Inside Google’s Civil War

Group - 5
ABHISHAAN GUPTA 20PGPIB112
FEBIN S WILSON 20PGPIB076
SHIVAM BANSAL 20PGPIB100
SUNANDAN GOKHROO 20PGPIB105
TANAY VAISHNAVE 20PGPIB088
VIVEK SOMANI 20PGPIB103
 Chronology of Events (1/2)
Damore Memo: Google Maven Discontinued: Google Payout Revealed: The Times
engineer James Damore posts announces it will not renew its reports that Google paid former
an internal memo arguing contract for Project Maven and executive Andy Rubin $90 million
against the value of diversity in releases a set of AI principles to despite a sexual misconduct
tech; Google ultimately fires him guide its use of the disruptive accusation
technology
February August
2018 2018

July June October

2017 2018 2018
Project Maven Leaks: Most Dragonfly Leaks: Intercept
employees learn for the first time reports that Google is working on
that the Pentagon was using the a censored search engine in
company’s AI to analyze drone China; it’s the first time most
footage employees are hearing of the
project
 Chronology of Events (2/2)
Google Walkout: Twenty Forced Arbitration Ends: Retaliation Claims: Employees
thousand employees in 50 cities Google says it will no longer stage a sit-in after two Googlers
around the globe demonstrate to require current or future accuse the company of
protest the company’s handling employees to arbitrate any retaliating against them for their
of sexual harassment employees disputes organizing efforts. Google denies
the accusations
December April
2018 2019

November February May

2018
Dragonfly Discontinued: By the
end of the year, all Dragonfly
employees were informed that
they were being reassigned
2019 2019
AI Advisory Council Disbands:
Google disbands the group after
employees protest the inclusion
of the head of the Heritage
Foundation
 Maven Project
• Google became a subcontractor to the
Department Of Defense for Maven in 2017
• A lot of employees of Google had no idea
about this project
• A google employee wrote an unsanctioned
post about the project on their internal
platform
• Executives told employees that the project
was defensive and not offensive
• Some of the employees were concerned that
Google’s technology could make drone strikes
more lethal
• Management then made an argument that the
project was in favor of the military.
• Some senior engineers escalated these
concerns internally.
• Management continued to address employee
concerns and explained them why Maven was
a worthwhile project.
Laura Nolan
Google Engineer
“It was such a betrayal, We're pretending to be
a happy company that does lovely information
organizing, and then you're building several
steps toward killer drones flying”
Place Your Picture Here
Sundar Pichai
CEO, Alphabet (Google’s parent company)
• In April 2018, A group of employees then
wrote a letter to Sundar Pichai to cancel the
project, was leaked to the New York Times.
• In June, Google announced that they are not
going to renew the contract for Maven.
“We don't run the company by Referendum”
 Dragonfly
Place Your Picture Here
• In August 2018, The Intercept published a
story revealing that Google was working on a
censored search engine for China.
• This was code-named Dragonfly.
• It was being designed such that it would
block information related to topics like
Human Rights and Democracy.
• Most of the Google employees admitted that
they were hearing this for the first time.
• Google had pulled out of operating their previous Place Your Picture Here
search engine in China in 2010 taking a moral
stand. This was the literal embodiment of
Google’s “Don’t be evil” ethos. But with
Dragonfly, what changed?
- McMillen, Software Engineer
• Other notable google employees who voiced their
concerns were Paul Buchheit and Meredith
Whittaker, who was involved in employee
resistance to both Maven and Dragonfly.
Place Your Picture Here
Jack Poulson
Ex Sr. Research Scientist at Google
• Said he was the 6th or 7th employee to resign
due to Dragonfly.
• He believed it did not align with what he wanted
to do with his life.
• He sent a letter in the U,S. Senate’s hearing on
the matter stating that he advocated for
transparency, oversight and accountability in the
systems they build.
Place Your Picture Here
Sundar Pichai
CEO, Alphabet (Google’s parent company)
• Pichai responded to this employee outcry by
stating that Google’s mission was to serve
everyone in this world which includes China.
• He also added that Dragonfly was an
experiment and “nothing was imminent”.
 TGIF–Weekly all-hands meeting

The Start Maven Effect Change Leak After Effect

Beginnings—TGIF Change in TGIF Pichai and Stance The Happenings Too Big?

When— Questions— Secrecy— Expose— Over Reliance—

Google introduced A group of Extract from a TGIF Brin and Pichai Too Big and
the weekly all hands organizers kept the transcripts shows addressing was Sprawling to
meet —March 2018. pressure and made that Google as a leaked by someone address every issue
sure that a MAVEN company had in the room.
Why— question was asked always confidential The NYC reporter Shifting Focus—
Gathering was the projects in the was tweeting the Google started
core google culture Initial moment— company discussions in real experimenting with
since its early days Tracked for who quit, time new forums like
handed out stickers Hitting Threshold— townhalls focused
For— and memes Regarding maven, Reaction— on single topics
Gave everyone to dragonfly and Employee stood up
question the senior Effects— payout were made and used abuses to Employees felt that
management Debate turned public by the management the leaker and weren’t heard
in April 2018 behind closed doors ruined TGIF forever enough
Other Companies

MICROSOFT AMAZON SALESFORCE

Beginning in 2018, Workers last year Last year, workers at
employees at the software demanded that the the cloud-computing
powerhouse have company stop selling company called their
protested the company’s facial recognition tools employer to reconsider
work with Immigration and to the U.S. Salesforce’s contracts
Customs Enforcement, its government. In April, with U.S. Customs and
contract to provide the more than 4,500 Border Protection,
U.S. Army with the Amazonians urged the citing the Trump
Augmented-Reality company to take action administration’s family
headsets, and its on climate change separation policy; more
treatment of female including ending cloud than 650 employees
employees services for oil and gas signed the letter
companies
Failures of the HR at Google
The leaked James Damore’s memo pointed towards
inefficient Diversity and Inclusion policies.

Andy Rubin, even after being accused of sexual

harassment was paid $90 million. This points to the
lack of efficient Sexual harassment policies.

As the company grew, the power started

accumulating in the hands of the top management.

In Dragonfly, the employees were unaware of the clients

they were working for pointing to lack of transparency.

There were many instances when the internal information

leaked to news channels pointing to inefficient Data
Privacy policies.
For example, one of the TGIF meetings being livestreamed
to a New York Times reporter.
 Human Resource Model
Google follows
PRESETATION
a Hybrid Model of HR

Hard HR
Retaliation
Whittaker was asked
to abandon her work
on AI and Stapleton
was demoted and
was asked to go on
medical leave.
Soft HR
Two-way
Forced Arbitration
Communication - TGIF
Google required The company tried to
employees to settle address concerns at its
their disputes with weekly all-hands
the company behind meeting knows as
closed doors. TGIF.
Blameless Postmortem
Google had a unique
way of looking at the
problems where the
company looks back at
mistakes without
throwing anyone under
the bus

Identify workforce needs of the business and recruit Treats employees as the most important resource in
and manage accordingly. Little empowerment and the business and as a source of competitive
delegation and has a strong link with corporate advantage. Employees are treated as individuals
business planning. and their needs are planned accordingly.
HR Strategy for Google
Old Google New Google
Dialogue Model Separation Model
Employees’
Option had voice in how the company runs Power concentration within limited leadership

Founders of Google were known for Un-Conventional methods Difficult to maintain a balance between Size of the organization &
Option company’s principles
They were regarded as “Purpose-built to amplify Employee’s voices” Shift towards conventional methods

Place that has long sought meritocracy and utopian techno-futurism Activists as a small but vocal group, DOES NOT represent the
employees at large
Effective communication between employee and leadership Leadership belief: increasing size, diversity calls for Separation of
power

Holistic Model
What is the • Employee should be one of key decision makers
way forward? • Employee’s say in product and its control instead of just being implementors of code
• Collaborative Development & integration of people
• More transparency in terms of the work assigned
Thank You!