Google CEO Forbids Political Talk After Firing 28 Over Israeli Contract Protest (yahoo.com)
(Tuesday November 05, 2024 @10:30PM (BeauHD)
from the cultural-shifts dept.)
- Reference: 0175411763
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/06/0120243/google-ceo-forbids-political-talk-after-firing-28-over-israeli-contract-protest
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sundar-pichai-tells-google-staff-104845522.html
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune:
> Google CEO Sundar Pichai has weighed in on the debate over the relative values of political expression and workplace coexistence by [1]ordering employees to leave their political opinions at home . A day after firing 28 workers for participating in a sit-in protest of the tech giant's cloud contract with Israel, Pichai warned staff that the office is not a place "to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics" in a company [2]blog post .
>
> Although Pichai didn't specifically mention the protests or the Israel-Hamas war, he concluded that the $1.92 trillion company "is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform." "We have a duty to be an objective and trusted provider of information that serves all of our users globally," Pichai continued. "When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that."
The sit-in protest was staged against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government. During the nearly 10-hour protest, employees wore "Googler against genocide" T-shirts and occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The report notes how tech companies, "previously famed for their progressive culture where nap pods and abortion benefits were welcome," are increasingly restricting political discussions to avoid internal conflict. Pichai notes in his memo that Google has previously enjoyed "a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action."
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sundar-pichai-tells-google-staff-104845522.html
[2] https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/building-ai-future-april-2024/
> Google CEO Sundar Pichai has weighed in on the debate over the relative values of political expression and workplace coexistence by [1]ordering employees to leave their political opinions at home . A day after firing 28 workers for participating in a sit-in protest of the tech giant's cloud contract with Israel, Pichai warned staff that the office is not a place "to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics" in a company [2]blog post .
>
> Although Pichai didn't specifically mention the protests or the Israel-Hamas war, he concluded that the $1.92 trillion company "is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform." "We have a duty to be an objective and trusted provider of information that serves all of our users globally," Pichai continued. "When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that."
The sit-in protest was staged against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government. During the nearly 10-hour protest, employees wore "Googler against genocide" T-shirts and occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The report notes how tech companies, "previously famed for their progressive culture where nap pods and abortion benefits were welcome," are increasingly restricting political discussions to avoid internal conflict. Pichai notes in his memo that Google has previously enjoyed "a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action."
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sundar-pichai-tells-google-staff-104845522.html
[2] https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/building-ai-future-april-2024/
Old news (Score:3)
by dskoll ( 99328 )
This story is from April.
Coexistence sticker? (Score:2)
by Chas ( 5144 )
Notice how it's "coexistence" ON THEIR TERMS ONLY.
Leave these people to rot on the vine.
Good (Score:1)
by piojo ( 995934 )
The arguments about this war are uniquely one-sided because one side is easy to argue (and prone to using deceptive talking points), while the other side is fighting for the future of its civilization without a five second sound bite that demonstrates it.
I'm sure a lot of friendships have been lost over this conflict. As someone who is firmly on one side, I don't want to lose my friends because they don't know what I know, and probably not even if they have vastly different starting principles.
Easy one liner: (Score:2)
by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 )
"The difference is we are fighting for land that is ours. They are fighting for land that is not theirs."
Excellent! (Score:3)
Want to do activism, go do activism on your free time.