exists to make
money. That's its sole purpose. It's not your friend, it's not your family.
You don't work their because they enjoy your company. You work there because
the right people assume that you provide more value than your salary costs
(i.e. they make a profit on their exchange with you). You need to grow past
this "loyalty" nonsense.

It's true that I wouldn't personally go releasing information like this, but
that's because I can make more money if I'm known as someone who doesn't air
company laundry, not because of some misplaced and immature sense of
"loyalty".

Ironically, the leak probably _helped_ Google as some good talent out there
never gave them a second look because they have a reputation of not being
competitive with their salaries. They make billions so there is no valid
excuse for paying less than places who only make hundreds of millions.

~~~
throwaway1675
This is clearly flame bait / troll comment, but I would like to make a comment
to rebut the central point, namely that personal relationships somehow "do not
matter" or are purely exploitative at organizations.

First, I've found that one's work experience is dependent to a huge degree on
the direct manager. If your manager is an asshole, you will hate your job. If
you don't get along with your manager, you will dislike your job. If your
manager does not care about you, you will dislike your job. If you work at an
enlightened organization, you may be able to raise the issue up the chain with
your manger's manager and apply for a transfer. Otherwise it is best to find
another job.

That was the practical angle. Here is the theoretical one: if you call "social
capital" the propensity of employees to form relationships, care about each
other, and be loyal to each other, then the argument put forth is that low
social capital corporations will somehow be better adapted than high social
capital ones and will push them out of existence Darwin-like. This simply
hasn't happened - Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple are all examples of
places that by and large treat their employees fairly. I've heard that Oracle
is more "cut throat" but I don't really know what that means in practice and
have never worked there. Oracle does, however, seem to suffer from Ellison's
weirdness. Just as there is a market in employee salaries there is also a
market in corporate culture - a company that is not nice is not going to
attract top talent. I have never heard that Oracle has attracted a substantial
number of top-notch engineers.

On a personal level, it is always advantageous to be friendly, nice,
respectful, and take everything in stride because it wins you friends and lets
you do things like get other companies to hire you, a process which increases
your market value as an employee. It is also completely free.

Keep in mind that this is specific to large tech companies - other sectors
like Finance and Sales are going to obey their own cultural trends which may
be more selfish and greedy. The start-up sector tends to attract and encourage
a rather different breed, but the conditions are also completely different
from a traditional corporate environment, so different personality
characteristics will be adaptive.

~~~
loewenskind
>This is clearly flame bait / troll comment

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm trying to get you to take off your rose-
colored glasses to save you from some real heart break down the road. Believe
me.

>namely that personal relationships somehow "do not matter" or are purely
exploitative at organizations.

Relationships can matter up to a point, but if your company took a hit in the
market and has to shed 30% of its human resources your relationship _is not
going to matter_. It can't, the company is trying to survive. And this goes
double for a public company, it's basically _illegal_ for them to value your
friendship over their bottom line.

>First, I've found that one's work experience is dependent to a huge degree on
the direct manager.

Fair enough.

>This simply hasn't happened - Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple are all
examples of places that by and large treat their employees fairly.

The question is vastly more complex than that. For one thing, the
aggressiveness of a company is going to depend on the market their in. You'll
have the worst experience in retail because they have such tight margins.

For another thing, how do you figure they treat their employees "fairly"?
"Fair" is a difficult thing to pin down, but if we look at some knowns: Google
makes billions in _profit_. Google pays under market rate for developers
because "but you'll be working at Google! GOOGLE!". Now if you could provide
some citation that shows that Google employees end up making more money at
their next company _on average_ because of this situation then I would find it
less unfair/exploitative, but I doubt you can.

>a company that is not nice is not going to attract top talent.

Not to nit pick, but the last company I worked at thoroughly debunked this
idea. The devs were very high end and the management was horrendously bad but
it was a hedge fund paying nearly double market rate in total compensation
(i.e. most of the money came in bonuses which could be as much as double your
salary).

>On a personal level, it is always advantageous to be friendly, nice,
respectful, and take everything in stride because it wins you friends and lets
you do things like get other companies to hire you, a process which increases
your market value as an employee.

Of course. I've liked most everyone I've ever worked with, and I think most
people I've worked with have liked me. I form friendship, etc. I just know
what my relationship with the company is. As long as I'm good value, they'll
keep me around. I view them the same way. I like the people but if I find a
better deal [1], well, it's nothing personal, just business.

>The start-up sector tends to attract and encourage a rather different breed,
but the conditions are also completely different from a traditional corporate
environment, so different personality characteristics will be adaptive.

This site gives the impression that the start up culture is much more greedy.
Most people appear to create a startup to get rich. Fair enough, but they also
seem to want employees who will pull insane hours and cost nearly nothing. All
this for an idea that probably wont pan out and even if it did, what kind of
equity would they get for so much effort? If the startup tanks it doesn't even
look that good on a resume.

[1] And by better deal, I mean overall. Making twice as much money but doing
boring monotonous and stressful work wouldn't be a good long term trade off
for me. I currently make enough that I don't have to make those kinds of
sacrifices.

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ajaimk
Honestly, I'd fire an employee who leaks a memo out. Not for doing it. But for
being stupid enough to get caught.

~~~
variety
Also, the fact that they _didn't_ hide their tracks indicates that they most
likely aware completely unaware that they might be causing any harm to the
company.

A lapse in judgement, maybe -- but if so, the appropriate response would be a
private reprimand, not a bullet to the head.

Especially considering that no conceivable harm has come to Google as a result
of this leaking, and that it's impossible to keep news like this secret in the
Valley, anyway.

~~~
ktsmith
The memo says: CONFIDENTIAL: INTERNAL ONLY GOOGLERS ONLY (FULL TIME AND PART
TIME EMPLOYEES) right at the top.

When an employee starts working at google they go to orientation where they
get briefed on a lot of things about the company, fill out HR paperwork etc.
One of the documents they get and one of the discussions they have is how you
don't release confidential information of the companies or its clients.

I don't see how it's possible to go through employee orientation and not know
that releasing a document that says "INTERNAL ONLY" would be a terminable
offense.

~~~
pyre
That may be true, but strategically, the information in the memo was good
press for Google, and the firing of the employee for leaking it is bad press
for Google.

~~~
ktsmith
If I believe the media that this leaked memo might bring attention from the
DoJ back onto Google over the anti poaching agreements then the leak and it's
contents are bad news.

If I'm trusting Google with my data then the termination of the employee for
violating their code of conduct could absolutely be viewed as good news.

Any of this being good or bad is completely dependent your view point and how
it might affect you. If I'm a shareholder I'm glad the employee is gone and
not necessarily happy that the DoJ might take a closer look at the company or
estimated billion dollars this will cost each year. If I'm a potential Google
employee I'm probably a little bit wary about the termination and glad that
they are paying more competitive salaries but potentially disappointed that
future bonuses will be reduced.

------
kragen
Silicon Valley owes much of its existence to people sharing information
between companies: at the Homebrew Computer Club, at Hackers, at First
Tuesdays, at user groups, on tours, at parties, in lectures. Some of that
sharing was officially sanctioned, and some of it was not. It's a special part
of its culture, and I think accounts for much of its innovation. Apple has
always been an exception.

Google grew up in the shadow of much bigger, better-funded competitors:
Microsoft, then later Yahoo. I speculate, without having asked anybody, that
this accounts for the culture of fanatical secrecy, outstripping even that of
Apple, that has enveloped the company since its early days, and which I think
now is a permanent part of Google's culture, even though the bigger, better-
funded competitors are now the underdogs, unable to execute.

This firing is a symptom of that tradition of secrecy.

I fear that the next half-century of the Valley will be poisoned by this,
because Google is today's Fairchild, Mountain View's Microsoft. Every new
startup will be backed by Googlers or Xooglers, founded by Xooglers, or at
least advised by [GX]ooglers. So this poisonous culture of secrecy, which
kills innovation, will fill the Valley like a vile miasma, along with the many
wonderful things that come from Google experience.

~~~
gregable
This may all be true, but the particular example we are discussing does not
support your point. I don't see how whether or not another company knows who
received raises has an rats ass to do with innovation.

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tszming
Google is going to fire the employee who leaked the firing.

~~~
rdtsc
... all in a determined effort to increase employee morale.

~~~
sp332
Sometimes, to raise morale, you just have to fire all the unhappy people.

~~~
pyre
That strategy works best when the firings cause previously happy people to
become unhappy.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I never thought of Dwarf Fortress as management training before, though I
probably should have.

<http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Tantrum>

------
mmastrac
Is Google using some subtle permutation on every version of the email sent
out?

All it would take would be swapping "--" for "...", "ie"/"i.e."/"eg"/"e.g."
You should probably compare your local copy of an email with someone else
before leaking it!

~~~
olalonde
I doubt there are 23,300 possible permutations. Moreover, I doubt a Googler
wouldn't think of this classic before leaking his e-mail. Any other theory?
Perhaps no one was fired and it's just link bait?

~~~
alextgordon
Assuming a worst case of two possibilities for each difference, that comes out
as ceil(log_2(23300)) = 15 differences necessary. You could easily get that by
swapping out words for synonyms (especially if you use more than two synonyms
per difference).

~~~
gojomo
Don't forget unicode homoglyphs, as well.

And even if a journalist trimmed whitespace when formatting for publication,
they might not have if forwarding back to a Google rep 'for comment'.

------
variety
Talk about carrots on a stick.

What underscores the utter ruthlessness of Google's actions is that it's
impossible to imagine that the leaker meant any harm at all coming to Google
from their what they did. If anything, they were probably nothing if not
deeply proud of Google in that moment; and giddily euphoric -- and thought it
could only _help_ Google for the world at large to know of its generosity to
its employees.

Had they only known.

~~~
tedunangst
It's hard to imagine what harm would be caused by waiting a day to leak the
memo, except for the missed opportunity for the leaker to be the hero. The
timing would indicate the leaker's motive was not "hey, our PR department
keeps sitting on this awesome news."

------
nspiegelberg
Good thing Google took a hard stance on data protectionism! Wait, where have I
heard about data protectionism again?

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/facebook-slaps-google-
openn...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/facebook-slaps-google-openness-
doesnt-mean-being-open-when-its-convenient/)

------
jpwagner
So was there really an ad smack in the middle of the email?

~~~
staktrace
Didn't they just redo the AdSense interface? Maybe you can bid for ads on
internal memos now.

------
joshu
Or maybe they announced that they dis it just to keep people from doing it in
the future.

Not like someone is going to stand up and say that they weren't caught (or at
least not till they leave their jobs.)

------
patrickgzill
He probably used his Gmail account ...

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mfukar
So, to summarize: Google managed to appear more intimidating to any and all
its competitors (by giving everyone a 10% raise) and fuck up its public image,
all in two days.

Zuckerberg must be laughing his ass off right now.

~~~
blueben
You think Facebook wouldn't fire an employee who leaked confidential internal
company information?

~~~
mfukar
No, but it's irrelevant anyway. Google should've fired the guy (gal?) anyway,
but it's publicized as well. That, in anybody's eyes, shows a greater lack of
professionalism and company adherence to confidentiality than leaking a
(positive!) memo.

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krishna2
Hmm..If only Yahoo had followed (or would follow) such a procedure!

[there used to be confidential VP-only meetings and information and that would
also somehow end up on blogs..imagine that].

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seldo
I just don't understand why they would care that this information leaked. It's
not like they could possibly keep it a secret that every single Googler got a
10% raise at the same time.

~~~
robryan
Sets a bad precedent, that it's okay just to forward any confidential memos
on.

------
JoachimSchipper
Does anyone know if the leaker got paid for revealing this memo? If so, I have
little sympathy...

------
johnyzee
Way to destroy the goodwill you just spent millions of dollars on.

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bretthellman
wait a sec... Is it really a 10% raise? "we're moving a portion of your bonus
into your base salary"

~~~
gvb
The bonus to base salary is an additional change. The 10% raise is discussed
in the previous paragraph, and then the bonus change is in the next paragraph,
starting with "There's more."

------
known
Do no evil.

------
InclinedPlane
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been
sacked.

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aneth
If they didn't take action, then "CONFIDENTIAL: INTERNAL ONLY GOOGLERS ONLY
(FULL TIME AND PART TIME EMPLOYEES)" would turn into a joke. Now people might
listen - or at least leak more carefully.

~~~
mkarmac
A somewhat classier, less-heavy-handed approach would have been to simply not
give that employee a raise.

~~~
roel_v
Would that have made the headlines? If not, it wouldn't have the same effect.

~~~
Gianteye
It would have made the headlines if a google rep gave boingboing or IO9 a
brief interview saying "we are not evil, but no one messes with the google."

