Google Insider Reveals How Greed Killed Big Tech

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Google Insider Reveals How Greed Killed Big Tech

Episode #79 08.24.26

Our Guest Claire Stapleton Discusses

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Claire Stapleton spent 12 years at Google, going from one of the company's biggest believers to one of its most prominent employee organizers. In this episode, former Google communications leader, Google Walkout organizer, and Don’t Be Evil author Claire Stapleton reveals what happened inside Google as its celebrated culture of openness, employee empowerment, and idealism began to change.

She takes us inside Google’s transformation from a company that believed people were at the heart of its success to a Big Tech giant grappling with bureaucracy, employee distrust, workplace activism, and questions about its values. She explains what led thousands of Google employees to walk out in protest, what happened after employees challenged leadership, and why speaking up inside powerful organizations can come with serious consequences.

We also talk about AI and the future of work, tech layoffs, corporate culture, employee activism, leadership, workplace ethics, the changing relationship between employers and employees, and why the sweeping promises coming from today’s AI companies remind Stapleton of Google’s early years. As companies once again compete for elite technology talent while promising to change the world, could Silicon Valley be repeating the same cycle?

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In those early years, it was sort of like,

there's nothing we can't solve together.

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And the bedrock of that is people.

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And also that I think that you see

the shift in that language now, today

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and the values because waves of layoffs,

the threat of, you know, AI

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replacing jobs.

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No one is saying from Google anymore

that people are the heart of what we do.

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If anything, it's sort of like,

prove that you're better than I. You know,

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it's just like all these companies

constantly threatening redundancy.

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So they're into their coders now.

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Things have really changed.

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This is a show about the future of tech

and the future of work.

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I'm Geoff Nielsen, and today

I'm talking with the author of Don't

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Be Evil, Clare Stapleton, a 12 year

vet of Google.

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Clare went from being a leader

of communications

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to an organizer of the Google walkout,

to leaving

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the organization completely,

not without acrimony.

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Clare had a front row

seat to what she called a loss

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of a moral compass in Big tech

and is telling the story in her new book.

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If Google were the only company

in the world to be accused

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of losing its moral compass,

I wouldn't be all that interested.

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But virtually every organization

I've ever worked with

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has had some version of this battle,

with their employees being somewhere

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between frustrated, too disheartened

to completely checked out.

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Few of us have fought the good fight

as courageously as Clare,

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so I want to know

what we can learn from her.

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Should we expect our employers to act

morally?

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What can we do

if we're seeing bad behavior?

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And how can we be a force for good

and build organizations that aren't evil?

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Let's find out.

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Clare, thanks so much for joining today.

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Super excited to have you.

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I wanted to,

I guess maybe start at the, the beginning.

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So, you know, you were

you were at Google an awfully long time,

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I think something like 12 years.

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And, you know, at the beginning, to me,

it's very much a story of,

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you know, you very much being,

you know, Team Google,

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you know, card carrying, flag waving,

you know, member of Team Google.

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And, you know, the story

kind of goes downhill from there.

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So I'm I'm curious from your perspective

to hear you tell it, like what happened.

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Yeah.

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I mean, that really

is the entire arc of the book.

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I, you know, I,

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I was hired straight out of college

through college recruiting,

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which is a very rare window of time

that they actually did that at the company

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had a huge hiring burst around 2007

when I was graduating from college.

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And, I was an English major,

and I got a job

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in the communications department,

which seemed like, okay,

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this is a good kind of corporate job

if you're a kind of humanities student.

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And I wasn't even

particularly interested in technology,

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but it was impossible

to not be sort of drawn into the lore

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around the company

at that particular moment.

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They were on the cover of,

you know, fortune, Best Places to Work.

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And, you know, they're all of this,

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you know, coverage of

of the kind of lavish, perks of the campus

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and the basic brief of the job was like

to become a corporate storyteller.

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So it's sort of like, where did my,

you know, genuine idealism and enthusiasm

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began

and the kind of, requirements of the job.

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And because it was sort of like they

wanted enthusiasm, they wanted idealism,

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they wanted people who could be kind of

passionate spokespeople for the company.

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And I thought, you know, hey,

I can do that.

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And, you know, it was, coming in,

going from college into this environment.

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It was quite intoxicating

because you're kind of being

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pumped with this rhetoric

about how special you are.

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I mean, there's, you know,

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from the first day of orientation,

they're saying, you know, we got,

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you know, 3000 applications a minute or,

you know, something,

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I don't know the exact stat something

kind of like hyperbolic.

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And you're the chosen one.

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And this is the golden ticket.

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You know, particularly as the, you know,

job market has, like, ebbed and flowed

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and the, you know, dot.com

the industry has gone

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through so many different iterations,

it did feel like,

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wow, we got the kind of like,

you know, captured seat here for this.

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Like, you know, amazing era of technology

that's dawning.

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I think that, you know,

sort of inherent to my role

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was, a sense of the mission

and the purpose of the company.

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So I think that we now everyone

sort of agrees that these big tech

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companies are very kind

of complicated institutional figures.

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And our, you know, governing our society,

and they feel more nefarious.

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But, you know, if you if you kind of

put yourself back in 2007, the,

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you know,

this is right before Obama was elected,

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it was like this moment of kind

of like American optimism.

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And tech companies are right, particularly

companies like Google or these like,

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amazing American Stories

that two guys in a garage, two geeky

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geniuses are going to come through and

kind of solve all the world's problems.

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So as I was going back

and writing the book,

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I was really interested to kind of

to track how the rhetoric of the company,

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kind of really thickened and evolved,

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you know, and the company,

culture was a really big part of that.

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It was a big part of what the company was

sort of, exporting.

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And anyway, so I, you know,

I spent a few years in Mountain View

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working closely with the founders

and a bunch of other executives

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on the whole, a great experience.

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And I sort of wanted to try something

else.

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Got a transfer to the New York office.

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And then that next seven years,

I guess, tracks, kind of slow.

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And then fast, disillusionment arc where,

you know, I had a really difficult time

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and, you know, just kind of normal,

difficult, toxic work experience.

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Still kind of caught in the lore

and mythology of the company

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because I was working at this in-house

creative agency called Creative Lab.

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It was a really tough experience.

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But then I, you know,

I moved over to YouTube marketing.

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YouTube was, like, hotter than hot.

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This is in the sort of like mid-aughts,

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but was coming kind of complex

and was really interesting place to work.

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Also, we were continuing to kind of like,

cheerlead about it and disseminate

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the values of the company

as a communications marketing person.

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And then, you know, I had a kid,

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my eye was starting to see things

in a kind of like a bit different way.

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And then

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Donald Trump was elected.

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There was a whole,

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a whole kind of uproar at the company

around a big scandal,

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a New York Times story about,

executive payouts for sexual harassment.

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Anyway, I ended up getting into labor

organizing and organized

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the Google walkout,

along with a great group of women and and,

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you can imagine my Google career

didn't last much longer after that.

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Yeah.

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So that's the basic gist of the book.

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It's really interesting.

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I mean, it's a crazy story with,

you know, so many chapters and it's funny.

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I mean, you kind of laid it out,

but it feels like it's almost an arc of

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American history

and like to got to go back

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to the period of the,

you know, the, the mid-aughts

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there's this sense that you're

talking about about Google.

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And I remember the period where they seem

to have this vision of, like

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this forward looking, very modern company

that had these values

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that transcended what you would

typically expect from a corporation.

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And, you know, that I think is some of

the idealism you were talking about.

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Can you add a little bit more color

to that?

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Like what what was the culture?

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What were some of those values that they

were espousing that felt so intoxicating?

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And and did you find

they were actually living at at that time?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I

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used to give the tours of the campus

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and the office design

was, was, was really the a bedrock of it

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because everything in that, moment

was a feverish rush to capture talent.

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So, you know, I'm like a comms person.

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People come in as community

or as customer service reps or something,

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as sort of like a service person.

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But everything was about serving engineers

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and rock star product talent. So,

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they had people very thoughtfully design

offices that would engineer collaboration.

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And that was the idea of the lunch table.

And people stick around for lunch.

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They're not wasting this time.

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Sure, it's a sort of a productivity

move as well.

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But, you know,

the office design was very open

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and flat to reflect that good ideas

come from anywhere.

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And, you know,

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anyone can come in and, you know, build

the next Gmail or whatever it was.

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So I think that the, you know,

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the culture was,

also very much about employee voice.

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And I worked on this weekly meeting, TGIF

with the hosted by the founders, where,

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yes, there'd be some sort of presentation

and they talk about the product

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updates of the week, but most of it was

a Q&A with employees, and I think it was,

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it felt sort of radical at the time

because people would line up and come

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with their questions and oftentime

the questions were very pointed

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or kind of critical about strategic

direction or a misstep or and it was,

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there was the sense

that the executives are so accessible

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and they're like peers

and maybe they'd even course correct.

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So I think that there's that

where they really wanted

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to empower the employees because they felt

like that's how they do their best work.

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And I think that, you know,

when Larry Page kind of cycled

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in and out of being the CEO over

the sort of early period of time,

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his second stint at this was

was when I was in the Commerce Department.

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He really believed that you need to get

the employees hopped up

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on the on the mission and the world

changing aspects of the company.

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And that's

what I think is like almost the most,

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bittersweet or have somber note for me

is that when I was looking back at

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everything he said in the sort of like

2000 period, 11 period was that, you know,

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Google could cure death

because we were so ambitious in our scope.

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We have all these talented people,

we have all these resources.

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We're faster

than the bureaucracy of the state.

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You know, we're not encumbered by, you

know, the complexity, which isn't true.

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I mean, the company was pretty complex

already, but, you know, we can,

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dramatically solve humanity's problems.

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And when you really look at it, I'm like,

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you know, it's not to say that

Google hasn't, you know, transformed

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the world in certain ways.

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But if you look at,

you know, search and YouTube

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and all these other, these other things,

it's like in a way, I think that,

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you know, tech has sort of,

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really contributed to the challenging,

polarized, unequal environment.

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You know, that we now

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look at society and think like, are things

any better than ten years ago?

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Feels it certainly feels worse.

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And a lot,

a lot of ways for a lot of people.

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While, you know, extreme

wealth has gotten, you know, concentrated

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sort of at the top of the company.

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So anyway, but in those early years,

it was sort of like,

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there's nothing we can't solve together.

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And, you know, at the bedrock of

that is people and also that I think

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that you see the shift in that language

now today and the values because,

00;10;05;09 - 00;10;09;13

you know, waves of layoffs, the threat of,

you know, AI replacing jobs.

00;10;09;19 - 00;10;13;18

No one is saying from Google anymore

that people are the heart of what we do.

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If anything, it's sort of like,

prove that you're better than I.

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You know, it's

just like all these companies,

00;10;18;03 - 00;10;18;26

you know, constantly

00;10;18;26 - 00;10;22;02

threatening redundancy,

to their, to their coders.

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Now, things have really changed,

but I think that the at the time,

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the kind of

I don't think it was insincere.

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I think that Larry and Sergey really did

feel that,

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Google can have this, like, you know,

transformative impact on society,

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not just to, like, create online ads, but,

you know, that it's it's

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this much more sweeping, contribution

to the world,

00;10;42;25 - 00;10;46;10

that, you know, I don't know if people

can assess whether that's been borne out.

00;10;46;10 - 00;10;49;10

And I would say it has its.

00;10;50;07 - 00;10;51;23

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So. So I'm really curious

and I find it so interesting.

00;11;30;21 - 00;11;34;24

You talk to us a little bit about,

I guess, what happened to Claire

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in that time

and what happened to America in that time.

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I'm still trying to sort out in my mind,

like what happened to Google.

00;11;41;29 - 00;11;46;26

You know, there's this that there's

this age of almost like, mythologizing

00;11;46;26 - 00;11;50;26

and this mission that, as you said it,

it seems like it was sincere coming from

00;11;51;03 - 00;11;52;09

Larry and Sergei.

00;11;52;09 - 00;11;53;27

Is it that they stepped back?

00;11;53;27 - 00;11;55;16

Is it the company got too big,

00;11;55;16 - 00;12;00;05

like what happened to Google

that's led to this slide.

00;12;00;05 - 00;12;02;20

Do you have any like reflections on that.

00;12;02;20 - 00;12;05;27

Well I do because you know what

Larry Page, this very brief

00;12;05;27 - 00;12;09;02

period of time where he was the CEO,

he gave a few interviews.

00;12;09;02 - 00;12;10;20

He's has like vocal paralysis.

00;12;10;20 - 00;12;11;13

So it's sort of like

00;12;11;13 - 00;12;15;09

he never really spoke in public

the same way after this, like one year.

00;12;15;18 - 00;12;20;26

But he talked about how he was studying,

why companies fail or as a counterpoint,

00;12;20;26 - 00;12;24;12

why companies become so

big and bloated and sclerotic

00;12;24;12 - 00;12;26;05

that they stopped

innovating on the same level.

00;12;26;05 - 00;12;27;27

And that's like such a kiss of death.

00;12;27;27 - 00;12;30;11

And, you know, I think that

00;12;30;11 - 00;12;35;01

he understood the risk of becoming,

you know, super corporate.

00;12;35;01 - 00;12;37;20

And ultimately it seems like

that's completely played out.

00;12;37;20 - 00;12;41;14

I think that, you know, my vantage point

being in the communications department

00;12;41;14 - 00;12;41;27

was that

00;12;43;07 - 00;12;45;28

the company went from this period of rapid

growth

00;12;45;28 - 00;12;49;09

and just, you know, making tons of money

and doing all these different things.

00;12;49;09 - 00;12;51;21

And it was, you know, so cool

and so exciting.

00;12;51;21 - 00;12;55;06

But then, you know, contrary

to their own kind of,

00;12;56;09 - 00;12;59;08

you know, values on paper about HR,

they ended up

00;12;59;26 - 00;13;03;16

hiring a ton of executives

or elevating people to kind of, you know,

00;13;03;16 - 00;13;07;10

manage these different sort of business

units, these different little fiefdoms.

00;13;08;16 - 00;13;12;29

I think that this, this age of executives

became a really complicated,

00;13;13;18 - 00;13;17;16

situation for the company because it,

it corporatized it in a, in a big way

00;13;17;16 - 00;13;18;06

because all of a sudden

00;13;18;06 - 00;13;20;11

you have people coming from the outside

that are kind of,

00;13;20;11 - 00;13;23;14

you know, there's people from Microsoft

or, you know, people who are kind

00;13;23;14 - 00;13;27;13

of used to competently running, you know,

really big teams, really big orgs

00;13;27;21 - 00;13;31;07

who might not, you know, believe in that

same sort of like freewheeling spirit,

00;13;31;07 - 00;13;33;26

but they have a different skill set

or something like that.

00;13;33;26 - 00;13;36;18

The communications became more formal.

00;13;36;18 - 00;13;38;18

The amount of trust

that you can have in the company,

00;13;38;18 - 00;13;43;18

the transparency isn't the same because people stake feels, you know, more tenuous.

00;13;45;13 - 00;13;45;23

Yeah.

00;13;45;23 - 00;13;48;23

I think that, you know, the company,

00;13;49;08 - 00;13;52;08

has been plagued by sort of,

00;13;53;00 - 00;13;54;21

lack of sort of central organization.

00;13;54;21 - 00;13;56;21

So there's I have an example in the book

00;13;56;21 - 00;13;59;28

that there were like five different teams

working on smartwatches at the same time.

00;13;59;28 - 00;14;03;05

Like, that's not only kind of

demoralizing, but it's inefficient.

00;14;03;05 - 00;14;06;04

And they've had, you know, many waves of,

00;14;06;04 - 00;14;07;12

Ruth Porat, who's the CFO.

00;14;07;12 - 00;14;09;15

When they brought her

in, they called her Ruthless Ruth

00;14;09;15 - 00;14;12;14

because she was trying to look

and see where all the bloat and the

00;14;12;17 - 00;14;13;27

and the waste was coming from.

00;14;13;27 - 00;14;17;26

So I could see that

as, Google moved into kind of first,

00;14;17;26 - 00;14;20;13

this age of executives,

then this age of branding,

00;14;20;13 - 00;14;22;23

where they just put

tons of money into marketing,

00;14;22;23 - 00;14;25;23

and now it was billion dollar budgets

for the marketing department.

00;14;25;29 - 00;14;30;03

And then on a much kind of smaller scale

note, in my last few years at YouTube,

00;14;31;08 - 00;14;32;11

I saw this.

00;14;32;11 - 00;14;34;25

My dad was a small business owner,

00;14;34;25 - 00;14;37;25

in Emeryville, California, in the Bay area

where I grew up.

00;14;38;00 - 00;14;41;11

And I would tell him

sometimes anecdotes about my manager,

00;14;41;11 - 00;14;43;11

who's someone who's been very successful

at Google.

00;14;43;11 - 00;14;45;06

You know, she's she's like,

00;14;45;06 - 00;14;47;27

you know, mid-level executive

in the marketing department for department

00;14;47;27 - 00;14;48;23

still there.

00;14;48;23 - 00;14;51;24

And I remember we were talking

about doing an event to promote

00;14;51;24 - 00;14;54;24

some, you know, YouTube show

we were working on. And,

00;14;55;10 - 00;14;56;13

you know, I,

00;14;56;13 - 00;14;59;02

I think I was trying to do some cost

saving or even saying,

00;14;59;02 - 00;15;00;21

I don't know

if we even need to do an event

00;15;00;21 - 00;15;02;11

if we're going to see the ROI from that.

00;15;02;11 - 00;15;05;26

And she was basically encouraging me

to continue on with this event.

00;15;05;26 - 00;15;08;20

And to spend the maximum,

you know, was allotted for it.

00;15;08;20 - 00;15;11;02

And she said, you know,

and I'll never forget it.

00;15;11;02 - 00;15;13;19

You don't get a gold star

for coming in under budget.

00;15;13;19 - 00;15;17;23

And the logic there was,

if you don't spend, then you can't ask

00;15;17;23 - 00;15;20;23

for, you know, you ask for bigger budgets,

you know, year in, year out.

00;15;20;23 - 00;15;22;22

And so what you have

with someone like that,

00;15;22;22 - 00;15;23;28

and I think it's

there's tons of people like

00;15;23;28 - 00;15;26;21

this is people who are really savvy

corporate game players.

00;15;26;21 - 00;15;30;06

And their priority

isn't the mission of the company and the,

00;15;30;07 - 00;15;33;06

you know, the end user and all these other

kind of idealistic things

00;15;33;06 - 00;15;35;14

that we kind of, you know,

we're always talking about obsessively.

00;15;35;14 - 00;15;39;15

In the early days,

her interest is, growing

00;15;39;15 - 00;15;43;22

her, influence in the or

growing her budget, growing her headcount.

00;15;44;27 - 00;15;45;17

She probably is,

00;15;45;17 - 00;15;48;17

you know, self-interested

monetarily out there, you know, get it?

00;15;48;19 - 00;15;53;03

And I think, you know, with, with culture

shift culture, organizational culture.

00;15;53;04 - 00;15;56;07

So organizational organizational

psychology is so complicated.

00;15;56;17 - 00;16;00;06

But I could see that very unfortunately,

Google has sort of lost its grip

00;16;00;15 - 00;16;03;19

on, you know, people

who are deeply invested

00;16;03;19 - 00;16;07;08

and in the company's success and instead

more invested in their success.

00;16;07;08 - 00;16;10;20

I'm sure, as Larry Page would say,

this is an inevitability

00;16;10;20 - 00;16;14;04

that you have to fight aggressively

as companies become so, so big.

00;16;14;29 - 00;16;19;19

And also the, you know, the mission of

the company is so big and so complicated.

00;16;19;19 - 00;16;22;04

And I, you know, when I would

when I joined the YouTube marketing team

00;16;22;04 - 00;16;25;16

and I would tell my husband, who's

an architect, about my job, it was like

00;16;26;18 - 00;16;27;28

there had also

00;16;27;28 - 00;16;29;16

Google had also undergone

00;16;29;16 - 00;16;32;15

kind of related to what I'm talking about,

the old manager, this bullshit jobs

00;16;32;15 - 00;16;34;19

ification

where I would describe what I'm doing.

00;16;34;19 - 00;16;38;00

Okay, you know, I run a team

that manages the social media presence

00;16;38;00 - 00;16;42;04

for YouTube and, you know, it's

not really tied to any particular goal.

00;16;42;04 - 00;16;44;21

It's like we're just supposed

to kind of drive positive sentiment.

00;16;44;21 - 00;16;45;23

And so he's been like an architect.

00;16;45;23 - 00;16;48;13

You know, you're building houses sort of

like brick by brick is very tangible.

00;16;48;13 - 00;16;48;27

And you'd be like,

00;16;48;27 - 00;16;53;02

I just don't really kind of understand

how this connects to like YouTube's

00;16;53;02 - 00;16;56;02

bottom line or any particular goal,

because our goals are kind of

00;16;56;05 - 00;16;56;28

just sort of like,

00;16;56;28 - 00;16;57;25

you know, we're going with the

00;16;57;25 - 00;17;00;27

with the wind and there's, you know,

a lot of discussion in the book about,

00;17;01;02 - 00;17;04;24

you know, how the social media channels

change with the political climate.

00;17;04;24 - 00;17;06;28

And, you know, we're now we're doing

liberal values now.

00;17;06;28 - 00;17;10;20

We're not, you know, this sort of thing

and, you know, but yet, like, you know,

00;17;10;20 - 00;17;13;05

he would say that I'd be like, it's

so true. Like, what even is this job?

00;17;13;05 - 00;17;15;16

And yet the, the budgets and the head

counts.

00;17;15;16 - 00;17;16;27

It's just got bigger and bigger

and bigger.

00;17;16;27 - 00;17;19;15

We had, you know, multiple agencies,

tons of people.

00;17;19;15 - 00;17;22;23

I mean, my boss, you know, had probably

had 30 people on her team by the end.

00;17;22;25 - 00;17;26;02

This is she was the person

overseeing the social media presence.

00;17;26;02 - 00;17;26;23

So you think,

00;17;26;23 - 00;17;28;27

all right,

I've seen maybe one times in YouTube's

00;17;28;27 - 00;17;31;05

Twitter account

or Instagram account or something.

00;17;31;05 - 00;17;31;22

Think about that.

00;17;31;22 - 00;17;35;22

30 people and then maybe 100 other people

at agencies who are working on it.

00;17;36;01 - 00;17;38;05

It's just tremendously wasteful.

00;17;38;05 - 00;17;41;21

It's, you know, it's really hard

from the outside

00;17;41;21 - 00;17;45;08

perspective to understand how the company

could justify that kind of money.

00;17;45;08 - 00;17;47;01

And, you know, it's like a jobs program.

00;17;47;01 - 00;17;48;00

It's like a jobs.

00;17;48;00 - 00;17;52;16

It's like, you know, it's like some sort

of like a big socialist product project.

00;17;52;16 - 00;17;56;01

But it's, you know, within the under

the guise of big corporate,

00;17;57;07 - 00;17;58;13

big corporate companies.

00;17;58;13 - 00;17;59;08

So anyway, that's.

00;17;59;08 - 00;18;00;22

Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons

00;18;00;22 - 00;18;04;16

why the culture has shifted

in ways that make it like a bit, you know,

00;18;04;16 - 00;18;07;16

less desirable in every way

that it's been so quick.

00;18;08;12 - 00;18;08;25

Yeah.

00;18;08;25 - 00;18;11;25

And yeah,

the reason I ask is because it seems like

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;16;17

it's so obviously underwent

like a metamorphosis,

00;18;16;17 - 00;18;18;21

and it feels like it's

not unique to Google either. Right?

00;18;18;21 - 00;18;22;09

That there's all these stories of

you have companies that get too big

00;18;22;09 - 00;18;24;10

and suddenly they have money

and they don't know what to do with it,

00;18;24;10 - 00;18;27;12

and they do weird stuff

and they get corporatized.

00;18;27;12 - 00;18;30;21

And you have, you know,

it starts as being very people focused.

00;18;30;21 - 00;18;31;20

And you have, you know,

00;18;31;20 - 00;18;36;08

someone like Larry who's making

sure that it reflects their values.

00;18;36;08 - 00;18;39;23

And then, you know, as as they

step back a little bit, you lose that.

00;18;40;02 - 00;18;41;03

That North Star is.

00;18;41;03 - 00;18;42;05

So yeah, it's interesting.

00;18;42;05 - 00;18;44;21

And I want to talk more about that

through our conversation.

00;18;44;21 - 00;18;47;06

But I guess

just kind of playing the tape forward,

00;18;47;06 - 00;18;50;01

you know,

we end up a handful of years later

00;18;50;01 - 00;18;53;04

with the walkouts

and the events leading up to the walkouts.

00;18;53;14 - 00;18;57;01

And for, you know, listeners

who don't know, that involves some,

00;18;57;06 - 00;19;00;16

you know, fairly egregious,

sexual harassment payouts. But,

00;19;01;16 - 00;19;03;02

maybe,

Claire, you can tell us a little bit

00;19;03;02 - 00;19;06;12

about that, the lead up to it

and the walkouts themselves.

00;19;06;12 - 00;19;10;22

And like how,

I guess how you got involved with that.

00;19;11;15 - 00;19;11;25

Right?

00;19;11;25 - 00;19;12;23

I know it was,

00;19;12;23 - 00;19;15;28

you know, to have considered myself

kind of the ultimate corporate good girl

00;19;15;28 - 00;19;17;04

and then to be,

00;19;17;04 - 00;19;21;00

you know, leading the charge on this sort

of revolt was definitely a shocking turn.

00;19;21;00 - 00;19;22;17

Even,

00;19;22;17 - 00;19;25;04

even though I lived it, I'm like,

how did I end up doing that?

00;19;25;04 - 00;19;29;02

The you know, I think that the again, the,

00;19;29;15 - 00;19;32;29

the kind of cultural context driving,

you know, drives

00;19;32;29 - 00;19;36;22

so many, you know, forces and,

you know, rupture moments.

00;19;36;22 - 00;19;37;00

Right?

00;19;37;00 - 00;19;40;00

So you know, Trump had

00;19;40;09 - 00;19;43;01

come into power in 2016.

00;19;43;01 - 00;19;47;03

And so there were a lot of conversation,

you know, the MeToo movement, it was 2018,

00;19;48;00 - 00;19;48;21

began.

00;19;48;21 - 00;19;53;24

And, you know, there was a lot of,

you know, women feeling that

00;19;53;24 - 00;19;58;18

there was space available to talk about,

you know, kind of some of the, you know,

00;19;59;04 - 00;20;03;04

systemic cultural aspects of the way,

you know, the workplaces we've been in,

00;20;04;17 - 00;20;06;21

and just the the patriarchy in general.

00;20;06;21 - 00;20;08;15

Right. So,

00;20;08;15 - 00;20;12;28

I, I had had a baby, which was,

which was just personally

00;20;12;28 - 00;20;15;28

a very radical experience

as it, as it, as it can be.

00;20;17;00 - 00;20;19;26

And while I was on maternity leave,

00;20;19;26 - 00;20;23;02

there was this sort of all

this sort of MeToo stuff

00;20;23;02 - 00;20;27;07

kind of came home to roost at Google

because there was a, an engineer

00;20;27;07 - 00;20;30;08

named James Damore who sent around a memo.

00;20;30;08 - 00;20;32;07

There was a

there's a lots of mailing lists

00;20;32;07 - 00;20;35;07

and people, you know, kind of constantly

arguing things at Google.

00;20;35;15 - 00;20;37;16

It was a big part of the culture.

I don't think is.

00;20;37;16 - 00;20;40;19

But he there was a mailing list

00;20;40;19 - 00;20;43;19

that was for controversial takes,

and he wrote a big memo,

00;20;45;04 - 00;20;47;08

basically about how

00;20;47;08 - 00;20;52;03

women are biologically less suited

to engineering than men.

00;20;52;03 - 00;20;54;22

And it's actually been a huge disaster.

00;20;54;22 - 00;20;58;15

The Dei, you know, efforts

that Google had done to try to,

00;20;59;07 - 00;21;04;08

bring more women onto engineering teams

was counterproductive and a huge disaster.

00;21;04;08 - 00;21;06;00

You know, all these other things.

00;21;06;00 - 00;21;09;09

So I was sort of just like watching this

with fascination because in unearthed

00;21;09;09 - 00;21;14;09

this conversation about the

the lingering bro culture in the Valley,

00;21;14;17 - 00;21;17;11

which I think that

in some ways was was sort of

00;21;18;11 - 00;21;19;05

hard to see.

00;21;19;05 - 00;21;22;15

It's not like being in Wall Street

where someone's like slapping your butt

00;21;22;15 - 00;21;23;29

or something, you know, like in the 80s.

00;21;23;29 - 00;21;25;28

I think that,

00;21;25;28 - 00;21;28;27

you know, I think that, you know, the,

00;21;29;01 - 00;21;32;24

the kind of hacker, bro culture

of the Valley has always been there.

00;21;32;24 - 00;21;35;12

And there was a good, Emily

Chang book called bro.

00;21;35;12 - 00;21;38;20

Topia, which talks a little bit

about the sort of like startup culture,

00;21;39;10 - 00;21;41;29

and sexist, a kind of basic sexism,

I guess.

00;21;41;29 - 00;21;45;22

But, you know, it ended up

being this sort of interesting moment

00;21;45;22 - 00;21;49;22

where I think, women were starting to,

to chew on,

00;21;51;03 - 00;21;54;08

feeling that sort of sense

of discrimination or sense of like, I'm

00;21;54;08 - 00;21;58;07

a guy, hire all this and, you know,

and it was really interesting.

00;21;58;07 - 00;22;03;11

So then, you know, then, Brett Kavanaugh

was, confirmed to the Supreme Court

00;22;03;22 - 00;22;06;26

that fall that I was coming back

from maternity leave and,

00;22;07;24 - 00;22;11;08

was also another really interesting moment

of just talking about patriarchy

00;22;11;08 - 00;22;14;16

and sort of, you know, just

it was just a really interesting, meaty

00;22;14;16 - 00;22;15;11

cultural conversation.

00;22;15;11 - 00;22;19;28

So, the women at Google,

I think, were engaged in a way,

00;22;20;10 - 00;22;22;00

that, you know,

because usually as a Googler,

00;22;22;00 - 00;22;23;23

you're like, I'm

so grateful and happy to be here.

00;22;23;23 - 00;22;26;10

I'm like, you know, making good money

and what a wonderful company.

00;22;26;10 - 00;22;29;07

And you know, they support, you know,

the whole person and all that. Right.

00;22;30;14 - 00;22;32;24

So it's really hard because

I think there's a lot of sense of like,

00;22;32;24 - 00;22;34;19

you know, who are you to, you know,

00;22;34;19 - 00;22;37;20

people are getting like raped around,

you know, like there's so much like either

00;22;37;22 - 00;22;41;17

there's the women face

or and people of color face, you know,

00;22;42;01 - 00;22;45;13

so much there's so many difficult,

you know, experiences around the world.

00;22;45;13 - 00;22;46;06

We're so privileged.

00;22;46;06 - 00;22;48;14

How can we possibly complain

as sort of you know, a little bit

00;22;48;14 - 00;22;50;14

the attitude of of women at Google,

I think.

00;22;50;14 - 00;22;54;02

But all this is to say,

there was a big New York Times, exposé

00;22;54;19 - 00;22;58;27

of, a man named Andy Rubin who we all knew

well was like a really big,

00;22;58;27 - 00;22;59;18

you know, basically

00;22;59;18 - 00;23;02;20

like second only to Larry and Sergey

as a kind of celebrity of the company.

00;23;03;11 - 00;23;07;11

And he had, been investigated for,

00;23;07;29 - 00;23;10;18

improper relations

with subordinates on the team.

00;23;10;18 - 00;23;13;18

I guess you could say there's sort

of, like, some very salacious details,

00;23;14;14 - 00;23;15;12

and inappropriate.

00;23;15;12 - 00;23;15;20

It was.

00;23;15;20 - 00;23;19;02

It was largely like, very,

inappropriate behavior.

00;23;19;10 - 00;23;22;11

For someone running a team

and running a huge org.

00;23;22;11 - 00;23;25;13

And Google had investigated these, claims

00;23;25;13 - 00;23;29;17

and basically decided

to get him out of the company.

00;23;30;11 - 00;23;32;00

But he got a $90 million payout.

00;23;32;00 - 00;23;35;00

So, of course, this is

probably was like he created androids.

00;23;35;00 - 00;23;38;10

It it's probably like contractual,

you know, like they get paying him

00;23;38;10 - 00;23;41;24

some percentage of what Android was worth,

you know, and you know, all this.

00;23;41;24 - 00;23;45;11

But there there were a few other examples

in this New York Times story,

00;23;45;17 - 00;23;48;17

including of David Drummond, who was the,

00;23;48;23 - 00;23;52;14

chief legal officer having,

actually having a baby

00;23;52;15 - 00;23;55;16

with with someone who was like an admin

on his administrative team.

00;23;56;06 - 00;23;59;00

And she was sort of shuttled

out of the company with nothing,

00;23;59;00 - 00;24;02;10

and, you know, anyway,

so it created the perfect,

00;24;02;10 - 00;24;06;08

you know, image in a already charged

time for women at the company.

00;24;07;16 - 00;24;08;25

That look at the

00;24;08;25 - 00;24;12;02

optics here that, you know, a man abuses

his power,

00;24;12;17 - 00;24;16;14

gets a hero's farewell, gets, you know,

Andy Rubin is getting paid like, you know,

00;24;16;25 - 00;24;19;16

$2 million a month

for for many years or whatever.

00;24;19;16 - 00;24;20;20

Some crazy thing.

00;24;20;20 - 00;24;23;25

And, you know, and meanwhile,

these women who are kind

00;24;23;25 - 00;24;26;25

of, like,

discarded by this side of the road,

00;24;27;04 - 00;24;30;04

who are, you know, the victims of these

sort of like, men in power.

00;24;30;29 - 00;24;34;29

And, you know, it's just it just

I think it kind of it summed up it was it

00;24;34;29 - 00;24;38;25

was it was like the, you know, the match

that let the powder keg sort of moment.

00;24;38;25 - 00;24;43;07

So I was just coming back from maternity

leave had been following had been,

00;24;43;09 - 00;24;44;17

you know, I love a listserv.

00;24;44;17 - 00;24;47;10

So I was, you know, big on the moms group,

you know, it's an anonymous group.

00;24;47;10 - 00;24;51;07

But I was just really interested,

to see people's reactions to this.

00;24;51;07 - 00;24;53;09

And, you know,

I think people were kind of chiming in

00;24;53;09 - 00;24;54;13

with their sort of like, MeToo

00;24;54;13 - 00;24;57;29

stories, and people started to talk about,

you know, what we might do.

00;24;58;14 - 00;25;02;10

You know, send a letter to the CEO,

maybe we should all get together

00;25;02;10 - 00;25;05;17

and go to the TGIF and,

you know, show a united front about,

00;25;06;15 - 00;25;07;23

you know, how angry we are.

00;25;07;23 - 00;25;11;03

And I think because I've been so deep

in the bones of the communications,

00;25;11;03 - 00;25;14;24

the internal communications,

and knew how, insufficient

00;25;14;24 - 00;25;19;18

they were for accountability

at that point in the companies, lifespan,

00;25;20;20 - 00;25;23;12

as well as just like the moment, you know,

it's like it just felt like

00;25;23;12 - 00;25;27;02

we should do something a bit,

something bigger to log and register.

00;25;27;19 - 00;25;30;06

Our discontent,

you know, maybe something public facing.

00;25;30;06 - 00;25;31;25

We're gonna walk out.

00;25;31;25 - 00;25;35;21

And so I, you know, I think that I

it was like I had just hit this point

00;25;35;21 - 00;25;39;20

of being sort of like, personally

and professionally frustrated

00;25;39;20 - 00;25;44;09

and kind of fed up

with aspects of my, management and the way

00;25;44;09 - 00;25;46;16

I'd been treated after maternity leave

and all these other things.

00;25;46;16 - 00;25;49;07

And I just thought, you know,

I have good name recognition

00;25;49;07 - 00;25;51;29

within the company

from my days in communications.

00;25;51;29 - 00;25;55;04

I'm happy I, I'm never going to get fired

or dinged for this.

00;25;55;04 - 00;25;58;26

And I think that the, you know, it's

it's it's, it's it's about time that,

00;25;58;26 - 00;25;59;19

you know, we

00;26;00;23 - 00;26;03;16

that we,

you know, make a statement to management

00;26;03;16 - 00;26;06;16

about how this isn't okay,

these systemic issues are not okay. So,

00;26;06;29 - 00;26;09;15

I just sort of said I can help

put my name on it.

00;26;09;15 - 00;26;10;23

And planet,

00;26;10;23 - 00;26;14;09

some wonderful people came to the fold

and we had this, you know, whole group

00;26;14;09 - 00;26;15;12

that was working on it

00;26;15;12 - 00;26;17;08

and it and we thought

we even got a couple hundred

00;26;17;08 - 00;26;19;20

people maybe in Mountain View,

maybe in New York.

00;26;19;20 - 00;26;22;20

But one really kind of sobering

aspect of it was that

00;26;23;09 - 00;26;24;27

it seemed to take off so quickly.

00;26;24;27 - 00;26;26;08

We planned it within a week.

00;26;26;08 - 00;26;28;15

Then the protest happened.

00;26;28;15 - 00;26;31;03

And I was like,

what is what is happening here?

00;26;31;03 - 00;26;33;22

Because I know, you know,

some women are frustrated and,

00;26;33;22 - 00;26;37;22

you know, there's there's women who've,

you know, experienced really bad things

00;26;38;00 - 00;26;40;22

worse than what I'm talking about, with,

you know, my own

00;26;40;22 - 00;26;44;21

feeling of like, opportunity

discrimination or whatever, and I

00;26;44;21 - 00;26;48;19

so I, I sent out a, a Google form saying,

why are you walking out?

00;26;48;19 - 00;26;52;03

You know, what is why are you compelled

to, you know, kind of step out of line?

00;26;52;03 - 00;26;54;13

You know, we're all kind of like

good girls, you know, like high achievers.

00;26;54;13 - 00;26;55;16

You're our Google.

00;26;55;16 - 00;27;00;12

And I got the 350 stories

back, or 350 responses back.

00;27;00;12 - 00;27;04;21

And a lot of them were these

egregious stories of just like, you know,

00;27;04;26 - 00;27;08;01

I had just I just said that, you know,

like, oh, we think we're so privileged.

00;27;08;01 - 00;27;10;04

You know,

no one's like slapping our but like,

00;27;10;04 - 00;27;12;02

they would on Wall Street or something.

There's tons of that.

00;27;12;02 - 00;27;15;15

There's tons of, you know, inappropriate

remarks, just, you know,

00;27;15;25 - 00;27;19;09

casual sexism did horrible experiences.

00;27;19;09 - 00;27;19;24

People had,

00;27;19;24 - 00;27;23;19

you know, coming back from maternity

leave, having their products given away.

00;27;24;18 - 00;27;26;00

You know,

00;27;26;00 - 00;27;28;21

these things that you'd think

there would be not just,

00;27;28;21 - 00;27;31;01

you know, the basic labor protections

that you didn't get.

00;27;31;01 - 00;27;32;19

Treat this way, treated this way at work

00;27;32;19 - 00;27;35;19

just because of your gender

or the color of your skin.

00;27;35;24 - 00;27;39;23

But especially at Google, which,

you know, foisted by its own petard here

00;27;40;00 - 00;27;43;18

always said it was like the kind of

progressive workplace of the future that,

00;27;44;19 - 00;27;48;28

you know, we treat people,

you know, kind of better than, you know,

00;27;48;29 - 00;27;52;23

we workers are the center of, you know,

and the lifeblood of this place.

00;27;52;23 - 00;27;53;20

And and we wouldn't want,

00;27;53;20 - 00;27;57;01

you know, all these sort of like HR checks

and balances to kind of, you know,

00;27;57;16 - 00;28;00;05

theoretically prevent people

from feeling like

00;28;00;05 - 00;28;04;05

things are completely, you know, unfair,

sexist, racist and all this.

00;28;04;05 - 00;28;07;05

And so I was really shocked

that, like, under the cover of darkness,

00;28;07;20 - 00;28;09;17

there was still so much of this going on.

00;28;09;17 - 00;28;12;10

Google's response

was also kind of interesting and telling

00;28;12;10 - 00;28;15;04

where, you know, the head of HR was like,

yeah, it's inevitable.

00;28;15;04 - 00;28;16;28

You know,

you have a company of 90,000 people.

00;28;16;28 - 00;28;18;28

There's going

to be like sexual harassment.

00;28;20;02 - 00;28;20;28

It just didn't meet the

00;28;20;28 - 00;28;23;28

moment, you know,

and it kind of like continued to

00;28;25;11 - 00;28;27;19

it kind of that what was, you know,

00;28;27;19 - 00;28;31;14

this kind of pure expression

of just anger and rage in that moment

00;28;32;01 - 00;28;35;23

became quickly

a kind of operation to kind of continue

00;28;35;23 - 00;28;37;24

to push the company

to make changes in these ways.

00;28;37;24 - 00;28;40;13

We had demands. We kind of,

you know, following up on them.

00;28;40;13 - 00;28;43;15

And Google was like,

okay, you blow off steam, we're good.

00;28;43;15 - 00;28;45;00

Let's move on here.

00;28;45;00 - 00;28;47;17

We got it. Don't call us. We'll call you.

00;28;47;17 - 00;28;48;19

And yeah.

00;28;48;19 - 00;28;51;16

So yeah, they they ended up, yeah.

00;28;51;16 - 00;28;55;05

Not not loving the ongoing

organizing at the time.

00;28;55;15 - 00;28;56;09

Yeah.

00;28;56;09 - 00;28;57;17

And they clamped down on it really hard.

00;28;57;17 - 00;28;59;20

So that's. Yeah.

00;28;59;20 - 00;29;01;26

Well,

well tell me about the clampdown because,

00;29;01;26 - 00;29;04;26

you know, from,

from my very distant point of view,

00;29;05;12 - 00;29;08;18

what I saw was like the,

the sort of tacit leadership like,

00;29;08;18 - 00;29;11;25

oh, yes, we support you,

but please go away or something like that.

00;29;11;25 - 00;29;15;22

Like it was like it was

it seemed like it was like head nodding,

00;29;15;22 - 00;29;19;24

but yeah, like whatever

the opposite of commitment to action

00;29;19;24 - 00;29;23;24

is like like basically, yes, we hear you,

but we're not willing to make any sort of

00;29;23;24 - 00;29;25;06

system level changes. So.

00;29;25;06 - 00;29;27;11

So tell me about the clampdown

and tell me what you know,

00;29;27;11 - 00;29;29;07

what happened next from your perspective?

00;29;29;07 - 00;29;32;26

Well, I just to first mention that the,

you know, the company

00;29;32;26 - 00;29;36;09

initially took, if you can't beat them,

join, sort of, attitude.

00;29;36;09 - 00;29;40;03

So when the walkout was getting planned,

they, the CEO of the company

00;29;40;03 - 00;29;41;19

sent out an email saying,

00;29;41;19 - 00;29;45;06

I understand this is happening and,

you know, you're welcome to walk out.

00;29;45;06 - 00;29;46;02

It was just so weird.

00;29;46;02 - 00;29;48;17

But it was good

publicity for the event, I guess.

00;29;49;28 - 00;29;53;15

And then the CFO of the company

was at a Wall Street

00;29;53;15 - 00;29;56;23

Journal conference that week,

and she was like, I walked out myself.

00;29;56;23 - 00;30;00;03

And, you know, this is, you know, here

we have Googlers doing what Googlers do.

00;30;00;03 - 00;30;02;20

Well, you know, we're going to solve

all these problems together.

00;30;02;20 - 00;30;04;11

And like sexual harassment, yet

another problem

00;30;04;11 - 00;30;07;11

that Google can solve, you know,

which is crazy.

00;30;08;03 - 00;30;10;11

But so it was sort of like hunky dory.

00;30;10;11 - 00;30;14;10

And as an organizer, I was invited to go

do a meeting with the female

00;30;14;16 - 00;30;18;08

top female executives

like Susan Wojcicki and Ruth CFO and,

00;30;19;29 - 00;30;21;22

you know,

00;30;21;22 - 00;30;24;09

but the cozy, the coziness was,

00;30;24;09 - 00;30;27;09

you know, dissipated almost immediately.

00;30;27;20 - 00;30;30;25

They did a, you know, an all hands

where they said, here's our, you know,

00;30;30;25 - 00;30;33;02

kind of like internal site

where we're going to, like,

00;30;33;02 - 00;30;35;12

make progress on these demands,

but they never commit, you know,

00;30;35;12 - 00;30;39;10

other than they got rid of forced

arbitration, which was a big deal.

00;30;40;11 - 00;30;43;11

They, they didn't really

do any of the things, but some of them,

00;30;43;11 - 00;30;44;24

some of the things we were demanding

00;30;44;24 - 00;30;47;24

were quite like existential in nature,

like commit to like,

00;30;48;23 - 00;30;50;23

correcting pay and equity

and things like this.

00;30;50;23 - 00;30;53;02

But, you know,

it was a lot of lip service,

00;30;53;02 - 00;30;55;17

I think, though, what really kind of,

00;30;55;17 - 00;30;58;09

amplified the walkout

was that there was a big shareholder

00;30;58;09 - 00;31;01;14

lawsuit which said that the way

that Google had handled,

00;31;01;16 - 00;31;04;08

you know, these high profile cases was,

you know, doing damage to the company.

00;31;04;08 - 00;31;07;08

And so there was a big settlement,

00;31;08;03 - 00;31;08;28

with the women, company.

00;31;08;28 - 00;31;11;28

However, the, the,

00;31;12;12 - 00;31;15;09

the company made very quick work to.

00;31;15;09 - 00;31;15;20

Make.

00;31;15;20 - 00;31;19;24

It my belief, isolate

the women who are working on this stuff,

00;31;21;14 - 00;31;23;17

within their teams.

00;31;23;17 - 00;31;26;26

You know, in my case, you know, I was

I feel very much that I was sort of, like,

00;31;26;26 - 00;31;30;11

pushed off of my team,

but at the same time, they made internal

00;31;30;11 - 00;31;33;11

policy changes, including,

00;31;33;22 - 00;31;37;16

talk about a shift from the, you know,

open, transparent Google culture.

00;31;37;24 - 00;31;40;25

They very quickly

sent around an email saying that,

00;31;41;25 - 00;31;44;24

now there are penalties for,

00;31;44;24 - 00;31;48;26

accessing need to know documents

if you, if you don't have access, if,

00;31;48;28 - 00;31;51;15

you know, aren't supposed to be

looking at these things, which is it

00;31;51;15 - 00;31;53;03

was sort of like ambiguous,

how would you know?

00;31;53;03 - 00;31;54;18

What if the company was like

00;31;54;18 - 00;31;58;13

all, documents were publicly viewable

by default, and all these other things

00;31;58;13 - 00;32;00;15

that were kind of hallmarks

of the culture.

00;32;00;15 - 00;32;04;12

They ended up firing a group of people

after I had already left.

00;32;04;12 - 00;32;07;24

But, someone was just for,

looking on calendars.

00;32;07;24 - 00;32;12;02

This guy had looked on, HR calendars

and spotted that they were

00;32;12;02 - 00;32;15;13

that someone H.R was meeting with

this kind of famous union busting firm.

00;32;15;13 - 00;32;18;13

And, you know,

people were getting Ahold of,

00;32;18;18 - 00;32;21;18

documents

that showed that Google was, basically

00;32;21;23 - 00;32;26;04

trying to run a psychological operation

to, quell the threat of organizing

00;32;26;13 - 00;32;27;13

the threat of unionism.

00;32;28;14 - 00;32;31;06

And. Yeah, so I think that and, you know,

00;32;31;06 - 00;32;36;06

when people get fired for for stuff

that's confusing like that,

00;32;36;11 - 00;32;40;15

which is, you know, what it was very

there was someone who also put a,

00;32;41;20 - 00;32;44;14

like, a pop up on all Linux machines

00;32;44;14 - 00;32;46;06

that said, like,

organizing is a protected right.

00;32;46;06 - 00;32;47;22

You know, these things,

that person got fired.

00;32;47;22 - 00;32;50;20

So, basically,

you know, that's very chilling.

00;32;50;20 - 00;32;52;22

I mean, the chilling effects of that, it's

it's it's,

00;32;52;22 - 00;32;56;02

you know, you go it's a complete

about-face from this is we have Googlers

00;32;56;02 - 00;32;59;02

doing Googlers do well all the way to

00;32;59;06 - 00;32;59;17

yeah.

00;32;59;17 - 00;33;01;26

You you you saw something on a calendar.

00;33;01;26 - 00;33;03;05

We don't like that you're gone. So.

00;33;03;05 - 00;33;04;12

And yeah.

00;33;04;12 - 00;33;07;12

There I think that the and then that

00;33;07;12 - 00;33;10;23

the shot chaser there was that

the tech industry started doing layoffs.

00;33;10;23 - 00;33;15;21

So, you know, the

the walkout came was born of a time

00;33;15;28 - 00;33;20;16

where, workers did feel, ironically

enough, psychologically safe.

00;33;20;16 - 00;33;23;03

Here's me saying,

I've been at this company forever.

00;33;23;03 - 00;33;26;01

They're not gonna they're never gonna

get rid of me for this.

00;33;26;01 - 00;33;30;00

Because, you know, I'm holding

Google to its own data, stated values.

00;33;30;00 - 00;33;33;00

So even if they don't like that

this is a protest, it's sort of bad

00;33;33;00 - 00;33;36;28

PR for it's drawing more attention to this

sort of like corporate malfeasance.

00;33;39;05 - 00;33;40;11

Even so,

00;33;40;11 - 00;33;43;27

they're going to have to live with that

because the culture is durable enough

00;33;43;27 - 00;33;46;10

to absorb these voices and all the,

you know, the

00;33;46;10 - 00;33;49;24

the company's not so insecure

that they would punish people for,

00;33;50;13 - 00;33;53;18

for speaking out against things that

they deserve to be held accountable for.

00;33;54;13 - 00;33;57;05

But how wrong I was,

because I think that, you know,

00;33;57;05 - 00;34;00;22

even though I think that all the pretty

much all the women from the walkout,

00;34;02;10 - 00;34;05;00

left like pretty dramatically and,

you know, in public ways.

00;34;05;00 - 00;34;08;05

And I thought that, you know, if anything,

the optics of that will look so bad

00;34;08;05 - 00;34;12;01

for this company that I know so care

so much about being seen as

00;34;12;16 - 00;34;13;24

inclusive and progressive.

00;34;13;24 - 00;34;15;20

And but anyway, they still did.

00;34;15;20 - 00;34;19;25

And, you know, like when I was kind of

finishing up the book last summer,

00;34;19;25 - 00;34;24;00

I went and saw that the women who were,

you know, the head of my department,

00;34;24;00 - 00;34;27;23

you know, marketing at YouTube

as well, ended up going on

00;34;27;23 - 00;34;29;12

kind of like a road show

and putting out op

00;34;29;12 - 00;34;33;04

eds the year two after I, you know, I left

and all this sort of fracas

00;34;33;05 - 00;34;37;10

at Google about, you know, that

pontificating about how to build diverse

00;34;37;10 - 00;34;40;10

and inclusive teams

that, you know, like how people flourish.

00;34;40;10 - 00;34;43;22

I'm just like, can nobody see this through

this ridiculousness

00;34;43;22 - 00;34;46;25

that they, you know, ended up kind of,

00;34;47;16 - 00;34;51;01

you know, that's not, not, not the biggest

selling point for your inclusive team

00;34;51;01 - 00;34;55;04

that you ended up, pushing out

the people that dared to question,

00;34;56;09 - 00;34;57;26

question leadership.

00;34;57;26 - 00;35;00;29

You know, particularly when we were hired

on the back of that sort of promise.

00;35;00;29 - 00;35;04;08

But, yeah, that was so

that was the kind of like quick shift

00;35;04;08 - 00;35;07;02

that they were able to make.

And the chilling effects remain.

00;35;07;02 - 00;35;10;15

I don't think that organizing exists,

that these tech companies near

00;35;10;15 - 00;35;14;03

on the level of the kind of promise

of that particular moment.

00;35;16;21 - 00;35;17;06

When I hear

00;35;17;06 - 00;35;20;06

you talk about that period of time

and about the walkouts,

00;35;20;06 - 00;35;23;06

it's interesting, Claire, and

and tell me if you disagree, but I,

00;35;23;13 - 00;35;26;07

I, I sense like a sense of reflection

in you.

00;35;26;07 - 00;35;30;17

Like, it seems like you're like,

oh, how how idealistic I was

00;35;30;17 - 00;35;34;04

and and what a time that was that

things like that were happening.

00;35;34;04 - 00;35;38;21

And I'm curious, you know, having had

the chance now to sort of reflect on it,

00;35;39;00 - 00;35;42;10

you know, what you make of it

now, you know, would you do it again?

00;35;42;10 - 00;35;44;04

Would you have done something differently?

00;35;44;04 - 00;35;47;19

Do you see it as,

you know, being a force for good or,

00;35;48;29 - 00;35;51;23

you know,

just more of a product of its time?

00;35;51;23 - 00;35;54;23

Well, you know, I think it,

00;35;55;18 - 00;35;56;22

you know,

00;35;56;22 - 00;35;59;22

my naivete at that time

00;35;59;27 - 00;36;03;26

was something that I like,

feel like is very precious because, like,

00;36;03;26 - 00;36;06;25

even when I went to

when I started experiencing this sort of,

00;36;06;25 - 00;36;07;10

like,

00;36;07;10 - 00;36;10;03

changing in my roles and responsibilities,

and I'm starting to kind of

00;36;10;03 - 00;36;13;04

get isolated from the, you know,

the main work that I've been doing,

00;36;14;19 - 00;36;17;05

I was like, oh, surely if I go to HR,

they'll fix this.

00;36;17;05 - 00;36;21;24

I mean, it's crazy because I already I was

surrounded by people who either were,

00;36;22;17 - 00;36;26;10

more kind of savvy labor organizers

or people who were just never had

00;36;26;10 - 00;36;30;07

the same trust in authority that I did,

or the kind of deference to authority.

00;36;30;07 - 00;36;31;29

And I think that and I like,

00;36;31;29 - 00;36;35;04

you know, it may surprise people

reading the book that I actually spent

00;36;35;04 - 00;36;39;13

a bit of time talking about how,

like the how I was formed

00;36;39;24 - 00;36;42;29

such that going to Google, I got so bought

in, I was kind of interested

00;36;42;29 - 00;36;46;06

to kind of like, lightly psychoanalyze,

like, you know, it's a Catholic school.

00;36;46;06 - 00;36;48;00

I, you know, was a good student.

00;36;48;00 - 00;36;50;14

All these sort of like, basic

things that make someone,

00;36;50;14 - 00;36;53;03

you know, perhaps you could

say the word susceptible to,

00;36;54;06 - 00;36;55;19

to getting kind of drawn in

00;36;55;19 - 00;36;59;03

to the kind of like the corporate, B.S.,

you know, or whatever.

00;37;00;05 - 00;37;03;20

Or get into, get drawn into the story

and not necessarily be able to separate.

00;37;03;20 - 00;37;06;06

Okay. I have here

my values here and my sense of judgment.

00;37;06;06 - 00;37;09;06

I'm just going to trust what versus

I'll just trust what leadership says.

00;37;10;11 - 00;37;15;03

So, yeah, I think that I completely

understand the person that I was.

00;37;15;03 - 00;37;16;09

I was I was like kind of like

00;37;16;09 - 00;37;19;23

starting to have this awakening

and like a new kind of like righteousness.

00;37;19;23 - 00;37;23;14

And it feels to me

very pure, like it was like, you know,

00;37;23;19 - 00;37;26;28

it just was honestly like I was

there was this like, ice moment.

00;37;26;28 - 00;37;29;28

And I was feeling

kind of passionate and hot, you know?

00;37;29;28 - 00;37;32;09

So it's sort of like that

just happened. I think that,

00;37;33;21 - 00;37;34;00

yeah.

00;37;34;00 - 00;37;37;00

Whereas I think that a lot of the other

organizers would be like,

00;37;37;10 - 00;37;40;07

you need to like, do complete,

00;37;40;07 - 00;37;42;29

you know, operation security

and like get a separate phone

00;37;42;29 - 00;37;45;02

and you can't use any Google products

for things and all this other stuff

00;37;45;02 - 00;37;47;04

that I was just like, again, I was like,

you know,

00;37;47;04 - 00;37;49;17

like Google is never going to like,

punish us for this, right?

00;37;49;17 - 00;37;51;03

You know,

00;37;51;03 - 00;37;53;15

what I do,

I think that, you know, now, knowing what

00;37;53;15 - 00;37;56;15

I know that,

00;37;56;23 - 00;37;58;09

people who strive

00;37;58;09 - 00;38;02;11

to make change, it usually doesn't go

well for them, right?

00;38;02;11 - 00;38;03;10

In a short term way.

00;38;03;10 - 00;38;07;09

It's not like you can necessarily say, oh,

Google, walk out like transformed Google

00;38;07;09 - 00;38;09;13

and there's sexism is gone,

you know, or something.

00;38;09;13 - 00;38;12;22

Or Google is like never going

to have executives who abuse power.

00;38;12;22 - 00;38;16;20

I mean, you know, that said, I think it,

00;38;18;01 - 00;38;20;14

it was part of this bigger culture.

00;38;20;14 - 00;38;24;29

But it also catalyzed a conversation,

I think, within people,

00;38;24;29 - 00;38;27;29

very much like an older version of myself

where,

00;38;28;03 - 00;38;30;26

you know, someone,

it was out in plain air.

00;38;30;26 - 00;38;31;16

What's the delta

00;38;31;16 - 00;38;34;21

between how Google describes itself

and these sort of like values on paper,

00;38;34;21 - 00;38;38;27

and how a big company

that's a big kind of machine is the system

00;38;38;27 - 00;38;42;14

and how it actually operates,

and the kind of humanity and authenticity.

00;38;42;14 - 00;38;45;27

And, you know, I think it's

tremendously healthy for people to, like,

00;38;45;27 - 00;38;49;17

not be so obsessed with their company

is like going to change the world.

00;38;49;17 - 00;38;52;17

And it's a unicorn magical place

like all this other stuff that

00;38;52;18 - 00;38;54;27

whether or not

I was completely sold in on that,

00;38;54;27 - 00;38;56;22

you know,

that was more the direction that I was in.

00;38;56;22 - 00;38;59;17

I think that, you know,

it was a really powerful,

00;39;00;19 - 00;39;03;06

moment

for me to kind of like learn and grow.

00;39;03;06 - 00;39;06;16

And it was so shocking to be like kind of

pushed out the company on the other end.

00;39;06;16 - 00;39;07;10

And I'm just like, oh my God.

00;39;07;10 - 00;39;09;20

Because at the end of the book,

you know, like pregnant.

00;39;09;20 - 00;39;11;22

And I'm like, you know, that's

00;39;11;22 - 00;39;15;19

it was a really kind of weird situation

for me to be like, wait a minute.

00;39;15;19 - 00;39;15;24

What?

00;39;15;24 - 00;39;18;24

Like, how did that, like, just go

so spectacularly wrong?

00;39;19;22 - 00;39;21;10

But, you know, I think that

00;39;21;10 - 00;39;24;10

the kind of silver lining of it is that,

00;39;25;02 - 00;39;28;08

you know, it forced me to kind of

have a bit more agency over my own life.

00;39;28;08 - 00;39;32;12

It's a little bit the message of the book

that, you know, you know, buyer beware.

00;39;32;12 - 00;39;36;17

If you wholesale import

a corporation's worldview and,

00;39;36;17 - 00;39;39;29

you know, kind of hit your wagon,

I guess, for, for a lack of a better way

00;39;39;29 - 00;39;42;22

to put it, if you hit your wagon

so hard to one place,

00;39;42;22 - 00;39;44;10

I feel like there are many times

where I might have left

00;39;44;10 - 00;39;47;26

Google in the book

because I was sort of like, so unhappy or,

00;39;48;09 - 00;39;51;22

you know, dissatisfied, bored or whatever,

but it was like unfathomable

00;39;51;22 - 00;39;56;25

because my, identity, for various reasons,

had become so fuzed with the company.

00;39;56;25 - 00;39;59;28

And then, you know,

we kind of broke up like someone said,

00;40;01;00 - 00;40;03;23

have a friend who left Google was saying

that they,

00;40;03;23 - 00;40;07;20

after they left Google, were served

a Spotify playlist about breakups.

00;40;07;20 - 00;40;08;05

And they were like,

00;40;08;05 - 00;40;11;05

as I'm listening to it, I'm like,

why is this reminding me of Google?

00;40;11;12 - 00;40;14;02

It's like not every workplace, you know,

00;40;14;02 - 00;40;18;06

kind of sets its teeth in emotionally,

psychologically, you know, whatever.

00;40;18;06 - 00;40;19;20

But I think that and I don't even know

00;40;19;20 - 00;40;21;19

if if Google

is capable of doing that anymore.

00;40;21;19 - 00;40;23;27

I'm sure some people like anthropic

or something.

00;40;23;27 - 00;40;27;01

These other companies, like people

probably having that kind of like

00;40;27;01 - 00;40;30;06

cultish family feeling still exists,

you know, in tech.

00;40;30;08 - 00;40;31;24

Very it's very much how they do it.

00;40;31;24 - 00;40;33;18

But, you know,

I think there's more skepticism

00;40;33;18 - 00;40;34;25

and whatever

with some of these big companies.

00;40;34;25 - 00;40;38;20

But all this is to say, it's

such an emotional job.

00;40;38;20 - 00;40;40;18

And I like I think I came to,

00;40;41;22 - 00;40;42;04

I came

00;40;42;04 - 00;40;45;27

to realize that, you know, it's

much healthier, more interesting.

00;40;45;27 - 00;40;47;21

You can have a richer life,

you know, if you're not.

00;40;47;21 - 00;40;51;02

So, like, fuzed with your kind of like,

institutional workplace.

00;40;51;13 - 00;40;55;18

So, yeah, like, I definitely have it,

you know, because I left in 2019.

00;40;55;18 - 00;40;56;20

So I was like Covid,

00;40;56;20 - 00;40;59;28

I had this like other kid

and my life just like changed so much.

00;40;59;28 - 00;41;01;16

I kind of like became a sort of part

00;41;01;16 - 00;41;04;25

time worker,

stay at home mom for a few years almost.

00;41;05;07 - 00;41;07;22

And, you know, it was really hard

because I was like, wow.

00;41;07;22 - 00;41;11;08

And you're like in charge of your time

and, you know, you have to kind of go

00;41;11;08 - 00;41;13;16

and figure out what to do

and how to make money and all this things.

00;41;13;16 - 00;41;17;05

It's like, it's so much easier

to just be kind of like on the train.

00;41;17;05 - 00;41;17;17

Right?

00;41;18;18 - 00;41;19;12

But, you know,

00;41;19;12 - 00;41;22;13

you know, ultimately it was a really kind

of profound and healthy shift

00;41;22;13 - 00;41;23;05

for me in my life.

00;41;23;05 - 00;41;27;19

So, yeah, there's things that I think

that definitely when I look back at,

00;41;27;20 - 00;41;29;12

you know, how I kind of like escalated

00;41;29;12 - 00;41;32;12

the retaliation

and all these things like it,

00;41;33;17 - 00;41;37;01

it, you know, I think I still see how much

00;41;37;01 - 00;41;40;07

I kind of believed that

the system would, like, make it right.

00;41;41;10 - 00;41;44;15

And, you know, it

kind of just kept deteriorating.

00;41;44;15 - 00;41;47;23

I wonder if that sort of like, by design

that, like, the more you kind of like.

00;41;48;13 - 00;41;52;03

Because my boss, who I was accusing

of retaliation, started to be like,

00;41;53;15 - 00;41;55;10

you know,

you're making things really hard for me.

00;41;55;10 - 00;41;56;27

Like, it's really hurtful for me

that you're, like,

00;41;56;27 - 00;42;00;29

making these claims, which is like, crazy,

you know, it's like, it's it, you know,

00;42;00;29 - 00;42;04;16

it was so emotional, you know,

but it was totally gaslighting.

00;42;04;27 - 00;42;07;27

But I was like,

I was so it was so stressful.

00;42;07;27 - 00;42;10;16

I think that that's, you know,

I wonder if I might have approached it.

00;42;11;29 - 00;42;14;12

You know, just purely

from a legal standpoint or something,

00;42;14;12 - 00;42;15;20

you know, like, I'm like, okay,

this is wrong.

00;42;15;20 - 00;42;16;26

So I'm just going to take this

to the lawyer

00;42;16;26 - 00;42;20;21

as opposed to what I tried to do,

which was spend that last bit of belief,

00;42;20;24 - 00;42;23;13

you know, and capital in the company

to go through this process,

00;42;23;13 - 00;42;26;02

which is so crazy

and so full of these moments

00;42;26;02 - 00;42;28;10

where they're like suggesting

I take a medical leave.

00;42;28;10 - 00;42;31;26

There's a the first HR person I told,

first HR person I talked to told me

00;42;32;03 - 00;42;34;25

I should like,

you know, proposed taking my manager

00;42;34;25 - 00;42;37;18

out of the office for like, an activity

or coffee or something.

00;42;37;18 - 00;42;40;00

I'm just like it

was. It's the gaslighting.

00;42;40;00 - 00;42;43;16

I'm just, like, pushing it back down

to the person created a few months that,

00;42;43;16 - 00;42;46;16

you know, I still feel like for my younger

kid, I'm like, I was so stressed out

00;42;46;17 - 00;42;49;21

during pregnancy with you,

but please protect yourself.

00;42;50;21 - 00;42;51;07

But yeah,

00;42;51;07 - 00;42;54;21

it it it it I think I made my life

a little harder

00;42;54;21 - 00;42;57;25

with, with my last gasp of, like,

believing Google would make it right.

00;42;57;25 - 00;43;01;05

But, for the most part,

I, I feel also that,

00;43;01;28 - 00;43;04;22

speaking out so much about

00;43;04;22 - 00;43;06;25

just the kind of like, disingenuous

two faced

00;43;06;25 - 00;43;09;29

nature of a corporation

or Google in particular.

00;43;09;29 - 00;43;14;19

It's like I've had such an interesting,

imbalance of like the,

00;43;15;17 - 00;43;17;26

I've just other people commiserating,

you know, people like,

00;43;17;26 - 00;43;19;28

I remember this email

I got from someone who was like,

00;43;19;28 - 00;43;23;29

I was at IBM in Romania in the 1980s,

and like, they made my life hell.

00;43;23;29 - 00;43;26;03

And I'm just like,

you know, it's like everybody,

00;43;26;03 - 00;43;29;11

I think a lot of different

people can relate to feeling so small.

00;43;29;11 - 00;43;32;11

And if you have,

it really comes down to like,

00;43;32;19 - 00;43;35;18

you know, obviously this is a really big

conflict with the company, but, you know,

00;43;35;18 - 00;43;39;20

you can read my story

as this sort of like a management tragedy.

00;43;39;20 - 00;43;43;20

You know, it's sort of like the, the,

the manager exerting this power,

00;43;44;11 - 00;43;48;09

you know, reinforcing the powerlessness

of the employee,

00;43;49;01 - 00;43;50;23

the kind of cautionary tale of that.

00;43;50;23 - 00;43;51;19

And I'd be really curious.

00;43;51;19 - 00;43;56;03

I'm really curious if, that manager,

I'm sure she would never admit weakness

00;43;56;03 - 00;43;57;11

or reflection care,

00;43;57;11 - 00;43;59;01

but if she feels like

00;43;59;01 - 00;44;00;15

it could have been handled

any differently,

00;44;00;15 - 00;44;02;14

if that situation

could have been mediated.

00;44;02;14 - 00;44;05;00

So it wasn't, you know,

kind of so dramatic as it was, but,

00;44;06;09 - 00;44;06;26

you know.

00;44;06;26 - 00;44;09;24

Yeah. So it was

a great learning experience at this point.

00;44;09;24 - 00;44;12;14

I was I sort of like process

the trauma of it.

00;44;12;14 - 00;44;14;05

I'm like, yeah, well, it is what it is.

00;44;14;05 - 00;44;15;26

It was the fire, the temper, the steel.

00;44;15;26 - 00;44;18;26

My like crazy trajectory at Google.

00;44;19;15 - 00;44;20;19

That that's that's the spirit.

00;44;20;19 - 00;44;24;13

I like that, I like that analogy

and that that sentiment of.

00;44;24;14 - 00;44;26;14

Yeah, tempering.

00;44;26;14 - 00;44;29;06

So you know, clear

00;44;29;06 - 00;44;32;08

to me, like the most interesting part

of all of this is,

00;44;32;22 - 00;44;35;22

you know, you had such a unique

front row seat to this,

00;44;36;04 - 00;44;39;03

but the the experience itself

00;44;39;03 - 00;44;42;09

of becoming disillusioned

with your employer,

00;44;42;14 - 00;44;45;13

with believing that

00;44;45;13 - 00;44;48;02

they should be operating

within a certain values

00;44;48;02 - 00;44;52;02

framework, that they have your back,

that they're going to adhere to some,

00;44;52;11 - 00;44;56;09

you know, I don't know,

some sort of moral foundation

00;44;56;09 - 00;45;00;25

that's better than like a cost

benefit analysis or like the bare minimum.

00;45;01;08 - 00;45;05;24

And then watching that fall apart

and just feeling like, should I speak up?

00;45;05;24 - 00;45;07;08

Should I do the courageous thing?

00;45;07;08 - 00;45;09;27

Am I going to get punished

if I do the courageous thing like

00;45;11;06 - 00;45;13;03

I? I feel extremely confident

00;45;13;03 - 00;45;17;15

that there are literally millions

of people in some version of that.

00;45;18;01 - 00;45;19;28

You know that plight right now.

00;45;19;28 - 00;45;22;15

What's what's your advice to them?

00;45;22;15 - 00;45;24;04

Like,

what's your advice to your younger self?

00;45;24;04 - 00;45;27;03

What's your advice to somebody

who's in this scenario

00;45;27;06 - 00;45;30;01

and doesn't know what to do?

00;45;30;01 - 00;45;32;19

I think you have to be sort of clear

eyed about the risks.

00;45;32;19 - 00;45;35;19

And in organizing, there's a lot of,

00;45;35;28 - 00;45;38;29

conversation

about the spectrum of risk tolerance.

00;45;38;29 - 00;45;41;20

And yeah, there were

there are people that,

00;45;41;20 - 00;45;45;10

you know, were deeply passionate about

certain ethical issues within the company.

00;45;45;10 - 00;45;47;17

It was personal for them.

00;45;47;17 - 00;45;50;17

But they wanted to remain anonymous

because they're, you know,

00;45;50;19 - 00;45;53;25

sending money home to their family or,

you know, these things are like

00;45;53;25 - 00;45;55;16

it's completely fair

to want to keep your job.

00;45;55;16 - 00;45;58;13

And that's, you know, a risk

that not everyone's going to want to take.

00;45;58;13 - 00;45;59;03

I think that,

00;46;00;22 - 00;46;02;06

you know,

00;46;02;06 - 00;46;05;24

my advice to people usually

is to find a job where, you know,

00;46;05;24 - 00;46;09;08

you don't feel like you're so compromised

that it's sort of like you're,

00;46;10;04 - 00;46;14;20

the manager, the nature of the work,

the skills that you bring to the job,

00;46;14;20 - 00;46;16;06

that there's something sort of like,

00;46;16;06 - 00;46;18;06

you know, something

you can sink your teeth into,

00;46;18;06 - 00;46;20;00

maybe not have to, you know,

00;46;20;00 - 00;46;22;13

tack some, you know,

kind of big ideological framework

00;46;22;13 - 00;46;25;12

that you're changing the world or so

the grandiosity that I saw at Google. But,

00;46;26;18 - 00;46;30;09

I think that there's so many small ways

that you can make a better world.

00;46;30;09 - 00;46;31;28

I mean, honestly,

it's like I think that, you know,

00;46;31;28 - 00;46;37;04

some of probably that some of the, stuff

I'm, I look back on in my career

00;46;37;04 - 00;46;40;04

as I became a manager was,

you know, you sit in the,

00;46;40;20 - 00;46;44;14

performance reviews

and you understand all the kind of, like,

00;46;44;14 - 00;46;46;22

implicit bias that comes in,

you know, all the,

00;46;46;22 - 00;46;49;18

some of the very subjective ways

people's value is measured.

00;46;49;18 - 00;46;52;21

And, you know, it, it replicates,

you know,

00;46;52;27 - 00;46;55;21

really kind of like complicated

human systems.

00;46;55;21 - 00;46;58;14

I think that there, you know,

there's a way to kind of like speak up

00;46;58;14 - 00;47;00;03

for other people and like,

00;47;00;03 - 00;47;02;12

use a little bit of your privilege

without, you know,

00;47;02;12 - 00;47;05;11

kind of blowing your wad like me and,

you know, getting fired or whatever, but,

00;47;07;04 - 00;47;08;28

yeah, I think that, like,

00;47;08;28 - 00;47;14;23

cultivating a mind where you can observe,

you know, what the company's doing.

00;47;15;07 - 00;47;17;20

Stay in touch

with your own kind of values.

00;47;17;20 - 00;47;18;13

And I think that,

00;47;18;13 - 00;47;20;13

you know, as I've seen along

the way, people reach a point

00;47;20;13 - 00;47;24;15

where they just get fed up with it,

and then you either, you know,

00;47;25;15 - 00;47;29;11

try to commit to your

to make your dissent known.

00;47;29;11 - 00;47;33;02

And I remember I so admired

in my old department, which didn't really

00;47;33;02 - 00;47;36;02

welcome people challenging authority

the way that,

00;47;36;08 - 00;47;38;00

it wasn't sort of Google in the old days,

00;47;38;00 - 00;47;39;27

but people who would ask

challenging questions.

00;47;39;27 - 00;47;41;29

And I think that,

00;47;41;29 - 00;47;45;11

you know, it can't be all people

who are, like, perfectly compliant.

00;47;45;11 - 00;47;46;17

It's like they're there.

00;47;46;17 - 00;47;47;27

There's I think there's there's

00;47;47;27 - 00;47;51;06

kind of sophisticated ways that people

can maintain their own humanity.

00;47;52;03 - 00;47;54;19

Try to check the balances of power,

00;47;54;19 - 00;47;58;00

maybe in small ways in their teams

or in bigger ways in the sort of like,

00;47;58;26 - 00;48;02;15

you know, organizing as well as, but,

you know, like being aware of your,

00;48;02;15 - 00;48;05;15

your, your privilege and being prepared

to spend a little bit of it,

00;48;05;28 - 00;48;09;28

is, is, is is like how kind of like

slow ruptures and changes happen.

00;48;10;25 - 00;48;13;29

Over time, I think people are offered

opportunities to make,

00;48;14;09 - 00;48;15;28

small changes in a lot of different ways.

00;48;15;28 - 00;48;18;08

And I've also seen, you know,

what kind of disappoints me is

00;48;18;08 - 00;48;20;01

I see a lot of people

put their head in the sand, you know,

00;48;20;01 - 00;48;24;24

when they certainly, like, even like

I couple there, a couple people that,

00;48;26;10 - 00;48;26;23

we're kind of

00;48;26;23 - 00;48;29;23

close colleagues of mine, and they,

00;48;30;17 - 00;48;34;10

when I left, they never said anything or,

you know, it's like.

00;48;34;19 - 00;48;37;15

And sometimes, like,

if those people now you know, years later,

00;48;37;15 - 00;48;39;24

they'll be like,

you know, commenting on, like an Instagram

00;48;39;24 - 00;48;42;23

story of mine or something,

or like just some minor thing, right?

00;48;42;23 - 00;48;44;16

Might a minor touchpoint.

00;48;44;16 - 00;48;46;23

A couple of these people

in the writing of the book,

00;48;46;23 - 00;48;49;23

I actually responded to them to say,

I'm curious

00;48;50;02 - 00;48;52;27

what happened when I left

and you saw your friend from work

00;48;52;27 - 00;48;56;14

go through this

like crazy traumatic rupture

00;48;56;14 - 00;48;58;22

and kind of like the

this like was awful, as,

00;48;58;22 - 00;49;01;01

like the heads of my department were like,

Claire's a liar.

00;49;01;01 - 00;49;02;01

She's making up this whole thing.

00;49;02;01 - 00;49;04;24

I mean, it was like,

kind of crazy, situation.

00;49;04;24 - 00;49;08;10

And, you know,

I had this one of these conversations.

00;49;08;11 - 00;49;11;24

Someone said to me,

I was basically like to check in, like,

00;49;11;24 - 00;49;15;23

I, I felt that, you know, they were

management was saying one thing.

00;49;15;23 - 00;49;18;23

And to, like,

even express support to you privately was,

00;49;19;20 - 00;49;21;21

something that I didn't feel comfortable

with at the time.

00;49;21;21 - 00;49;24;07

And I'm just like, don't be that person.

00;49;24;07 - 00;49;27;21

Like, I just can't imagine, like,

I personally can't imagine being like,

00;49;27;27 - 00;49;31;26

I need to now be like so in my box

of like the management line

00;49;32;04 - 00;49;34;29

that when I see something

that's so clearly wrong

00;49;34;29 - 00;49;38;02

that, you know, I couldn't like, you know,

reach out to my friend or whatever.

00;49;38;02 - 00;49;39;15

So I feel like,

00;49;39;15 - 00;49;42;09

you know, having a little bit of courage,

a little bit of moral

00;49;42;09 - 00;49;45;24

outrage is a really important thing

to, like, maintain in a world where,

00;49;46;23 - 00;49;48;25

you know, things are so complicated

00;49;48;25 - 00;49;53;01

and we do feel so small, and, you know,

the kind of ripple effect that can exist.

00;49;53;01 - 00;49;54;20

And I think that

but the kind of good thing

00;49;54;20 - 00;49;57;20

now is, as opposed to in 2007,

where I would have been really weird

00;49;57;20 - 00;50;00;26

if you were like saying, oh, Google,

is this like evil company or whatever.

00;50;00;26 - 00;50;03;26

Now, people,

there's so much more awareness of the,

00;50;03;27 - 00;50;07;24

you know, complex influence

that tech is having on our lives.

00;50;07;24 - 00;50;11;26

And a lot of people are reading

nefarious influences and or,

00;50;12;07 - 00;50;15;06

you know, crazy,

kind of like capitalistic,

00;50;15;09 - 00;50;18;16

you know, goals having like,

these companies in a chokehold

00;50;18;16 - 00;50;20;00

such that, like, who cares about what

00;50;20;00 - 00;50;22;13

their values are on paper,

they're just soulless or whatever.

00;50;22;13 - 00;50;25;25

So all this is to say, the little there's

the, these little kind of cracks here

00;50;26;00 - 00;50;30;20

where people are freer to think,

to think more freely and not be so like,

00;50;30;20 - 00;50;33;20

you know, what management says is

true or whatever. So.

00;50;33;27 - 00;50;34;04

Yeah,

00;50;35;12 - 00;50;38;28

that that transition, I guess, culturally

is like

00;50;39;07 - 00;50;42;16

one of the things that makes me feel

really sad is like, I don't know, I'm

00;50;42;16 - 00;50;44;19

sure you remember, like that age,

you kind of described it

00;50;44;19 - 00;50;48;26

where like, talent mattered and people

wanted to like, measure employee

00;50;48;26 - 00;50;53;03

engagement and like, yeah, it felt like

what you thought mattered versus, you

00;50;53;03 - 00;50;56;13

know, companies are kind of like clamoring

to replace you

00;50;56;25 - 00;50;59;22

at the drop of a hat.

00;50;59;22 - 00;51;01;24

Now, I'm curious,

00;51;01;24 - 00;51;05;03

from your perspective,

you made a throwaway comment earlier

00;51;05;03 - 00;51;08;03

about anthropic and,

oh, maybe things are better at anthropic.

00;51;08;28 - 00;51;12;27

Do you have any sense, like Google in its

heyday was sort of this paragon

00;51;12;27 - 00;51;17;03

of being people driven, value driven art,

00;51;17;09 - 00;51;19;18

you know, that

that crown seems to have fallen.

00;51;19;18 - 00;51;20;19

That's pretty clear.

00;51;20;19 - 00;51;23;05

Are there organizations now?

00;51;23;05 - 00;51;26;23

You know that you hear people

talking about that you feel are, you know,

00;51;27;10 - 00;51;31;15

picking up that mantle and are,

you know, leading the charge there?

00;51;31;15 - 00;51;34;15

Or is this just like, really, you know,

00;51;34;19 - 00;51;38;16

the lost idealism of the age

and the world has moved on from.

00;51;38;23 - 00;51;42;00

I think, maybe a little bit the latter,

but I find the anthropic example

00;51;42;00 - 00;51;45;14

interesting because I can't really assess

the sincerity of it.

00;51;45;14 - 00;51;48;07

But I think it's a really good

marketing tool.

00;51;48;07 - 00;51;52;02

And, you know, I think that the that,

that, Google vacated

00;51;52;02 - 00;51;57;13

a spot of sort of

like the virtuous Googley corporation and,

00;51;58;16 - 00;52;00;24

I think that, you know, even though,

00;52;00;24 - 00;52;03;06

as I said,

I think a lot of the kind of ideals

00;52;03;06 - 00;52;08;06

and the kind of philosophy they were

exporting was pretty sincere at the time.

00;52;08;06 - 00;52;10;24

It also was really self-serving.

00;52;10;24 - 00;52;11;19

And I think that, like, you know,

00;52;11;19 - 00;52;14;19

even the, you know, the campus design or,

you know, taking the,

00;52;15;13 - 00;52;19;01

journalists around from, you know, Germany

and France and people would be like,

00;52;19;01 - 00;52;22;05

this is obviously like a big plot

to just keep the workers here, you know,

00;52;22;05 - 00;52;24;01

24 seven. I'm like, squeeze

the most out of them.

00;52;24;01 - 00;52;24;17

And, you know,

00;52;24;17 - 00;52;28;09

kind of like, wow, what a cynical,

you know, skeptical kind of perspective.

00;52;28;20 - 00;52;31;17

But of course, it was powerful

because it did

00;52;31;17 - 00;52;34;19

attract, an amazing group of people.

00;52;34;19 - 00;52;38;24

And, you know, that, you know,

those were some kind of glory years

00;52;38;24 - 00;52;40;26

where, you know, people felt really good

about working there.

00;52;40;26 - 00;52;43;11

And they did want to like,

you know, give 110% all these things,

00;52;43;11 - 00;52;45;10

like those two things

kind of work symbiotically.

00;52;46;20 - 00;52;47;26

So anyway, so as I've seen,

00;52;47;26 - 00;52;51;28

kind of like some of these AI companies,

really use a lot of that rhetoric.

00;52;51;28 - 00;52;53;16

I'm reading Empire of AI right now,

00;52;53;16 - 00;52;56;20

which is such a good book,

but it talks a lot about this.

00;52;56;20 - 00;53;00;22

This, you know, how these companies

sort of set the stakes of, you know,

00;53;00;22 - 00;53;04;12

humanity is that, you know, this is

everything in the world is at stake.

00;53;04;12 - 00;53;07;29

And, you know, the the survival

of the human race, even, and all this

00;53;08;10 - 00;53;11;10

and I think that,

it does attract a certain

00;53;11;10 - 00;53;14;17

kind of person that, you know, is deeply

invested in humanity.

00;53;14;17 - 00;53;14;26

Right?

00;53;14;26 - 00;53;18;02

And like, why would a company

not want people that are,

00;53;18;02 - 00;53;20;09

you know, tremendously,

you know, creative and real,

00;53;20;09 - 00;53;23;02

and now you see what the pay packages are

for people in AI.

00;53;23;02 - 00;53;26;12

Like clearly these companies

do believe talent is really important.

00;53;27;14 - 00;53;28;21

And so I just hear kind of

00;53;28;21 - 00;53;31;15

from friends in tech

that it's like like, you know,

00;53;31;15 - 00;53;33;26

wow, everyone's trying to like go work

at anthropic now and all this.

00;53;33;26 - 00;53;36;15

And I'm like,

you know, I it's I can't assess.

00;53;36;15 - 00;53;39;15

Wow. Is that a pure hearted,

like a pure hearted,

00;53;40;02 - 00;53;41;28

you know, direction

for the enterprise? Just.

00;53;41;28 - 00;53;44;06

Do they really know

when the going gets tough?

00;53;44;06 - 00;53;45;16

Would they stick to those values,

00;53;45;16 - 00;53;48;29

or is it just,

a really powerful market positioning to,

00;53;50;00 - 00;53;52;25

It's probably a mix, right? So,

00;53;52;25 - 00;53;55;05

you know, and I think that, you know,

it still is a story of tech.

00;53;55;05 - 00;53;57;26

So I, as I said, with,

you know, my chain of management,

00;53;57;26 - 00;54;01;02

if they really didn't

care about being perceived as,

00;54;01;03 - 00;54;04;13

you know, a wonderful company

that really cares about people, you know,

00;54;04;20 - 00;54;07;04

they wouldn't put op eds out,

you know, saying how they're,

00;54;07;04 - 00;54;08;24

you know, such a wonderful company,

constantly

00;54;08;24 - 00;54;11;24

reflecting on how to,

you know, be more inclusive and,

00;54;11;26 - 00;54;13;12

you know, all these other things,

even at a time when,

00;54;13;12 - 00;54;16;07

like, Dei is like kind of

fallen out of favor and such.

00;54;17;11 - 00;54;19;10

But, you

know, something in these companies,

00;54;19;10 - 00;54;22;14

even if they're constantly threatening

to replace white collar workers,

00;54;22;18 - 00;54;27;01

something in them wants to attract

and retain talent.

00;54;27;01 - 00;54;28;25

Right. So,

00;54;28;25 - 00;54;31;17

yeah,

I think it's I'm definitely interested to,

00;54;31;17 - 00;54;35;12

to follow like some of the parallels

between that early time, at Google

00;54;35;12 - 00;54;39;10

and AI because it seems like the

AI wars are sort of like heating up

00;54;39;10 - 00;54;42;03

the way I remember,

like the social media wars heating up,

00;54;42;03 - 00;54;44;29

which felt like, you know, much less crazy

stakes, because now the world seems like

00;54;44;29 - 00;54;47;29

it's like, you know,

going to hell in a handbasket. But,

00;54;48;21 - 00;54;52;25

yeah, that that the rhetoric

seems to be really, really sweeping again.

00;54;52;27 - 00;54;56;12

So like the, you know, not not just

00;54;56;12 - 00;54;59;14

changing the world, but like, saving

humanity is like, just kind of like, wow,

00;54;59;14 - 00;55;02;27

could there be a bigger stake,

like bigger stakes?

00;55;03;22 - 00;55;05;12

There's a

00;55;05;12 - 00;55;06;27

there's an implication in something

you said, though,

00;55;06;27 - 00;55;08;20

that I find really

interesting, which is that

00;55;10;06 - 00;55;13;27

being people focused, being virtuous,

like,

00;55;14;22 - 00;55;16;18

sure,

there's a world where you're doing it

00;55;16;18 - 00;55;19;24

for its own sake, and it's just because

it's the right thing to do.

00;55;19;24 - 00;55;23;09

And, you know, I sadly, I think you and I

are both a bit too cynical

00;55;23;09 - 00;55;24;26

to believe that, but that it's also

00;55;24;26 - 00;55;28;23

just like it's good for business

to be focused on people, right?

00;55;28;23 - 00;55;32;01

You can attract and retain talent,

you can build a better company,

00;55;32;01 - 00;55;33;17

you can build better products.

00;55;33;17 - 00;55;36;19

And like, I don't know, like to me

it's just sort of with that

00;55;36;26 - 00;55;39;20

mindset, it's just tragic

that we're losing that.

00;55;39;20 - 00;55;42;23

And it feels like if you're a good leader,

00;55;43;10 - 00;55;46;10

you don't have to be caring about people.

00;55;46;11 - 00;55;49;19

Just because you know you're virtuous.

00;55;49;19 - 00;55;51;02

It'd be nice if you were, but like,

00;55;51;02 - 00;55;54;02

it is still the right business decision

to do it to.

00;55;54;04 - 00;55;57;21

And that doesn't mean like, hey, write an

op ed and like Pat yourself on the back.

00;55;57;21 - 00;56;01;02

You did it like actually valuing people.

00;56;01;02 - 00;56;04;15

And it just seems like it's it's

the right business thing to do.

00;56;05;10 - 00;56;07;08

Yeah.

I think like leadership still matters.

00;56;07;08 - 00;56;09;26

I think that's a little bit

was sad coming out of the,

00;56;09;26 - 00;56;10;05

you know,

00;56;10;05 - 00;56;13;29

and I think it could absolutely be

some of the like unique complexities of

00;56;14;00 - 00;56;14;24

Google's leadership.

00;56;14;24 - 00;56;20;13

I think it's really hard to be a leader

in, you know, in a world where,

00;56;21;29 - 00;56;22;17

you know, the

00;56;22;17 - 00;56;26;13

shareholder dynamics

drive a lot of business decisions,

00;56;26;27 - 00;56;30;05

where things are really complex

and there's a lot of eyes on Google on it,

00;56;30;05 - 00;56;30;25

you know, all those other things.

00;56;30;25 - 00;56;36;08

But I kept waiting for leadership

kind of post walkout to like,

00;56;36;28 - 00;56;40;03

to figure out how to, like,

not just neutralize

00;56;40;15 - 00;56;42;26

what the women of the company

were bringing to leadership,

00;56;42;26 - 00;56;47;02

but to, like, actually hear it, you know,

and I think that that for whatever reason

00;56;47;02 - 00;56;52;08

and that moment, the threat of further

organizing became so existential

00;56;52;09 - 00;56;55;15

for the company that they just had

to, like, clamp you know,

00;56;55;15 - 00;56;59;03

and and that's exactly what happened

with my chain of, of leadership,

00;56;59;03 - 00;57;01;07

which I don't think that we're like

the most amazing leaders anyway.

00;57;01;07 - 00;57;02;19

And unfortunately,

I think you end up this, like

00;57;02;19 - 00;57;07;10

self-perpetuating cycle where the people

who are the best at serving the system

00;57;07;10 - 00;57;10;09

kind of get, keep, continue

to get elevated instead of the people who

00;57;10;09 - 00;57;11;06

know how to like,

00;57;12;06 - 00;57;15;02

maybe, you know, deal with the friction.

00;57;15;02 - 00;57;17;28

You know, kind of create stronger,

more resilient cultures like that.

00;57;17;28 - 00;57;20;19

That was the kind of what I got out of

Google at the end was like, wow,

00;57;20;19 - 00;57;22;07

how fragile is that?

00;57;22;07 - 00;57;25;07

Is the leadership in this culture

at the one of the walkouts,

00;57;25;18 - 00;57;28;05

tariffs or town halls? They did.

00;57;28;05 - 00;57;30;21

One of the executives was like,

you know, went

00;57;30;21 - 00;57;34;20

on this whole kind of like temper tantrum

rant about how, you know, it was

00;57;34;28 - 00;57;37;28

the way people were talking

about executives in this,

00;57;37;29 - 00;57;42;11

and then walk out and all of our comms

was so discriminatory about executives.

00;57;42;11 - 00;57;44;18

And it's not all executives,

you know, who are like, you know,

00;57;44;18 - 00;57;48;15

having improper relations that you know,

you know, we're we're really good people.

00;57;48;15 - 00;57;50;10

And you guys are like,

you know, painting this as a broad stroke.

00;57;50;10 - 00;57;51;06

And I'm just like,

00;57;51;06 - 00;57;55;18

yeah, this is what it means to be

a leader is like, you bear a higher.

00;57;55;18 - 00;57;56;13

It's like being a politician.

00;57;56;13 - 00;57;59;13

Like, I mean, not that matters anyone,

but you bear

00;57;59;29 - 00;58;02;14

a higher standard of moral conduct.

00;58;02;14 - 00;58;04;22

You have to absorb more.

That's what you sign up for.

00;58;04;22 - 00;58;08;12

That's why you're getting, like, whatever,

billions of dollars from your fortune.

00;58;09;02 - 00;58;10;13

That's what the money's for.

00;58;10;13 - 00;58;14;02

And, you know, I, I,

I wish to see and I think Larry and Sergey

00;58;14;03 - 00;58;15;27

have changed a lot over time.

00;58;15;27 - 00;58;20;11

Like, if you look at the, you know, the

there's a leaked video from TGIF

00;58;20;11 - 00;58;22;15

when Trump was elected

and you have Sergei, who was kind of

00;58;22;15 - 00;58;23;14

always like, sort of considered

00;58;23;14 - 00;58;26;16

to be the sort of moral bellwether,

sort of like you can't he's a contrarian.

00;58;26;16 - 00;58;27;14

You're just going to do it.

00;58;27;14 - 00;58;29;21

He's going to stand up

for what he cares about morally,

00;58;29;21 - 00;58;31;20

even if it's not

what the board wants or something.

00;58;31;20 - 00;58;35;02

And he was he goes like, he's this, this

kind of like beautiful remarks about how,

00;58;35;28 - 00;58;39;06

you know, how disappointed

he was in the election, you know,

00;58;39;06 - 00;58;42;14

and how it you kind of like, offend

so deeply offended his values, but,

00;58;42;14 - 00;58;44;29

you know, wanted to understand,

you know, why this happened.

00;58;44;29 - 00;58;49;28

And, you know, it's just sort of like,

the some of these things he holds so dear,

00;58;49;28 - 00;58;51;08

you know, as like an immigrant and,

00;58;51;08 - 00;58;52;22

you know,

all these other things of the country and,

00;58;52;22 - 00;58;55;09

you know, someone who cares about women

or whatever, all these things.

00;58;55;09 - 00;58;58;05

And then now he's like, you know,

front row at the inauguration behind

00;58;58;05 - 00;59;02;09

Trump, like,

you know, second and he's like,

00;59;02;09 - 00;59;06;05

you know, a huge MAGA guy and saying that,

you know, he was totally brainwashed

00;59;06;05 - 00;59;09;00

before and all this. And I'm just like,

wow, you guys have changed a lot.

00;59;09;00 - 00;59;11;01

I'm not gonna even I'm

not even ascribing moral value

00;59;11;01 - 00;59;13;27

to any of the statement here or there.

I it's just it's just more of that.

00;59;13;27 - 00;59;17;23

You guys have gotten in line with

sort of like, you know, kind of the power.

00;59;17;23 - 00;59;20;25

And that swung around a few different ways

in the, in the span of time

00;59;20;25 - 00;59;22;01

that we're talking about.

00;59;22;01 - 00;59;24;24

And I think it

probably I'd be really interested

00;59;24;24 - 00;59;28;02

to understand what happens to your brain,

your life, your priorities, your values

00;59;28;07 - 00;59;31;26

as you go through such a stratospheric

like, you know well, events

00;59;31;28 - 00;59;35;04

and like, you know, you live so much life

in the public eye and all these things.

00;59;35;04 - 00;59;37;06

I think it's really hard to stay,

00;59;37;06 - 00;59;38;29

tethered to

your humanity is like the same advice

00;59;38;29 - 00;59;42;25

I have, you know, for kind of like people

at any point, you know, at any stage of

00;59;42;26 - 00;59;43;20

organization. But,

00;59;44;24 - 00;59;46;18

yeah, it's it's really it's

00;59;46;18 - 00;59;50;28

really sad how, how kind of little like,

interesting and authentic leadership.

00;59;50;28 - 00;59;53;11

I see, you know,

at least in this one company

00;59;53;11 - 00;59;56;11

that I've been tracking

and living in for so long.

00;59;57;09 - 00;59;57;24

Yeah.

00;59;57;24 - 01;00;00;24

No, it's it's fair and it's it.

01;00;01;03 - 01;00;01;14

Yeah.

01;00;01;14 - 01;00;04;24

It's, it's own kind of depressing to,

I guess.

01;00;04;24 - 01;00;08;22

See that abdication of

of value driven leadership there.

01;00;09;13 - 01;00;09;29

Yeah.

01;00;09;29 - 01;00;14;16

One of the things you mentioned, Claire,

as you were talking was about leadership.

01;00;14;16 - 01;00;18;02

Like, not actually hearing the concerns.

01;00;18;14 - 01;00;20;11

And, you know, hearing was the verb there.

01;00;20;11 - 01;00;22;10

And I'm curious,

01;00;22;10 - 01;00;25;13

and I want to approach this

a little bit delicately, but

01;00;26;14 - 01;00;28;17

the story you lived

in, the story of Google here

01;00;28;17 - 01;00;32;18

that you're telling is in some ways

a very gendered story.

01;00;32;18 - 01;00;37;01

It's the story, as you said,

it's tied to me, to it's, you know,

01;00;38;16 - 01;00;39;22

women

01;00;39;22 - 01;00;43;20

who have had these experiences

sharing them, saying, that's not okay,

01;00;43;20 - 01;00;46;25

comparing notes, saying

we're all having similar experiences,

01;00;46;29 - 01;00;50;08

we're not being heard, and,

you know, we're being mistreated

01;00;50;08 - 01;00;52;23

and there's something we need to be done

that needs to be done about it.

01;00;52;23 - 01;00;56;06

And then ultimately, yeah, not being heard

and then being dismissed in some way.

01;00;58;02 - 01;00;58;21

I'm curious.

01;00;58;21 - 01;01;00;20

And this is coming from,

01;01;00;20 - 01;01;04;14

you know, me and I'm a sample of one,

I've talked to a handful of women who are,

01;01;05;00 - 01;01;09;15

I think almost exclusively x Google Now,

who in my mind are part of this sort of,

01;01;09;22 - 01;01;12;17

you know, resistance movement

or have had some of these experiences have

01;01;12;17 - 01;01;15;17

been, you know,

brave enough to speak out about it.

01;01;15;21 - 01;01;19;19

I don't see a lot of men in that movement.

01;01;19;19 - 01;01;22;22

And I didn't hear about a lot of men

in your story.

01;01;22;22 - 01;01;27;05

And I'm curious, you know what role,

if any, what role, if any of you saw

01;01;27;09 - 01;01;32;23

you saw men playing or not playing and

what you what you see as the role of men

01;01;33;08 - 01;01;37;25

in, I guess, conflict like this, like,

like how can men be a force for good?

01;01;37;27 - 01;01;41;23

And how does this not just become,

oh, it's those damn women and

01;01;41;23 - 01;01;45;10

their problems, you know, like, to me,

this is so obviously everybody's problem.

01;01;45;10 - 01;01;48;19

And I don't know, maybe, anyway, so

so yeah.

01;01;48;19 - 01;01;52;12

It's it's hard, but I think, you know,

things like with the kind of culture

01;01;52;12 - 01;01;55;14

going as it has, I think a lot of

this is sort of swung out of favor.

01;01;55;14 - 01;01;57;10

I mean, at that time in Google,

I think we,

01;01;57;10 - 01;02;00;23

we were doing a lot of like privilege

walks and bias training

01;02;00;23 - 01;02;03;04

and all this other stuff

that was trying to get people

01;02;03;04 - 01;02;06;16

that don't really identify

as being from a marginalized group to

01;02;07;15 - 01;02;10;18

take stock of the ways in

which they have enjoyed a lot of sort of

01;02;10;18 - 01;02;14;14

like privilege in the system that we have

and maybe think about, as I said before,

01;02;14;14 - 01;02;17;14

think about ways that they might, consider

01;02;18;18 - 01;02;21;05

spending some of their privilege

to speak up for others.

01;02;21;05 - 01;02;24;05

But I think that, like, you know, I

01;02;24;05 - 01;02;26;06

with the, with the

with the organizing of Google,

01;02;26;06 - 01;02;29;06

I do think that there is a tradition of,

01;02;29;17 - 01;02;34;10

male engineers who feel very strongly

about the way technology is deployed.

01;02;34;10 - 01;02;36;16

So in a, in a way that's personal for them

01;02;36;16 - 01;02;38;16

because it's like,

I don't want the code that I write.

01;02;38;16 - 01;02;42;11

To be used is like a weapon of war that,

some of the, you know, earlier,

01;02;42;11 - 01;02;45;14

the thing the organizing

that preceded the walkout Maven,

01;02;45;14 - 01;02;48;14

dragonfly, some of these other things

that were about,

01;02;48;20 - 01;02;50;12

there was a movement

called Tech Home, build it.

01;02;50;12 - 01;02;52;04

And I do think there are quite a few,

01;02;53;05 - 01;02;55;27

people on the kind of technology side,

01;02;55;27 - 01;02;58;23

who were willing to stick their neck out

and a lot of who as you say, like

01;02;58;23 - 01;03;01;05

cisgender white men. Right.

01;03;01;05 - 01;03;04;12

But I do think that a lot of times

I be in organizing circles,

01;03;05;17 - 01;03;08;01

it it is women and people of color.

01;03;08;01 - 01;03;11;01

And I think that it is,

01;03;11;04 - 01;03;14;04

it's people who can deeply

01;03;14;05 - 01;03;17;05

relate to, empathize

with, have experienced

01;03;17;11 - 01;03;20;12

something that radicalized them

and a little bit of a way.

01;03;20;12 - 01;03;22;25

Not like, you know,

that doesn't mean you know anyone.

01;03;22;25 - 01;03;26;07

One thing, I just mean that, it made them

01;03;27;07 - 01;03;30;13

feel a bit more kind of like rebellious,

I think of like that.

01;03;30;18 - 01;03;34;03

And it made it personal for them

such that they, feel like something is at

01;03;34;03 - 01;03;37;03

stake for them or, you know, people

that they love and all this other thing.

01;03;37;03 - 01;03;38;14

I think it's why you sort of like

01;03;38;14 - 01;03;41;05

in the MeToo movement,

you somehow see, you know, like Paul

01;03;41;05 - 01;03;44;04

Tessler saying, like as a mother of

or as a father of daughters, you know,

01;03;44;04 - 01;03;45;04

this is personal for me or something.

01;03;45;04 - 01;03;47;26

It's like, whatever it takes,

like make it personal for you.

01;03;47;26 - 01;03;50;23

But it really is personal

for people who have experienced,

01;03;50;23 - 01;03;52;25

discrimination in any form.

I think, like that.

01;03;52;25 - 01;03;54;25

You know, part of the experience

of writing this book is like,

01;03;54;25 - 01;03;57;09

you know, in so many ways, I'm like,

you know, so privileged, right?

01;03;57;09 - 01;04;01;28

So it's like,

you know, I, I, you know, knowing,

01;04;03;02 - 01;04;06;10

trans people and people who have,

01;04;06;22 - 01;04;10;03

you know, Palestinian or Lebanese family

or something who like, you know, as

01;04;10;03 - 01;04;13;05

they see, the way that Google was engaging

in like,

01;04;13;05 - 01;04;16;20

global conflict or in the,

in the trans on the trans issue,

01;04;16;20 - 01;04;19;29

Google was very fickle about,

you know, it support YouTube.

01;04;19;29 - 01;04;22;12

It was constantly like,

we're speaking out for trans kids.

01;04;22;12 - 01;04;25;03

And then it's like, no, we're not,

because this is like not popular anymore.

01;04;25;03 - 01;04;28;05

Or, you know, in this it's less dangerous

now that the administration changed

01;04;28;05 - 01;04;29;03

whatever.

01;04;29;03 - 01;04;32;03

But, you know, people,

01;04;32;03 - 01;04;36;14

I think that, people who, you know, what

what is it?

01;04;36;18 - 01;04;39;17

What does it take

for someone to risk anything?

01;04;39;17 - 01;04;43;27

And I think that the, you know,

the had the deep lived experience,

01;04;44;16 - 01;04;46;29

I think just propels people

to take more of a risk.

01;04;46;29 - 01;04;50;24

So, you know, I think, like I do urge

people who feel like they, you know,

01;04;50;24 - 01;04;53;13

it's like the people

who are so comfortable,

01;04;53;13 - 01;04;57;05

in, in the company, I think like, again,

I'm like, I encourage people to like,

01;04;57;19 - 01;05;00;21

try to cultivate a sense for,

you know, the morality

01;05;00;21 - 01;05;02;17

or lack thereof, of a corporation.

01;05;02;17 - 01;05;05;17

It's the sort of like a neutral,

you know, neutral or negative, whatever.

01;05;05;22 - 01;05;08;16

It's like you know, these decisions

that these, you know, companies make,

01;05;09;26 - 01;05;11;09

you know, don't just become

01;05;11;09 - 01;05;14;20

completely like,

you know, insulated from it.

01;05;15;26 - 01;05;18;24

You know, it's like I sometimes I feel

that, you know, this kind of extreme

01;05;18;24 - 01;05;22;01

cynicism like I've, you know, friends

who are still at these tech companies,

01;05;22;01 - 01;05;23;26

they're like, oh, yeah, of course

these companies are evil.

01;05;23;26 - 01;05;26;02

Like, you know, I just got to keep, like,

collecting my paycheck and whatever.

01;05;26;02 - 01;05;28;08

I'm like, do better.

You can do better, you know? Okay.

01;05;28;08 - 01;05;29;29

We can like, you know, we can try.

01;05;29;29 - 01;05;32;04

We can try to like,

you know, stand up for others

01;05;32;04 - 01;05;36;01

because a lot, a lot of people around out

there, you know, who are more vulnerable,

01;05;36;01 - 01;05;39;27

don't have the same, ability to just say,

I'm just going to kind of like, you know,

01;05;39;27 - 01;05;41;11

laugh it off. Nothing's at stake for me.

01;05;41;11 - 01;05;42;24

Even though I think these companies

are evil.

01;05;42;24 - 01;05;45;24

So, Yeah,

but I do think that they're, you know,

01;05;45;26 - 01;05;48;26

behind the scenes

as we, as we were leaving,

01;05;48;28 - 01;05;50;21

I would say

there were a lot of great allies,

01;05;50;21 - 01;05;53;09

and there were a lot of men

who took part in the in the walkout.

01;05;53;09 - 01;05;54;22

But I think when like, you know,

01;05;54;22 - 01;05;56;12

push came to shove,

like a lot of the people

01;05;56;12 - 01;05;58;06

that are actually really active, engaged.

01;05;58;06 - 01;06;01;08

The other thing I will say

to like a slightly different point

01;06;01;10 - 01;06;05;01

is how I think women are also really used

to doing unpaid work.

01;06;05;01 - 01;06;07;10

It's like I would

I it's like it's almost a cliche,

01;06;07;10 - 01;06;11;03

but like, I was really involved

when I was really involved with my kids,

01;06;12;28 - 01;06;14;11

school, every kid's preschool, you know,

01;06;14;11 - 01;06;17;02

there's like kind of a co-op preschool

in our, Brooklyn neighborhood.

01;06;17;02 - 01;06;18;18

And I would just be like,

looking around these board

01;06;18;18 - 01;06;20;21

meetings and we,

you know, we have some great men,

01;06;20;21 - 01;06;23;25

too, you know, but it's just like,

women are so used to,

01;06;24;22 - 01;06;27;11

supporting their communities

and caregiving, you know, and it's,

01;06;27;11 - 01;06;28;21

you know, it's it's it's

01;06;28;21 - 01;06;31;21

part of how we're oriented to the world

is part of how we're conditioned.

01;06;32;12 - 01;06;35;14

It's part of just how we, like,

you know, how we expect our lives

01;06;35;14 - 01;06;37;22

are going to be that there's like,

you know, that there's

01;06;37;22 - 01;06;38;09

that it's

01;06;38;09 - 01;06;41;11

gratifying and fulfilling and like,

I think that's what the example of being

01;06;41;11 - 01;06;46;24

in the preschool is that women, I think,

are sometimes more able to say it.

01;06;46;27 - 01;06;49;14

I see what's in it for me

because it feels good to like, you know,

01;06;49;14 - 01;06;52;13

show up for my community and spend time

with other people and all this.

01;06;52;24 - 01;06;53;28

Whereas, you know, I think that, you know,

01;06;53;28 - 01;06;57;01

men on the other side are like,

you know, conditioned to like,

01;06;57;24 - 01;07;00;19

think about work and be,

you know, concerned about what

01;07;00;19 - 01;07;01;29

they're taking home

and being the breadwinner,

01;07;01;29 - 01;07;03;02

you know, all these other thing,

you know, these

01;07;03;02 - 01;07;06;04

very kind of like gendered notions

of how we structure our days in our lives.

01;07;07;02 - 01;07;08;26

But yeah, sometimes I like,

you know, like,

01;07;08;26 - 01;07;10;26

have a male friend

in these sort of volunteer positions.

01;07;10;26 - 01;07;12;00

They're like,

it's actually kind of awesome.

01;07;12;00 - 01;07;13;00

Like, you know, it's

01;07;13;00 - 01;07;15;29

like the women, the one guy, you know,

it's like that, you know, like, oh, yeah.

01;07;15;29 - 01;07;16;29

Like I was kind of grumbling

01;07;16;29 - 01;07;18;23

about the time commitment,

but it's going to be great. So,

01;07;20;13 - 01;07;20;23

yeah.

01;07;20;23 - 01;07;22;23

Like it's it is just very it's

just very interesting.

01;07;22;23 - 01;07;27;22

My, my book too is like, you know, when,

when they like the cover of it.

01;07;27;25 - 01;07;29;01

So like Google was like

01;07;29;01 - 01;07;32;07

and I remember saying like one of my early

feedback things about it was like,

01;07;33;09 - 01;07;35;00

can you tell this like a women's book?

01;07;35;00 - 01;07;38;06

Because actually quite a bit of the book

is quite a bit, you know,

01;07;38;07 - 01;07;41;07

quite a bit of points in my arc

which reckoned with,

01;07;41;24 - 01;07;44;05

my condition,

my unique conditioning as a woman

01;07;44;05 - 01;07;47;20

and how that played into

how I approached my role and how difficult

01;07;47;20 - 01;07;50;08

I found it to fight for myself,

for advocate for myself.

01;07;50;08 - 01;07;53;25

How I often fell into to doing sort of

like unpaid work.

01;07;53;25 - 01;07;55;00

And women are constantly doing that.

01;07;55;00 - 01;07;55;27

It's like,

01;07;55;27 - 01;07;58;05

you know, it's not like necessarily more

light needs to be thrown on that.

01;07;58;05 - 01;07;59;28

But, I think that that, that

01;07;59;28 - 01;08;03;01

definitely plays into the sort

of like dynamics of organizing as well.

01;08;04;24 - 01;08;06;16

No, I hadn't thought about that.

01;08;06;16 - 01;08;08;11

And it's like, yeah, as as I said,

01;08;08;11 - 01;08;12;09

there's like a sadness to that being like,

oh, yes, of course.

01;08;12;09 - 01;08;13;27

Like they're just willing to do more

01;08;13;27 - 01;08;16;27

because that's

what society is sort of demanded.

01;08;17;09 - 01;08;17;29

But it's interesting.

01;08;17;29 - 01;08;19;29

I hadn't thought about it through that.

01;08;19;29 - 01;08;23;11

Clear as we as we start to wrap up

this conversation and we've covered,

01;08;23;15 - 01;08;26;00

you know, quite a lot of ground, it's

been, you know, really interesting

01;08;26;00 - 01;08;28;20

and insightful

to hear about your experience.

01;08;28;20 - 01;08;32;24

Any sort of final thoughts,

I guess, for any business

01;08;32;24 - 01;08;35;28

or tech leaders

who are listening to this and

01;08;37;02 - 01;08;39;26

having some of the struggles

or concerns that you had or are

01;08;39;26 - 01;08;41;09

interested in building,

01;08;41;09 - 01;08;44;16

I guess a more a better and more virtuous

culture in their organization.

01;08;44;16 - 01;08;45;06

What can they do?

01;08;46;10 - 01;08;47;12

Yeah, I mean, I think that,

01;08;47;12 - 01;08;50;21

you know, my dad reading the book is like

he was a small business owner,

01;08;50;21 - 01;08;51;29

and I think he was like,

01;08;51;29 - 01;08;55;18

you know, kind of like a how to, like,

kind of bust the unions, sort of like,

01;08;55;18 - 01;08;58;19

you know, the, the employees

and the organizers always like trying

01;08;58;19 - 01;09;02;07

to, like, you know, impede the innovation

and like, you know, we need kind of like,

01;09;02;29 - 01;09;04;03

you know, unfettered,

01;09;04;03 - 01;09;06;18

you know, an unfettered road

to just, like, do what we want to do.

01;09;06;18 - 01;09;09;18

And even as a small business owner

selling art supplies, it's really that,

01;09;09;19 - 01;09;14;09

and I think that I hope that leaders

and kind of like

01;09;14;16 - 01;09;17;26

acts and managers

will read the book and understand

01;09;17;26 - 01;09;20;04

the employee perspective as well,

and the kind of

01;09;20;04 - 01;09;21;25

some of the challenging natures of that.

01;09;21;25 - 01;09;23;29

I think interpersonal stuff

can be really messy.

01;09;23;29 - 01;09;26;25

It can be really hard to manage,

an employee who's outspoken,

01;09;27;29 - 01;09;29;24

but also there's a lot of heart in it.

01;09;29;24 - 01;09;33;22

And I think that, like, again, it's

like to me, it's sort of like a confident

01;09;33;22 - 01;09;36;22

leader would be able to,

01;09;37;05 - 01;09;40;25

absorb, not absorb,

but would be able to hear the concerns

01;09;40;25 - 01;09;43;11

and the fire and the anger of the walkout

01;09;43;11 - 01;09;47;08

and transmute that into something

that made the company better.

01;09;47;18 - 01;09;49;25

And there are

there are so many like, possible paths.

01;09;49;25 - 01;09;52;03

And I actually

because I've never run an organization,

01;09;52;03 - 01;09;53;28

I really don't know what those past

might have been.

01;09;53;28 - 01;09;56;23

And I think there's every now and again

a Google executive might all like,

01;09;56;23 - 01;09;59;25

let's sort of like riff on the,

you know, the complexities

01;09;59;25 - 01;10;01;18

that make it really hard

to be a leader there or whatever.

01;10;01;18 - 01;10;02;15

I welcome that.

01;10;02;15 - 01;10;06;16

But I think that like, you know,

my first person account

01;10;06;16 - 01;10;10;11

is definitely something that, you know,

is written for other people

01;10;10;11 - 01;10;11;28

who are experiencing

like the challenges of,

01;10;11;28 - 01;10;15;25

of corporate life in a very chaotic

world that we live in today.

01;10;17;05 - 01;10;18;06

It's for that person.

01;10;18;06 - 01;10;23;22

But I also hope that, you know, leaders

can can find lessons in it as well,

01;10;23;23 - 01;10;28;22

because I think that that, dissent

doesn't have to be threatening.

01;10;28;22 - 01;10;31;26

It can kind of be like what

Google used to say, which is that it is,

01;10;32;07 - 01;10;37;02

a hallmark of a healthy culture

that, you know, celebrates and welcomes

01;10;37;02 - 01;10;41;03

the insights and, and the accountability

that employees can offer.

01;10;41;03 - 01;10;42;17

I mean, if anything,

I think we can all agree

01;10;42;17 - 01;10;44;26

that the tech companies

don't have a lot of accountability.

01;10;44;26 - 01;10;47;26

You know, it's a really important role

that,

01;10;47;26 - 01;10;50;18

that workers can play

and that I think that managers can like,

01;10;50;18 - 01;10;54;00

try to like be a bit toughen up about,

you know, so,

01;10;54;13 - 01;10;57;01

you know,

I wonder, you know, where we're heading

01;10;57;01 - 01;11;00;03

with the kind of like,

employer employee relationship, but,

01;11;00;11 - 01;11;01;23

I'm sure there will be many other

01;11;01;23 - 01;11;04;28

iterations of it in our lifetime

as tech continues to be like,

01;11;05;17 - 01;11;08;28

you know, one of the major employers,

for our world.

01;11;08;28 - 01;11;09;27

Right. So.

01;11;09;27 - 01;11;14;06

And also emperors of our lives,

they're so tremendously powerful that,

01;11;15;08 - 01;11;17;17

you know, I think

it would it would behoove these companies

01;11;17;17 - 01;11;21;02

to try to dig in and reflect

and be better.

01;11;23;01 - 01;11;24;04

I think that's well said.

01;11;24;04 - 01;11;26;08

And I don't know, I'm

01;11;26;08 - 01;11;29;19

I don't know if I'm cautiously optimistic,

but at least I want to be.

01;11;29;19 - 01;11;31;24

And I can see that

future that you're building.

01;11;31;24 - 01;11;35;29

And yeah, I think we all kind of owe it

to ourselves and our,

01;11;36;17 - 01;11;39;17

you know, companies to try and build

that future.

01;11;39;19 - 01;11;39;26

Clear.

01;11;39;26 - 01;11;41;25

I wanted to say such a big

thank you for coming on today.

01;11;41;25 - 01;11;44;25

Really. Great. Was a pleasure.

01;11;44;25 - 01;11;46;13

Yeah. Yeah.

01;11;46;13 - 01;11;46;23

So, yeah.

01;11;46;23 - 01;11;49;04

Thank you. And,

Yeah. Look forward to reading the book.

01;11;49;04 - 01;11;52;03

Yeah. I.

01;11;52;17 - 01;11;56;03

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The Next Industrial Revolution Is Already Here

Digital Disruption is where leaders and experts share their insights on using technology to build the organizations of the future. As intelligent technologies reshape our lives and our livelihoods, we speak with the thinkers and the doers who will help us predict and harness this disruption.

Episode #85 10.05.26

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Our Guest Eric Siegel Discusses

The Other AI Revolution: Why Predictive AI Will Overtake Generative AI in 2027

Predictive AI often gets ignored, yet it may hold the real key to business value in the current tech landscape.

Episode #84 09.28.26

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Our Guest Peggy Johnson Discusses

AI Humanoid Robots Have Already Entered the Workforce. Should You Care?

Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics, joins us on today's episode to look beyond the fear of robot overlords and ask: How will humans and robots work together in the years ahead?

Episode #83 09.21.26

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Our Guest Kevin Roose Discusses

AI Researchers Are Panicking | What Comes Next Is Worse Than Nuclear Bombs

The conversation examines Kevin Roose’s 10% estimate of AI-caused extinction, the private fears of AI researchers, government regulation, autonomous AI agents, and whether the AI boom is a bubble or the beginning of a profound transformation.

Episode #82 09.14.26

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Our Guest Mehran Gul Discusses

There Is No AI Race. Inside the Trillion-Dollar Lie

From AI investment and venture capital to Silicon Valley, China, Europe, India, and the future of global innovation, this episode looks beyond the AI hype to ask a much bigger question: who will actually shape the next era of technology?