Google (and, really, all of Northern California) has been actively courting these high-minded idealists for a long time. The problem with these types of people is that they invent windmills to tilt at when they run out.

To me it looks like that while the high-minded idealists remained mostly the same, it's Google that transformed itself into something completely different from what it was the early days. It should be noted that in 2005, when this guy joined Google, both Android and the acquisition of Doubleclick were at least 2 years away. Google execs were probably already planning the move into an advertising and spyware behenoth back then, but I'm pretty sure the lower "cogs" like any freshly hired techie, wouldn't know that for quite some time.

The problem with these types of people is that they actually care about more than the paycheck. ;)

Didn't seem to care about more than a paycheck until they'd collected a big one for 15 years. Idealism is easy when there's no risk involved.

Now you're idealizing struggle. It's easier (doesn't mean easy) to influence a group from the inside than from the outside. Quitting Google to avoid its money would be just a nonsensical self-sacrifice.

Why the hate towards someone who is talking about their experiences at Google?

Do I sense jealousy?

Maybe they believed they could make it a better company from the inside, and have finally given up?

If everybody good runs, whats left is no good.

Google has done more good than a lot of companies. Go compare it to Palantir etc.

There was a time where the search ad economy was such a great idea and a net benefit to society, and you could hire idealists to do the right things because hey some of them might end up being win-wins for both the business and society (See: Google Maps, Gmail, News, Android). Now though, the scale has shifted much more towards just squeezing all the juice out of the ad and data economy and keeping competitors out. There's not enough large-scale win-wins. This started when the self-driving car projects started really petering out. Innovation, real innovation in both products and also business plans has slowed down, at least within the big companies.

So where are these idealists supposed to go? Well, imo, on measure they've got PLENTY OF MONEY NOW, so they can and should go IMPROVE SOCIETY. Sure, some can stay within Google to try to hold up the barricade against capitalism and investor demands, but everyone knows the barricade will fall sooner rather than later. Like the original post's blog - thats what those people should be doing.

My thoughts exactly, this kind of thinking is really common among google employees. They think leaving is some “event”, it needs massive justification, a blog post, and manifesto to the world. I’ve seen this among friends that work there

There's a consistent narrative that people join Google to make the world a better place, and that Googlers keep the working culture bright and not evil. These exposes are about challenging that pre-built image.

To be fair Google did downgrade their "do not evil" value to "it is possible to conduct business without being evil" but it's fair to be reminded of all the evil they do do that led them to downgrade themselves in their own estimation.

I think it is some event, but the importance scales depending on your distance to it. I have had coworkers whose departure was a major shakeup to me and my life. More distant coworkers have provoked some thoughts. The departure of someone at another firm usually has no relevance to the general public.

I think it is reasonable to make a statement, but wonder who the target audience was in this case.

They probably see leaving as being excommunicated from a huge social circle that they value greatly.

If you leave because of principles, it may be useful to others to explain your position.

If you don't like content, great, move on. No need to make a big deal about it. It's just a web page.

Who is making a big deal about it? It’s a Tweet-sized comment...

Bruce makes the excellent point that it's not just a company. It's a Fortune 50 with a reach to touch a couple billion users, the technical competency and contacts to make decisions that impact the future of humanity, and is undergoing a significant cultural shift from the kind of company it is perceived to be by past reputation.

If one finds oneself in such a circumstance, it's a correct thing to do to speak out about it.

All the more reason to be glad when said company tilts away from the sort of fringe ideological positions described in TFA. A fortune 50 company shouldn’t be driving extreme positions; if you disagree, consider if they were driving extreme positions antithetical to your own.

Is "Don't fire labor agitators" an extreme position? I'm pretty sure it's actually the law.

One could, perhaps, consider "Don't stumble blindly into improving the technology used for automated weapons" an extreme position in the US, but given that it's the country that brought us the atomic bomb, perhaps it is the correct extreme position to take.

> Impact the future of humanity

If Google disappeared off the face of the earth, every system, server, and employee, mitigations would be in place by the end of the week - and a year later it would be like nothing ever changed.

Let's not overvalue an adserver, free email, etc. These services are important but never life defining outside of the relatively small number of people they have made RICH.

This is like saying the President of the United States has no effect on the country because the person in office is replaced within the span of a day every four or eight years.

> the President of the United States has no effect on the country

Thats not remotely analogous as the point is about the effects of the magical disappearance of google on humanity. Your analogy wouldnt be how the disappearance of a PotUS would not cripple the US, as that contradicts your view...which I have difficulty grasping.

My point is to not judge an entity's power by what would happen if they didn't exist, but what happens because they exist. Google doesn't act the way it does because there's a universal law dictating a Google-like entity must exist and must act that way. Google is made of people, and all of its actions can be traced to one or more of the people in Google.

The sudden disappearance of the POTUS is backstopped immediately by the existence of a Vice President.

The sudden disappearance of Gmail would be significantly more catastrophic to communication online (though it would certainly be sorted out in a short amount of time as people sneaker-netted new communication addresses out and re-established the broken lines of communication).

It is, and it would also be accurate. Many things Obama did have been undone in less than 3 years, and the same will happen after Trump leaves.

Trump leaving won't resurrect the children who died in ICE custody anymore than Obama leaving resurrected the wedding party that got hit with a drone-launched smart munition, but this sub-thread feels like a digression from the topic.

I'm speaking more about the work moving forward. Search has fundamentally changed the way the world operates. How does China's government process look if backed by the talent of Google engineers for finding information?

It seems to me that "I work for Google" is the new "I'm a member of Mensa" or "I went to Harvard."

Only if their intention is to talk about how useless Mensa is and to break the fetishization of being a member of this club.

I'd probably read an article by a ex member of mensa that wrote that.

Arguing vociferously about how that "wasn't such a big deal" would make me wonder what ax you had to grind with people who talk shit about mensa.

Exactly. I'm a little surprised at the size of the immediate and vicious reaction. There's more that people aren't saying besides "Google isn't that special".

And working for Google hasn't been fetishized?

It is. That's the point. Read again.

I'd like to hire you for "just a job". I'm gonna make a big deal about how my company is "morally good" and "does no evil". Hitman OK? No? How about I hire you for janitorial duties at first, and slowly transition you to the death squad duties over 10 years? Don't quit, it's "just a job".

Given that, at Google, he only went from a Network Engineer [2005] to SRE [2020], I don't think you can call that moving to defense contracting, especially as a SRE for the Ad Serving platform.

I think you are reading way too much into my satirical critique about the terrible "just a job" mindset (avoiding the obvious "I was just doing my job carrying out the Holocaust" analogy), which as a generally independent critique can stand on its own legs without needing to be specifically applied to the current scenario at hand.

To really clarify this, I made the exemplary initial job "janitorial duties".

While I approve with the general direction of your comment, I think that characterizing Google merely as "a company" is disingenuous. Obviously it was not "just a job" for those who resigned.

There is nothing that I do at my job that could potentially disrupt the live of many; hence I don't feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility.

Now if I would be part of an enterprise whose name is said, typed or thought by billions every day, yeah maybe my sense of responsibility would be heighten and yes, maybe I would think it warrant a greater tribune or more sensational language.

Overall, that the essay was quite constructive, no?

Quitting in protest really requires you to do it somewhat publicly if you want to maximize its impact. Losing one employee has some, but not much impact. But the publicity destroys a lot of goodwill among prospective employees and the general public, and might serve as an example for others (both at Google as well as others).

Besides, the protests over the last year or so have always attracted dozens of why-dont-you-quit-hot takes on HN, and seems only fair to let people know when their demands are met.

Did you read the post all the way through the concerns about supporting oil and gas industry, delaying of renewable development, comparisons with IBM and the Holocaust, drone warfare and military technologies? Regardless of how accurate those comparisons are or are not, if they are sincerely held by the author, are they not good reasons to make a big deal of things?

If they aren’t, what is?

It is extremely self important. The fact that so many people with these proclivities have gravitated to Google can not be a good thing. I have to imagine Google HR is not too troubled by shedding noisy moralizers within their ranks.

Google spent decades selecting for these "moralizers" and is now reaping what it sowed; "don't be evil" was a cultural slogan that carries consequences if it attracts a particular kind of mindset.

And in a few cases, yeah; HR is shitting bricks because it's losing people who built the underlying fabric of the system (which anyone who has built a large system will tell you increases risk to the entire software company; they're pretty sure the exiting employee has written down all the mission-critical knowledge of how to operate the system riding around in their head, and Google has a corporate culture of minimizing the "bus factor" of key systems, but there's always a risk that the next time something significant catches fire, the employee with 1.5 decades of experience who just walked out the door is the one who could have fixed it fastest).

It'll be interesting to see if quality of product suffers (i.e. if there was actually correlation between technical competence and a care about the fate of the world and fellow employees).

>Google spent decades selecting for these "moralizers" and is now reaping what it sowed; "don't be evil" was a cultural slogan that carries consequences if it attracts a particular kind of mindset.

And apparently that mindset drove an enormous amount of profit and, at least in the beginning, gave the company some sort of social conscience.

It's amazing that you can be so against these things

If that last sentence was directed at me, I fail to see what you've perceived me to be against. I'm in favor of people who may feel they were sold a false bill of goods when they joined re-evaluating their position and either fighting internally to change the direction the ship is steering or leaving the company if they don't see the direction as changeable.

How is it anymore “self important” than any other blogger or internet commenter talking about climate change or human rights?

Why are you calling “caring about people” a “proclivity” as if it was distasteful compared to the pure and high minded pursuit of profit at all costs?

A lot of people on hacker news get threatened by collective action. This is understandable, given the number of employers, wannabe employers and people with large portfolios who frequent this site.

This is kind of why I expected some people to make a big deal out of how this isn't a big deal. Tech unionisation is genuinely threatening to many here and this Google walkout stuff is a potential sign of things to come in this industry.