TechTakes

I might not have explained myself well. Google didn’t want Gebru’s name on a paper that called out how Google’s products do not support DEI. When pressed, Google doubled down. Google has yet to provide a rational explanation that stands up to scrutiny. With this context, a smart person is going in expecting that if they’re a minority at Google they’re going to be sidelined or mistreated (like in the article).

To your point about going for pay, sure, absolutely. If you do that you don’t really have the ethical ground to complain about it because you’re taking advantage of Google. Explicitly going there to be abused to trigger a suit makes me uncomfortable again from ethical grounds. You’re also not naive here, which is not the group that concerns me. I feel like the woman in the article was naive (which doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve justice; it just means she should have expected this).

I also want to address the whole “you hate capitalism yet participate in” criticism that could come from this. Totally valid. To change a system you have to participate in it. You also have to know what you can change. If you’re anything below the top two or three tiers of power or are not willing to follow Google without question for years until you reach those echelons of power, you have no agency at Google (or any similar major corporation). You cannot change it and to believe so is naive. Take, for example, how Google effectively terminates union organizers with a slap on the wrist (if anything at all). Or look at Google’s explicit move to DoD contracts after pretending to care post Project Maven. Gebru is, again, a perfect example because Google leaders decided to shut down an industry leader.

In general I’m pretty vehemently anti-FAANG on ethical grounds and that colors a lot of my commentary. The only reason I can understand to go work at them is money or, if you’re a very select few, resources to solve interesting problems. If you choose to work at FAANG for those reasons and your reaction when something like this happens is anything other than surprise, I don’t know what you expected.