Google Cloud Executive Who Sought Pentagon Contract Steps Down (nytimes.com)

Diane Greene, whose pursuit of Pentagon contracts for artificial intelligence technology sparked a worker uprising at Google, is stepping down as chief executive of the company's cloud computing business (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). "Ms. Greene said she would stay on as chief executive until January. She will be replaced by Thomas Kurian, who oversaw product development at Oracle until his resignation in October. Ms. Greene will remain a board director at Google's parent company, Alphabet," reports The New York Times. From the report: The change in leadership caps a turbulent three years for Ms. Greene, who was brought on to expand Google's cloud computing business. Google Cloud has struggled to make major inroads in persuading corporate customers to use its computing infrastructure over alternatives like Amazon's A.W.S. and Microsoft's Azure. In a blog post published by the company, Ms. Greene said she had initially told friends and family that she was planning to run Google Cloud for only two years but stayed for three. Ms. Greene, a widely respected technologist and entrepreneur, said that after leaving Google Cloud, she planned to help female founders of companies by investing in and mentoring them. Ms. Greene joined Google in 2015 when it acquired Bebop, a start-up she had founded, for $380 million. Ms. Greene defended Google's pursuit of a Defense Department contract for the Maven program, which uses AI to interpret video images and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes. In March, she said it was a small contract worth "only" $9 million and that the technology would be used for nonlethal purposes.

Comments

VMWare

[110010001000]

She was also one of the founders and CEO of VMWare. No idea what BeBop was/is.

Re:VMWare

[mnmn]

She was part of the best leadership VMWare ever had. There's a crowd of developers who want to follow her. It's sad that she had to leave GCP this way, but I agree with the ethics of it. She will do well wherever she will go.

Funny how they are happy to play with China...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how they seem to have reservations about the US, but happily help China with surveillance and oppression. This is ironic, because China bans Google from doing business on their soil.

Re: Funny how they are happy to play with China...

[bsDaemon]

Given all the Chinese they hire, its probably for the best anyway to keep them from working on Us govt things. Google (and silly com valley) doesnâ(TM)t have a monopoly on smart people, but does seem to have an out-sized share of weirdos and people who think more highly of their themselves and their abilities than they can necessarily back up.

That they would rather spend their precious time on earth working at an ad agency that has tricked people into believing it is a tech company is interesting, but so long ad theyâ(TM)re over there doing that, i can be where I am not having to interact with them. Consider it a indirect side-benefit of Federalism, I suppose.

Way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to the foreign employees who hate to see a strong american military.

Re:Way to go

[Highdude702]

yea yea we know you hate the USA.

Re:Way to go

[drinkypoo]

Listen to the foreign employees who hate to see a strong american military.

It is patriotic to hate to see an american military this strong. That's what the second amendment was all about. Ironically, most 2a supporters probably don't know that, but anyway

Re:Good for him

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's "her" not "him"
2) She's still part of the board for Alphabet

Men need not apply

[K. S. Van Horn]

"[Green] planned to help female founders of companies by investing in and mentoring them."

Since this is apparently OK, I take it that if a male executive wants to exclusively help male founders of companies by investing and mentoring them, rejecting female founders solely because they lack a Y chromosome, that's OK too, right? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, after all.

Re:Men need not apply

[mentil]

Y chromosome is best chromosome! /s

Re: Men need not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it's not, as the parent poster points out. Just a different gender now.

Re:Men need not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no, look at the poor persecuted white male here. Listen to his cries for help.

I am a white male. I grew up in a society that believed discrimination by gender, race, etc. is morally wrong. I have gone out of my way to follow this rule.

A serious question: If the social norm against discrimination has changed so that it is acceptable to favor one gender over another, why should I continue to abide by the old rules?

Suppose that women at my place of work are, on average, worse teammates than men. I get paid by what my team produces. Why shouldn't I refuse to work with women? These women cheer when an executive says they would not help me based on gender. Why should I risk my success to uphold a principle that my female coworkers brag about not believing in?

Re:Men need not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no, look at the poor persecuted white male here. Listen to his cries for help.

I am a white male. I grew up in a society that believed discrimination by gender, race, etc. is morally wrong. I have gone out of my way to follow this rule.

A serious question: If the social norm against discrimination has changed so that it is acceptable to favor one gender over another, why should I continue to abide by the old rules?

Suppose that women at my place of work are, on average, worse teammates than men. I get paid by what my team produces. Why shouldn't I refuse to work with women? These women cheer when an executive says they would not help me based on gender. Why should I risk my success to uphold a principle that my female coworkers brag about not believing in?

Re:Men need not apply

[DNS-and-BIND]

So discrimination on basis of gender is wrong, and we're going to prove this by discriminating on basis of gender.

Re:Men need not apply

[serviscope_minor]

Suppose that women at my place of work are, on average, worse teammates than men. I get paid by what my team produces. Why shouldn't I refuse to work with women?

Let's suppose what you say is true: that the small number of women you worke closely enough with to judge their work are on average worse team mates than the men. Which presumably means not all of them since we're talking averages.

You're generalising your experience of a few women to the entire population and appear to not be extending the same actions to men.

That's pretty much the textbook definition of sexist.

Re:Men need not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

He said the opposite
> I grew up in a society that believed discrimination by gender, race, etc. is morally wrong.

And many people now do not believe that, and discriminate.

A rational actor cannot forever remain anti-discrimination whilst also being part of a group which gets increasingly discriminated against on the basis of gender, race etc., it just means you get marginalized quicker and have no defence. This is why identity politics is a polarizing evil.

Re:Men need not apply

[imidan]

I mean, I don't think discrimination on basis of gender is uniformly great, but I do think there are jobs that, in general, men or women are better at than each other. In reality, there are certainly women who can do a 'typically male' job better than some specific men. And vice versa.

Some rich lady has the right to discriminate on the basis of gender when she decides whom to give her money to. The fact that I don't think gender is the best predictor of success isn't important to her. Or, at least, she hasn't consulted me, yet.

I could muster some outrage for a federal grant program discriminating in this way, but I think Diane Greene should do whatever she wants to do. I just won't expect any of her funding.

Re:Men need not apply

[AmiMoJo]

rejecting female founders

Why do you assume that if he wants to help female founders he would have to reject male founders? Doing the former doesn't imply the latter.

Re:Men need not apply

[K. S. Van Horn]

The point is that if Diane Green were Dale Green, and discriminating against women instead of against men, he would be denounced by one and all. The news article certainly would not have passed that over without comment. Massive double standard.

Re:Men need not apply

[K. S. Van Horn]

He? Why are you assuming that Diane Green is male?

As for your question, nobody says "I'm planning to help female founders", making sure to including the limiting adjective "female", if they plan to treat male and female founders equally.

Re:Men need not apply

[Highdude702]

Don't waste your time. He will just throw facts and logic out the window to try to spin what you say and insist YOU mean something you don't until he is satisfied that he has proven he is better than you because you commit thought crime.

Re:Men need not apply

[AmiMoJo]

Unless they think that female founders are treated less favourably, in which case adding "female" would emphasis their commitment to equal treatment.

Re:Men need not apply

[imidan]

Yeah, so? Is there a rule that we can't have double standards? Is the point you're trying to make that you have some childish concept of "fairness" that everyone else needs to adhere to? Diane Green is preferentially supporting women because she perceives that men are already preferentially supported in the industry. Is she right? I dunno, I don't have that data. But what's the consequence if she's wrong? That some number of women get VC support who wouldn't without her?

Oh, no. Someone, please protect us from the bad lady giving out money.

Shitty Management Techniques 101

[NicknameUnavailable]

1) Get locked into low value government contract everyone opposes.
2) Anticipated worker uprising ensues.
3) CEO "steps down."
4) CEO replaced by new person.
5) "I don't like it either guys, but if we don't finish the contract they'll close us down." 6) Silently acquire new contracts "we need to break even guys, we're bleeding money and this tech directly translates to this other tiny contract with only a small change."
7) Rinse and repeat, jumbling steps as desired.

SJW 1 - Logic 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots, you dont turn down contracts like that.

Id take the contact in a second, and if any of my employees complained, they would no longer be an employee.

Re:A man would’ve stayed

[Anonymous Coward]

They forced the woman out - even after she agreed with the employees demands - and was replaced with a man.

Where’s this vaulted diversity the company talks about?

The man is not white. Intersectional victimhood studies ranks male people of color as more oppressed, and therefor more deserving, than a white women who is not gay.

Google Cloud? what? only 9 mil

[AndrewFlagg]

1st, google cloud versus aws & azure -- did someone fall and bump their head.. that is like bing trying to join google and yahoo in the search engine market. no room for a 3rd wheel on that date card. 2nd, 9 mil? really? stepping down over 9 mil? her balloon golden parachute is probably 10x that. 3rd, why is this even an issue.. Do no evil... she did or tried to... alas, TGIF. let's get back to helping the Earth and mankind rather than destroy it by greed.

Ever worked for a government contractor?

[SvnLyrBrto]

Setting aside the ethical quagmire you descend into when you take on that work... especially under the current administration... it's just in every way awful all-around.

I worked for a government contractor my first job out of college. Yah, I was young and dumb and had student loans that were going to need to be repaid. And no. Just... no. I'm never going to make that mistake again... not for 45, not for his successor, not for Obama if they were to amend the constitution so he could run again, not for Kennedy or Lincoln if they could raise the dead. It's just awful in every conceivable way.

The culture is toxic. You're a tiny cog in a gigantic machine without any way for your own contributions to be meaningful. It's cubes as far as the eye can see in warehouse-sized buildings. The technology, both hardware and software, is older-than-dirt and will serve you nowhere in any other job. It's super-political. And I don't mean R vs D. I mean every single little person who attains the slightest bit of power is king of his little hill and will require tribute if you need access to any resource in their domain, productivity be damned. It's like those old adventure games where you might be tasked with saving the kingdom, world, or galaxy. But every... single... NPC... wants you to do stupid shit before they'll aid you in the smallest way. Tasked with going to person A to get item X? Before A will give you access to X, he will require you to goto person B to get item Y. B will require you to get Z from C before giving you Y. And C will make you go out and grind, killing orcs or boars or womprats or something similarly stupid and pick up 100 item drops before giving you Z. And a task that should take no more than a day winds up taking up two weeks. (That two weeks, by the way, is BEFORE administrative overhead. Expect to do about a page and a half of paperwork for every line of code.) And there'd better actually be a god to help you if you need to deal with procurement to get something from a vendor.

And all of the even remotely interesting work is reserved for people with security clearances. These force you to submit to being investigated and treated like a criminal before-the-fact. And they take anywhere between 6-18 months to attain, depending on how backed-up the government is, and how hard your employer is inclined to push for you. And until then, you're stuck doing boring scut-work that builds neither your skill set nor your resume.

That's government work. And I don't blame a single Google engineer, or anyone else, for wanting no part of it; both from a work environment AND a "don't be evil" (Remember that? Remember how /. used to admire and celebrate that sentiment?) standpoint.

Re:Ever worked for a government contractor?

[mikael]

It was the same decades ago. And it's the same with a lot of embedded/electronics companies. They stick to hardware they know that will work, even if it is decades old, because that's what the whole company and the principal engineers used back then. And if they do have the newest/latest hardware, all the software must be backwards compatible with the old hardware, so you won't get to use the new features of the new hardware. Anything career building will be outsourced to a contractor, to make sure you don't learn anything transferrable. You'll have a three month or six month notice period which makes it impossible to change jobs.

They might have found it so hard to find staff that they offshore some work. So then they need headhunters to literally hunt down people with embedded experience. And I literally mean "hunt down". Stalking people via LinkedIn by looking for keywords. Even getting GCHQ to monitor Emails and social media for anyone posting a CV, then using those Email addreses and accounts to make connections. Sometimes even sending anonymous Emails or Linkedin messages providing "careers advice".

Re:Ever worked for a government contractor?

[DNS-and-BIND]

This ridiculous anti government attitude is what is killing us. We need more government, not less. Less government just leaves a power vacuum. Leave your Ayn Rand stupidity behind and move into the 21st century.

Re:A man would’ve stayed

[kenai_alpenglow]

Is there an (updated) link to the current hierarchy of oppressed? Wouldn't want to make an honest mistake and find a ring of antifa brownshirts around my house.

Double standards

[blind biker]

Helping the Pentagon for profit is bad, but helping the Orwellian Chinese surveillance network is acceptable.