Sundar Pichai had to deal with dozens of Google Employees who were away on holiday visiting family who were being blocked by Trump's executive order from returning to the country, like a dual-nationality Canadian/Iranian scientist.

Did it ever occur to you that in a company with a huge immigrant population, or 2nd generation immigrants with family, many of whom were impacted by this wave of xenophobia and nationalism in this last election, that they felt under attack? That people who immigrated here and fell in love with America, suddenly were shocked into reality when they discover that so many of their fellow Americans were easily manipulated by the politics of Steve Bannon into voting for xenophobia and scapegoating?

Damn right people were legitimately upset at the social fabric coming undone.

Then run for office. But it's Google, not Congress, and taking company time (and how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of productivity?) to whine about the outcome of an election seems at best a horrendous waste of resources, especially when it's likely 80% or more of the room agrees with you or is indifferent.

So Trump is objectively bad and it's important for business executives and higher-ups to openly acknowledge this. In the workplace. Got it.

Since this is a Bay Area Tech Company Bashing Thread, let's throw in a Texas Oil Company perspective, from the Obama era

1. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "working with the Saudis" to "tank oil prices locally."

2. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "forcing premiums up for the contractor's insurance."

3. Complaints about liberals in general for "forcing us to have men in our girls restrooms" despite the fact that this never happened. General complaints about how it'll be impossible to get an oil platform bathroom in line with "retarded liberal standards."

4. Complaints from engineers making 250/k/year untaxed in the UAE about all the "damn Indians" taking jobs from hardworking Americans. General blaming of the Democrats.

5. Directions from management to not submit resumes with "foreign" last names.

6. Refusal on the part of a major EPC engineering manager to hire the perfect candidate for the job because he was Mexican origin (US citizen via green card route), despite the fact that he had unsuccessfully searched for a good candidate for 3 months.

So let's not pretend that politics don't invade business.

Despite the fact that all of these are uncited, how are engineers making $250k/yr untaxed in the UAE? Americans still need to pay income tax on income earned overseas. And if you know someone refused to hire a candidate because of their ethnic background, I'm assuming you blew the whistle and got them fired? The candidate certainly has a case and has a lot of money coming their way.

UAE didn't tax them, and they didn't report their income back home.

If I blew the whistle, there would be no evidence to support my claim, I'd lose my job, my recruitment firm would permanently be blacklisted by the EPC, there would be no repercussions for the EPC manager, and the world would continue along. I did refuse to work the position after that, but it's not like a recruiter is going to "solve racism in Texas." I do that on my own time, outside of work.

EDIT: Yes, hearsay internet stories, just like the OP that started this thread. Grain of salt and all that.

I think the argument being made is that Trump being elected president immediately and negatively affected business; therefor, it was a business decision to acknowledge the negative impacts his presidency had on business.

What if the result of an election hinders their ability to be successful and create a good work place?

I think there is a fair debate to be had about where the line should be drawn, but pretending that politics doesn't exist if you don't talk about it is deluded.

For example, Google employs a good number of immigrants. After the election many of them would have been worried about their future in the country. Wouldn't a good workplace try to address those concerns?

It is still not appropriate to complain (or rather cry...) about in a professional setting, imo. How can you expect to have confidence in an executive when they put on an act like that? Nothing says "I don't know what to do" more.

Yes, you are now facing some additional hardships in your job of creating a good workplace where employees can succeed. Those concerns should be addressed within the scope of what the company can or cannot do.

It seems like priorities would shift into protecting immigrant employees and that's okay - that is a hardship that the position entails and is something that should've been addressed long in advance as immigration reform was and probably always will be a controversial topic in the USA.

That's just your uninformed opinion then. Showing empathy is also a great quality in a leader. You weren't there, so how can you judge?

But all elections have winners and losers in the business sphere. In prev admins, nuclear power lost, arguably coal lost, telecomms reg. so are saying it's okay to complain loudly (rather than lobby) about the changes in a political manner?

Still no need to cry. One day after the election there is no way to tell for sure what will happen.

For those who were paying attention it was pretty clear what was happening...

You might consider a career in policy or finance. Those guys are desperate for people with such knowledge about the future.

Haha, by pay attention I mean pay attention to what Trump was saying when he was off script at his rallies and such. If you only heard him talk through scripted speeches/prepared debates and soundbites from the media you were getting a very different impression of Trump than how he actually is.

It was pretty clear who we had elected; a narcissistic and selfish dick with no self control who was willing to do anything to make himself look good.

Why not? When the election is making their company have a difficult time becoming a more successful work place? I think it's a company, people can say what they like, if Google doesn't like it as a whole, they can fire said employee.

They have all the tools to make their company a better place no matter who is elected. Complaining is just a cheap way to excuse not doing anything.

The purpose is Google's company wide meetings with the executives is not for the Executives to complain, but for the employees to complain and the executives to respond with a plan of action.

In the meeting in question, employees were asking Google how they're going to help stranded employees, how Google is going to protect them, how they can still travel outside the US if their job requires it (e.g. You're a British/Iranian citizen)

Google executives did not get up on stage and given an anti-Trump rant. In fact, as far as I recall, they've never directly insulted Trump the way you can see in major news media, because who wants to make an enemy of the US government and what use would it be to give a political speech? What they did is respond to the concerns of employees, and some of them are immigrants, and got a little choked up with emotion in their voice, because they were shocked too.

My extended family has a lot of first generation immigrants. None of them understand American racism and xenophobia like a native, and they thought it was just focused on Mexicans. The travel bans were the first hammer, the attacks on legal immigration (greencards and bringing family members), Bannon's "There's too many Asian CEOS" hail back to the attitudes of the Chinese exclusion act, and finally Charlottesville, all show the danger of playing around with xenophobia. It doesn't stay contained the way you think, and many educated, elite immigrants were suddenly shocked that they might be affected too.

I'd say their access to the White House would be considered one of those tools. The removal of which could give cause for upset.

https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white...

Nobody is arguing Google's right to express political opinions, but the fact that their culture does so is counterproductive to a meritocratic structure. They seem to be more concerned about virtue signalling than creating an environment that focuses on professional and economic growth.

It's like the culture was shaped by having a "Don't Be Evil" motto or something.

(Also, it's interesting that you separate politics and meritocratic structure. It is by politics that the things that are merit-worthy are decided---you can be the best developer in the world, but if you're developing the wrong thing, you're not adding value).

Executives are people at the end of the day, they will have emotions and feelings (hopefully).

I'd hazard a guess it wasn't the fact a Republican won, rather than who won. However that is total conjecture on my part.

Most people who dislike Trump don't dislike him because he's Republican, most don't even believe he's a true Republican, or conservative, or evangelical. He was a New York Democrat in the past, supported gun control, abortion, etc, therefore his ideological core is questionable to say the least.

What people dislike, beyond the sheer incompetence and pathological lying and bragging, is a tendency to play to the worst aspects of the crowd, for narcissistic reasons. That is, people are upset because they believe Trump is a person who will stoke up division for no reason other than it gets applause and attention, and often, the "heel" in WWE Wrestling parlance that Trump uses turns out to be the least powerful.

Agreed, my comment was intended to reflect your statement exactly. It's the fact someone so abhorrent with no respect for anything other than himself is in charge.

I agree that executives are people, but we regard lots of normal, human behaviors as "unprofessional", and our standards for professionalism are traditionally higher for higher ranking employees. In particular, I think there's already a lot of negative misinformation circulating about conservatives generally and Trump supporters specifically (mind you, I'm neither), and no one is helped by executives propping up these rumors.

In what way did the executives "prop up rumors"? They were responding to employees and their families who got trapped outside the country by the travel ban executive order. What's rumor about that?

I was speaking generally, as was the post to which I responded. I don't know the particulars of the Google executives' comments.

What is considered 'professional' today might not be tomorrow. I for one would welcome more genuine personality in the corporate world and can think of many things I'd like to see become considered acceptable.

Maybe, but that's inconsistent with the demands for greater professionalism and accountability that we've seen our society place on executives and other authority figures in recent years. Notably, any comment that can be remotely perceived as questioning the progressive narrative is equivalent to violence, white supremacy, Nazism, etc. I care less whether we expect greater or lesser professionalism from executives so long as "professionalism" isn't a partisan proxy war.

I remember many executives complaining about Obama being elected. Hell, I remember many telling their employees they had to vote against him otherwise they could "lose their jobs". (In the metaphorical sense, not that the executive would find out who they voted for and fire them).

If this happened, that's bad and it should be stopped, the same as in this election. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a politician to say "politician X supports policy Y which will negatively impact our profit by $Z".

And That Is Also Wrong.

Do you support overturning Citizen's United? Because now everything is political, whether we like it or not.