I doubt it hurts very much.

Are the names of these people even public?

I don't think that many companies really do the kind of due diligence for IC positions that would discover someones involvement in a stunt like this, beyond maybe a couple of employee provided reference checks.

Besides, there are plenty of ideologically sympathetic hiring managers in the industry.

These people gave an interview thats on YouTube now with their real names.

Of course it will impact their careers. If there were no consequences then this exercise would prove to be meaningless.

Depends on the employer, question is do you want to work for someone as a mindless robot as they give you a paycheck or for someone that actually takes personal responsibility when things go wrong. At the end of the day most businesses would choose money

Most companies aren't looking to hire adults who think they are still in college and think doing a sit-in in the deans office is important use of their time and an effective tactic. Let alone people getting arrested for trespassing.

Some hiring managers might like their tweets and show support in their personal time but when it comes down to actually hiring them they'll wonder if this person will be disruptive and constantly bring their personal activist life into the workplace, making other employees lives difficult, lack self control and say the wrong thing to customers, etc.

You can belittle them but they literally made national headlines with their actions

Surprisingly we are well aware about Whatsapp groups which surfaced few months ago where executives and other high position holders of tech companies targeted tech works who were just posting on their personal regarding this. Why didn't something like that make national headlines and pushed from more accountability? Easy to point finger at employees when employers have the upper hand

You can make "national headlines" by doing stupid shit too. Just go out and shoot a bunch of people. Boom! National headlines.

It's no secret that companies prefer mindless robots. It's just easier to organize them when they don't have their own opinions.

> they'll wonder if this person will be disruptive and constantly bring their personal activist life into the workplace

Corporations very often take stance on political issues, also when interacting with their own employees. For example all the pride events, which Google is known for. So it's not like these employees started bringing politics to the office, but rather they dared to have their own opinion that the system didn't like.

Well yes it’s true at work the only politics you can espouse are those the company generally agrees with.

If you went to Google campuses and protested gay marriage rights then you probably would be fired too.

Nobody cares until you start making nuisance to everyone around you, impeding their work and life because you care about X.

I dont care about X why do I have to deal with your 'protest'?

People who just want to live their their best lives aren't "mindless robots". One could also characterize a "mindless robot" as someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause that they see in black and white.

If the protesters camped in an execs office for pride and refused to leave, they'd likely also get arrested. It's just that there wouldn't be such a protest in the first place.

Not at all? Some employers think highly of people with principles.

The "principles" on this topic can diverge though depending on position.

As a hiring manager, I personally wouldn't hire any of them.

Not a hiring manager, but I wouldn't either.

You want to have a position on Israel vs. Palestine? That's fine; I think most of us do. You want to advocate for your position? Go for it.

You want to advocate for your position at work, in a way that disrupts work for others? No. Hard pass. I'm running a business, not a platform for your soapbox. And if you did it at your previous place, you're likely to do it at mine.

I don't think I would hire them either, for the same reasons you listed. But I like to play devil's advocate, so here's a different take.

These employees succeeded in identifying the best way to raise awareness, achieving large media coverage and reaching a wider audience than if they had protested outside the workplace. They stuck to their values, even though it meant sacrificing their (I'm assuming) generous compensation.

I think there's some merit to that which would translate to success in other parts of your business, if you were to hire them.

</End devil's advocate>

I'd like to push back on "raising awareness." At this point is anyone in the country not "aware" that there's a war going on? Did anyone wake up today, read the news, and say, "Gosh, I had no idea this was an important issue! Incredible!" More importantly, did this action have even the slightest effect of changing any country's policy or affect the war in any way? It doesn't seem like anything positive, or even material was accomplished here--besides those employees getting fired.

EDIT: Huh--I guess I'm wrong then. I thought this was more well-known than it was.

Of course, but what I wasn't aware of (until today's news) was that Google had signed a 1.2 Billion contract to provide cloud-computing and artificial intelligence services for the Israeli government and military.

Not saying I agree or disagree. Just saying that the protest succeeded in raising awareness.

People may not be aware that Google is helping the Israeli military.

sure, but does it matter in any material way?

Israel or the IDF can buy this anywhere, or even just build it in-house (and there's a huge cost to spending a long time on procurement if someone can get Google to cancel this, but unfortunately it doesn't matter for anyone in Gaza right now)

and while there are a lot of objections to this (why not spend it on something a lot more useful, feeding Google is bad, etc), awareness of this, or even cancelling this does nothing to move the needle on the actual very high-prio issue :/

so all this has a huge cost to them (they lost their jobs, emotional distress) and in the end ends up as performative as Twitter/Mastodon threads :(

This issue is directly related to their work. They aren't "soapboxing" about some random societal issue. Their company is providing services to the Israeli military that are likely being used to target and kill people in huge numbers.

I feel like it might be illegal to discriminate on this.

I dont. Protected classes are very explicit, and disruptive protesters arent one.

You don't need to be a protected class for every job related law to apply.

California for example has special laws about employment discrimination based on political activity.

I won't even write under a throwaway. I don't look up candidates I interview other than on linkedin (which people typically link, so I don't need to search), so I'm unlikely to find out... but if I found out someone was a Hamas mitlaufer... I have many political opinions, e.g. I think communists and nazies are morally equivalent, but I'm pretty sure I'd be able to overlook either affiliation and be fair, cause hey, people might disagree with me.

But Hamas mitlaufer? That's an extra special evil tier. It's like you were advising Tamerlane and the only comment you had was that the skull pyramids didn't look tall enough. If I interview you, there'd definitely be consequences.

I put my opinions on the conflict right on LinkedIn. I'd much rather filter out employers like Google and Meta. There's a million ways to make money, I'd pick the one that doesn't put any blood on my hands. Some people require more courage to move than others; we all have different environments. I'm just glad I'm not in the US and not neck deep in such a mess. We've been wondering if we should just use Chinese tech, but their hands are clean either. I guess we'll make our own one day.