By being there, and in this industry within rounding error of everyone has the choice to go find another job--you've already committed, personally, to responsibilities for some externalities. At Google, they may be considerable, and they may have large echoes.

Personally, I would feel obligated to make right something I did that I thought wasn't good for the world at large.

Relatedly, this is why I pick my employers (and, when consulting, my clients) very carefully.

Thanks. I think I feel similarly. I don’t have direct control over externalities so I try to pick employers with as much consideration as I can.

So I don’t think I am responsible, but do feel guilt or pride based on organization actions. For a historical example, even if I’m not building the slave ships, I wouldn’t want to work on building them. Depending on the particulars I would either try to change the firm to stop this practice, or leave the firm for another job and then use other legal actions to stop this practice.