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New Book Paints Different Picture of Workplace Behavior At Google and Facebook
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: In Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom), Adam Fisher paints quite a different picture of life at now-workforce behavior preachers Google and Facebook, revealing that the tech giants' formative days were filled with the kind of antics that run afoul of HR protocols. Google was not a normal place, begins an excerpt in Vanity Fair that includes some juicy quotes attributed to Google executive chef Charlie Ayers about Google's founders ("Sergey's the Google playboy. He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room. He got around.") And in Sex, Beer, and Coding, Wired runs an excerpt about Facebook's wild early days, which even extended to the artwork gracing its office ("The office was on the second floor, so as you walk in you immediately have to walk up some stairs, and on the big 10-foot-high wall facing you is just this huge buxom woman with enormous breasts wearing this Mad Max-style costume riding a bulldog. It's the most intimidating, totally inappropriate thing. [...] That set a tone for us. A huge-breasted warrior woman riding a bulldog is the first thing you see as you come in the office, so like, get ready for that!" So, what changed? "When Sheryl Sandberg joined the company is when I saw a vast shift in everything in the company," said Ayers about Google. Sandberg later became Facebook's grown-up face.
on ads.
Placing ads and ensuring as many users get to see the ads.
Working with ad customers to find out what they need to know about consumers.
Microphones to allow consumers to ask questions....
Not detecting the NSA and GCHQ deep in networks? Who else followed the NSA and GCHQ in?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
... about a Picasso/Graffiti original depicting a busty comic girl and a cartoon dog, then you should probably leave.
To me the binge drinking contests would've been more off-putting.
I bet dollars to donuts that the stuff that brought Google or Facebook ahead wasn't built by the people who would do binge drinking contests at work. This nonsense is usually done by marketing or community management.
The stuff that brings these companies ahead are built by people who come in, solve the problem, collect their salary and then leave again.
Acting like an asshole is usually done by, well, assholes.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
90% of what is now classified as 'sexually inappropriate' behavior is normal evolutionarily derived behavior. And the vast majority of mentally normal people would ultimately be happier living away from the convents decreed by nuns or their modern day equivalents, women's studies professors.
I expect that James Damore will never see a courtroom with his case against Google. He'll get a big fat pay-off out of court, and Google will make some kind of half apology where they say they did not fire anyone over comments over hiring practices and that they'll never do it again. After that I expect Damore to find work in his own company doing whatever it is he likes to do, and make appearances on TV shows and on the speaking circuit for most anyone that asks. Any other outcome will not be near as good for Google.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
In the very 90s I worked for a few different tech or engineering / services companies and at more than one I learned that the early days of the company were full of similar stories.
I think it had more to do with the nature of an early tech startup combined people with a white collar office setting and sometimes long hours that allowed for social mixing, goofing off, encounters the left people saying 'check the sofa for stains', etc. Add in some corporate success in lines of business that weren't 'mature' to the point of being cut and dry and it was easy to blur the lines, especially with younger people who were not married / didn't have families (though that didn't stop some).
Well, there's the excitement of a roller coaster at Disney Land and the excitement of a mine cart ride a la Indy...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Reasonable people are against random groping.
It heavily depends on what basis you define masculinity, now doesn't it?
At first, only the successful hunter was an alpha male. Then somebody invented religion and suddenly scrawny people could advance to alpha status by being shaman.
Nowadays there are a lot of options. If you can wield influence, you're halfway there. If you have the confidence to do it too, there's little stopping you.
And James Damore has put himself out there. He has argued against the established ways. That takes courage and courage is seen as desirable too.
A lot of people are derisive when it comes to defining masculinity by any other means than money and muscle but that is a very limited position to take.
By comparison, these companies were founded by kids. What exactly did experienced professionals expect?
Those who were not around for the dot-bomb history lesson now know that Entertainment 720 was more documentary than satire.
"Before the Feminists Arrived"
Uh, you mean before lawsuits were paid out.
Feminists have always been there. They didn't have the attention of greedy lawyers before, backed by successful litigation. They do now.
... about a Picasso/Graffiti original depicting a busty comic girl and a cartoon dog, then you should probably leave.
Why? Why should someone have to leave because someone else at the company wants to behave like an unsupervised teenager on a bender? How about just taking down a picture that any sensible adult will see the problem with? Seriously, you don't get why having such a picture posted prominently is unprofessional when it has NOTHING to do with the actual business of the company? Pro tip: If your business isn't art or fashion, then pictures of busty women posted prominently is almost certainly going to be perceived badly by self respecting professional women as well as men with a sense of decency and respect for women. I have a daughter and a wife and they shouldn't have to put up with crap like that at work. A business isn't supposed to operate like a fraternity house.
I bet dollars to donuts that the stuff that brought Google or Facebook ahead wasn't built by the people who would do binge drinking contests at work.
Yes it was. Companies aren't built by engineers alone no matter how much we might wish it to be so nor are engineers above such behavior. 20 seconds on google can find you innumerable examples. Many of these companies were built by young 20-somethings with limited guidance on professional behavior and they behaved like young 20-somethings often do - which is to say like an unsupervised child. There is a reason these company almost always have to bring in an experienced professional to be "the adult in the room".
This nonsense is usually done by marketing or community management.
I'm sure you wish that were actually true. Back here in the real world, engineers party and are often sexist pigs just as often as those in any other profession. Being a talented engineer or any other type of profession is not incompatible with been a juvenile asshat and if you've been around for more than a minute you'll have met quite a few of them.
The stuff that brings these companies ahead are built by people who come in, solve the problem, collect their salary and then leave again.
I think you don't have a lot of experience with real world staffing or you could not possibly believe this. Talk to any HR professional and you'll quickly find out that talent for solving engineering problems has poor correlation with decent behavior. The tone for how a company behaves is set at the top and if the top management is permissive with sketchy behavior then that is what you are going to get. See Uber if you need an example. People can get a lot of quality work done and still find time to be an asshat.
I'd also wager that the people who really built those companies and continue to drive them are a) mostly male, b) mostly white, and c) couldn't give much of a shit about a picture of a big titted chick riding a bulldog (or heavens, they might actually like it).
Probably true. Doesn't mean it is right or that it should be condoned. It also probably means that those companies have some messed up cultural problems that they are still dealing with to this day because being talented does not also mean you aren't an asshat. Ask Harvey Weinstein.
I've found that SJW claims about a company's diversity "needs" rarely have any intersection with recognizing the company's previous success track. If it's success has truly come from hiring 51% women or x% transgender, they'd already be doing it and wouldn't have to keep being told.
You are effectively arguing that people won't be racists or sexists when money is on the table and that is demonstrably not true. Color me unimpressed with your reasoning. Our country has centuries of racial and gender bias which we are still dealing with and which denies opportunities daily to deserving people.
The reason diversity matters is that talented people don't come in a particular gender or skin color. If you are actually hiring the best people, chances are that your company is going to look pretty diverse. But people routinely do not hire the best people - they hire the people they are most comfortable with and who by and large look the most like themselves. When all these people are white, male, and privileged then this tends to become a problem for society as well as for that company.
Admitting wrong-doing out of court would be a disaster for Google, as it would open them up to more lawsuits from both people who agree with Damore and people who quit or lost opportunities because of him.
Since the Labour Board has already given its opinion that Damore was legally fired and the authors of his primary sources have disagreed with his conclusions it appears that Google has a strong case. Thing is, even if he was right it might not actually help him win, because the manner in which the memo was circulated certainly did create a problem at Google and they would argue it was his fault, so he would have to counter-argue that somehow it wasn't.
I'm actually quite looking forward to hearing those arguments.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Looks like a normal dude. I guess you must be quite the hulking caveman yourself?
Found the mind reader.
"Enforce the law or repeal the law, anything else is a mockery of law." Shitty laws deserve mockery?
I expect that James Damore will never see a courtroom with his case against Google. He'll get a big fat pay-off out of court, and Google will make some kind of half apology where they say they did not fire anyone over comments over hiring practices and that they'll never do it again. After that I expect Damore to find work in his own company doing whatever it is he likes to do, and make appearances on TV shows and on the speaking circuit for most anyone that asks. Any other outcome will not be near as good for Google.
I also don't think this will see a courtroom, but for different reasons:
Damore had an at-will employment contract and the US National Labor Relations Board wouldn't take his case (he might have technically withdraw it, but there is enough documentation as to their findings) so I don't believe he has a case, at least not from the angle he's pursuing it.
He has failed to gain enough monetary support, he's seeking $100k but have only received slightly above $50k https://www.fundedjustice.com/... that's not enough to cover his side of the trial (several others have joined his class-action lawsuit and the money is for all of them).
Startups are the kind of place where social liberals thrive. They're really good at generating new ideas, are open to trying new things, and generally aren't good at managing products for the long term.
Big companies run on conservatives. They have processes in place, they get stuff done slowly and surely, and not much new happens. Increasingly, these places are dominated in HR by the neomarxists who are particularly concerned with tribal -dentity thinking.
If you've ever wondered why startups tend to produce new products and then get acquired by big companies that don't, this is the basic explanation. Both types are necessary for the long-term, and it's important that people with the right personality structure wind up in the right work structure as well. Neither type of person will feel comfortable in the opposite work environment.
Really, this is the sort of thing that high schools ought to be measuring, testing, and recommending. And no, we are not talking about politics here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They sell your private data because that is their business model and has been since their breakout in the business world. "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product!"
At first, only the successful hunter was an alpha male.
There were never any alpha males. The whole concept is based on a book about wolves kept in captivity, the findings of which were later retracted by a later book by the same author. Wolves don't behave like that and human beings certainly don't.
The idea of the alpha male hunter is also something of a myth. Hunting is dangerous and physically demanding - it's the sort of thing you get other people to do for you if you can possibly help it. We see this in the animal kingdom a lot, and all through human history.
And James Damore has put himself out there.
Didn't he give the memo only to people he trusted, until it was leaked?
A lot of people are derisive when it comes to defining masculinity by any other means than money and muscle but that is a very limited position to take.
Well, at least we agree on that.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Enforce the law or repeal the law, anything else is a mockery of law." Shitty laws deserve mockery?
They do... from The People. But it's the government's job to create laws that serve society, and not create ones which don't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bulldogs are fucking ugly and that painting is even uglier.
#DeleteFacebook
Only one of the people who contributed to that article was the author of a cited paper, and he said "maybe, maybe not" about Damore's conclusion. Try the article that was published in Wired, which goes into detail about why he is wrong.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
O. Try the article that was published in Wired,
An article in Wired.com is not proof for an argument. Right up there with the Guardian or Vox. They are known for their SJW bias, keeping people like you in a little safe space bubble.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
An article in Wired.com is not proof for an argument. Right up there with the Guardian or Vox. They are known for their SJW bias, keeping people like you in a little safe space bubble.
Your logical fallacy is Ad Hominem. HTH, HAND, precious snowflake!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not white.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Shaman were not religious...they were nerds. Herb/mycilium nerds. They were concerned with harnessing and communicating with the unseen forces of nature in order to cure the litany of ailments plaguing the people.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
He did a writeup for a mailing list that was specifically aimed at the subject.
You are a SJW in search of a villian.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Management elicited the comments he put forth. How is this always forgotten? They were trying to discuss these issues so that they could be confronted. No one can speak to these issues at Google any more--trust is lost.
The cornerstone of effective diversity training hinges on letting everyone say whatever they feel/think to the group and let the group respond without calling people bigots or whatever. They shat on the principle that the discussion was supposedly founded on. Why? Because he, in a round-about and clever way, called Google management dumb communists (I would have to dig up his exact phrase but this gets the point across). He should have resisted the urge.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Agreed. The point of drawing such a discussion is to have someone like Damore present his thoughts in a safe environment where the group can discuss it with him. Perhaps after discussing it with people he would change his mind about some of his opinions and grow as a person. The was the whole purpose of the mailing list that got Damore to write what he did. They gained his trust and burned him at the stake for his views so they could punish him for calling Google management dumb Marxists.
Read the memo.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
There were never any alpha males.
Having lived on planet Earth I can say this is false. And I'm not one of them.
During the 1980s, I remember reading an article in InfoWorld (a magazine about IT for the enterprise - a magazine aimed at managers) in which Steve Jobs describes his first experience with acid.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
The point of drawing such a discussion is to have someone like Damore present his thoughts in a safe environment where the group can discuss it with him.
Work is never a safe environment to discuss such things.
They gained his trust and burned him at the stake for his views so they could punish him for calling Google management dumb Marxists.
No doubt they did. He committed the mistake of putting his ideas down on paper, and someone seized on the opportunity to get rid of him by leaking it. But people who write screeds like that don't only write things. They also do and say things. Given his affiliations, I've no doubt that he regularly said things and acted in ways which would make people want to get rid of him.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"