First. Thanks to HN for not demanding phone numbers: anonymity allows to say things that cannot be said.<p>Second. Many googlers read HN. In some sense, HN is the extension of the internal forums.<p>CNBC made a good summary and I can comment on each bullet point.<p>Larry and Brin probably stopped attending because nothing important is said on TGIFs. More people -> more leaks -> less interesting information -> less attendence. Nothing surprising here. Sundar's solution seems to be resorting to boring once a quarter all-hands about business strategy. I wonder what the attendance will be.<p>It's a hypocrisy to complain about troubles with trust and at the same time ban political or whatever discussions. Googlers are generally very smart folks and understand that whatever they say may be used against them in the future, when policies change once again. Today you post a memegen where you state that triangles are better than squares, tomorrow you get fired because squares have become the symbol of some protected class. You have to apply a form of forward self-censorship and be very careful about what you say to whom.<p>I don't think there is a tension between execs and workers, but only because the two classes live in different worlds.<p>Don't get me wrong. Google is still the best workplace with top notch pay, but as it's got big, it's also morphed into a typical big corporation with typical corporate politics.<p>Just my 2c.
This reminds me of this sentence from a Wired article[0] in August:<p>> TGIF's transformation from candid conversation to press conference was pretty much complete.<p>As a Googler I'm totally not surprised this is happening. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery-happiest-company-tech/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery...</a>
RIP<p>I'm one of those people who go work at Google once every few years.<p>The transformation of culture from about 2013 onwards has been somewhat sad to experience.<p>Interestingly, most people who have been continuously employed there have not felt the very slight gradient. However, the changes in culture, freedom, food quality, etc are fairly obvious when one returns after ..say.. 18 months.<p>Here are some semi-concrete metrics: Decreasing TGIF frequency (now gone..), 'micro kitchen' snack variety and quality, which doors in buildings you are allowed to enter from(:facepalm:), badging in for meals(also :facepalm:), weird restrictions on business flights, attempt to make everything look uniform (no candies in receptions! No decorations..), defense contracts(much publicized here), any other discretionary spending by teams.<p>Anything I forgot?
Nothing to see here. While most employees are chill, I would imagine Google has a disproportionation of hyper ideologists who are intolerant to different opinions and self-righteous to bring everything down to achieve personal validation.<p>The trust is reduced, but it is both way, between employer and employees. Without that, any conversation is meaningless.
It's almost like the employees are slowly seeing Sundar as somebody they can't relate with under the company's now "controversial" common goals and objectives. Now Google management is panicking and doing everything they can to reduce employee's face time with the higher-ups since management knows the company is moving in a direction that a large number of employees disagree with!
As an Xoogler (left in 2015) I find that news highly disappointing. I think that without honest, regular Q&A at events like TGIF, the company will become more and more out of touch.<p>When I was there, TGIF was watered down, but we still asked uncomfortable questions of management. I remember asking a question of Sundar when he was head of Android when the Nexus 6 came out questioning our chasing Apple into the high end market, rather than making affordable devices.
Sounds like Googlers spoiled the well. I'm not sure exactly why but Google employees always seem to be in the news about something and have leaked conversations that management had with them. In some instances the controversy is warranted (Rubin Payout, etc.) but it must be annoying from a management perspective.
It makes sense, if I was CEO and only 20% of employees were attending, and whatever I said at the meeting got leaked, I'd cancel them too. And I think most people would. Also, I think a lot of people just want to go to work and work, they don't care about politics or even business strategy.
As a Xoogler who just wanted to get on topic product updates ( and Sergey jokes I guess - he really is insanely funny), I actually found it frustrating that it was an overloaded forum for any and all random topics.<p>Were I working there, this would have made sense to me.<p>I didn't work there to be an activist. I worked there to go work on products.<p>I don't get other comments that say "courted activists". The recruiting pitch is about impact, a good work environment, compensation and interesting products.
I wonder if companies like Google and GitHub that actively courted activists are now regretting their decision. For a long time it was common knowledge that you would try to keep stuff like that out of the workplace. The past 10 years have been an about face to that strategy and now we're seeing more or less complete chaos internally at these previously pro-politics (some kinds of politics) workplaces.<p>My guess is there will certainly be a shift away from other companies trying to do this in the future. Rightfully so imho.
I’ve worked at IBM, Oracle, and Google and have friends at Intel, Microsoft and Adobe. I’d say the reduction of openness and transparency Of management with employees is regrettable but the biggest thing I still enjoy about Google culture is still intact: is the relative lack of egotistical assholes, political douchebags, macho primadonna engineers, and other toxic people that I’ve encountered at other companies.<p>In general, the overall friendliness of people to work together, lend help, and accept or provide “constructive” criticism has been a welcome respite.<p>At the other companies mentioned, I’ve encountered a mixture of people deliberately backstabbing and sabotaging other groups projects, engineers who scream at or insult others, or just straight up refusing to admit fault.<p>Granted this is likely to change because Google is hiring too many people too fast which will reduce cultural assimilation.<p>But at this point I don’t think I could stomach working on a team at another Big company with some “alpha” macho engineer types unless their name happened to be Linus Torvalds, and even then I don’t think I’d want to be in that environment.<p>Microsoft seems like it has vastly improved after Balmer left.<p>I’m also not going to work at any company that doesn’t value work/life balance.
The parts of Google culture that were very unique are being slowly eroded.<p>Most of the outsiders have seen Google's practice as something that does not belong in a "mature" firm (the zombie corporations they were coming from).<p>People wanted to go to work for Google to change the world. Now they are joining because it is a comfortable company to work for.<p>As early employees stared leaving or becoming complacent, more bozos started to be hired and shifting the culture.<p>They have been wrecking Google's great culture a little bit at the time.
I turned down an offer from Google (cloud) because I didn't want to work for a company that was so focused on politics internally. This was just after they fired Damore, not that I agree or disagree with his opinion, but because Google seems promote internal fighting. That type of culture doesn't appeal to me.
This is so sad on many levels. I first saw this article on HN and then went back to search my mail folder in disbelief (I hadn't seen an internal memo about this.) TGIF used to be a wonderful forum to communicate with leadership and enjoy our latest and greatest achievements.
When the agenda is a net good, an all hands on meeting and or some potential leaks make great sense.<p>Now that is much less true, ditchng the meetings also makes sense.<p>Google grows up, ends up like most big companies.<p>Not a shocker, but the initial, "users really trust us to do good"culture is a major clash. Could be a very painful, enduring one.
I'll repost what I posted on my Facebook timeline since it seems relevant to this discussion. One thing I'd like to add though: given how things have changed over the past decade, the culture at Google is no longer just a shareholder or employee concern: it is a societal concern. Companies like Google and Facebook own our lives and it is in humanity's interest that the company be under proper leadership. The alternative is more regulation on these kinds of companies (which probably isn't a bad thing in any case).<p>It has been a decade since I worked at Google, but this makes me really sad.<p>To be fair, the Google culture had its fair share of problems with whiny, entitled little shits and "brogrammers". And it has had its some spectacularly bad executives who are probably irredeemable assholes as well as executives who are too weak to keep their colleagues in line.<p>But even at around 30.000 employees it was a fundamentally good place to work.<p>Yes, it was competitive as fuck, but that's what happens when you have a high density of talent and ambition in one place. Much of the internal competitiveness was good. At least the way I saw it. I haven't worked many places where you start to work on something, only to discover that someone else is working on the same thing and this becomes a positive. You can collaborate and/or compete. And both can, and did, lead to better outcomes.<p>Of course, occasionally you'd have deadbeats that would game the system and use the efforts of others to promote themselves unfairly, but largely I think people deserved their success.<p>A few friends of mine still at Google have told me that the company I worked for is gone. It is a different company now. More corporate. Less open. Less creative. Less fun.
Most don't really talk about Google anymore. Be it in positive or negative terms.<p>TGIF was among the things that set Google apart. That even inspired other companies and led them to understand that it is important to bring the top and bottom of the company in contact with each other on a regular basis.<p>I don't buy that Google has outgrown TGIF. I think the problem is that top management simply haven't been capable of evolving. I suspect Sundar Pichai simply isn't able to lead the company in a manner that can preserve what was good about Google. If "only" 25% of employees follow TGIF (which would be a great turnout for most companies) that's on Sundar. That is his failure as a leader. It isn't that the company has outgrown it.<p>And that's sad, because when the soul of a company dies, eventually, so will its ability to attract talent and perform. It'll be a slow decline. But this is nonetheless a clear symptom of decline.<p>Sundar needs to get his act together or Larry needs to find a more suitable CEO.
Seems like Larry and Brin have re-created Soviet factory in full.<p>> The best way for a man to advance in the Communist hierarchy is to make speeches constantly at party and public meetings. [1]<p>* Workers' councils
* Factory committies<p>Google in 1930 -<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3draTawRFas" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3draTawRFas</a><p>[1] <a href="https://books.google.pl/books?id=mNexJrn4wmgC&pg=RA4-PA4&lpg=RA4-PA4&dq=soviet+factory+meetings&source=bl&ots=mZBHPpgBwk&sig=ACfU3U2q90H9xnbrq8gH-NplUO006QEdSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi80aTosu7lAhUJa1AKHd_PCTQQ6AEwG3oECBAQAQ" rel="nofollow">https://books.google.pl/books?id=mNexJrn4wmgC&pg=RA4-PA4&lpg...</a>
Nobody actively courted activists.<p>It's more just than tech startups generally skew younger and newer generations want their companies to reflect their own values. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.<p>And these companies are not in complete chaos. In fact apart from the James Damore incident there hasn't been any significant change in the company cultures.
When I first joined Google, I loved this meeting. This was 2010. You got some pretty candid responses and presentations from the executives. Fast forward 2-3 years and it had largely turned into a dry run of a public announcement later that day. All very choreographed, no real answers to anything. So probably around 2013 I stopped even paying attention to it.<p>What I find most interesting is the change that happened in this country, including Google, with Trump being elected. Google had enough closet Trump acolytes and sympathizers who were removed from reality like only a Trump supporter can be (it seems).<p>You can disagree with policies like immigration, tax breaks for the GOP donor class and so on without thinking that supporter is delusional.<p>But what changed is that those same Trump supporters suddenly thought reprehensible behaviour was suddenly justifiable, even required. Examples:<p>- Leaking videos of TGIF because you think the company oppresses your political views (just leave!)<p>- Worse, you leak personal details of employees who speak up against issues you believe in so they essentially get targeted by alt-right zealots.<p>In no world can I fathom me taking my personal political disagreement to the point of doxxing someone. How anyone can think this is justifiable is utterly beyond me.<p>You see this in the US government too. Like we now have too many leaders who are prepared to burn institutions to the ground to further political goals. Look at Mitch McConnell's stonewalling of the Obama administration (more cloture motions than any previous Senate by a huge margin), choosing not to hold hearings on nominees, stuffing the judiciary with underqualified minions and so on. Look at the Justice Department, which is now defending the White House despite any evidence to the contrary.<p>How can anyone think this is OK? Whatever norms are established by the GOP now will absolutely be used against them in the future (eg a simple majority on Supreme Court nominees). Do these people not realize how dangerous it is to destroy institutions meant to protect all of us?<p>But that's the Trump era we live in. I've met more than one Trump adherent who simply will not or cannot see fault in anything Trump does. And I'll tell you, that scares the bejesus out of me.<p>I fully agree with Google employees protesting things like helping the US DoD better identify kill targets (identifying what not to kill is the same as identifying what to kill) and supporting the oppression of a billion people by pandering to Chinese censorship. Gone are the days when Sergey was essentially responsible for pulling Google out of China.<p>But what Google really needs at this point is a purge of people who are prepared to dox their fellow employees. Those people are utterly destructive to the company and need to be excised.<p>So anyway I'm not surprised at TGIF being scaled back. It's been on the cards for years and, at this point, it's honestly not much of a loss.<p>Whatever Google's problems are however I don't think Sundar is the leader they need.