Google fires employee who leaked memo on raises

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/google-fires-employee-who-leaked-raise-memo_n_781941.html

by variety • 16 years ago

63 92 16 years ago

huffingtonpost.com

tszming• 16 years ago

Google is going to fire the employee who leaked the firing.

rdtsc• 16 years ago

... all in a determined effort to increase employee morale.

d2viant2• 16 years ago

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

sp332• 16 years ago

Sometimes, to raise morale, you just have to fire all the unhappy people.

aubonpanzer• 16 years ago

Google is going to fire Google for hiring the employee that leaked the firing of the employee who leaked the raises.

sabat• 16 years ago

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly ...

bryne• 16 years ago

A Møøse once bit my sister...

variety4• 16 years ago

I'd love to hire that person.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

...

Møøse trained by YUTTE HERMSGERVØRDENBRØTBØRDA

Special Møøse Effects OLAF PROT

Møøse Costumes SIGGI CHURCHILL

mmastrac• 16 years ago

Is Google using some subtle permutation on every version of the email sent out?

All it would take would be swapping "--" for "...", "ie"/"i.e."/"eg"/"e.g." You should probably compare your local copy of an email with someone else before leaking it!

olalonde• 16 years ago

I doubt there are 23,300 possible permutations. Moreover, I doubt a Googler wouldn't think of this classic before leaking his e-mail. Any other theory? Perhaps no one was fired and it's just link bait?

rflrob2• 16 years ago

I heard from a Googler before the article came out that the leaker was fired. While one could imagine a second, as-yet unleaked email about the fake firing, isn't it much simpler just to assume that the leaker was fired?

d2viant2• 16 years ago

Most likely somebody just forwarded it to their favorite blog, especially if they didn't think the email was confidential. Pretty easy to track outgoing email.

alextgordon• 16 years ago

Assuming a worst case of two possibilities for each difference, that comes out as ceil(log_2(23300)) = 15 differences necessary. You could easily get that by swapping out words for synonyms (especially if you use more than two synonyms per difference).

barrkel• 16 years ago

You'd need over 14 binary manipulation choices, but only about 9 if you had a choice of three. If you include word synonyms in the choices, with over 250 words in the memo, I don't think it's unreasonable.

lhnn• 16 years ago

How about summarizing a memo instead of copypasta? Then they'd have to diff the facts to mess you up.

rflrob2• 16 years ago

"Hey Bob, I'm thinking about leaking my email... can I diff it with yours?"

The other problem I can see is that there's only 5 or 6 of those points, which would be enough to narrow down the leaker, but not ID them outright. Probably easier (if more evil) to check all the outgoing mail in gmail.

joshu2• 16 years ago

You can also use trailing spaces. I have done this on the past successfully

MichaelApproved• 16 years ago

Or worse, the INcoming mail in gmail.

blueben3• 16 years ago

What is evil about checking corporate mail for corporate mail leaks?

vaksel• 16 years ago

i doubt it's that complicated, they have full control of the mailservers, I bet the person just didn't think leaking the information was that big of a deal.

chollida1• 16 years ago

With 23,000 employee's that's alot of permutations for a 3 paragraph email.

tlrobinson• 16 years ago

Or, you know, run a giant grep on every mail sent to or from Gmail and internal mail over the last 12 hours...

ajaimk2• 16 years ago

Honestly, I'd fire an employee who leaks a memo out. Not for doing it. But for being stupid enough to get caught.

variety4• 16 years ago

So your point is that it's ok to leak internal memos or commit other acts of sabotage, as long as you don't get caught?

ajaimk2• 16 years ago

Point is don't be stupid enough to get caught

variety4• 16 years ago

Also, the fact that they didn't hide their tracks indicates that they most likely aware completely unaware that they might be causing any harm to the company.

A lapse in judgement, maybe -- but if so, the appropriate response would be a private reprimand, not a bullet to the head.

Especially considering that no conceivable harm has come to Google as a result of this leaking, and that it's impossible to keep news like this secret in the Valley, anyway.

ktsmith2• 16 years ago

The memo says: CONFIDENTIAL: INTERNAL ONLY GOOGLERS ONLY (FULL TIME AND PART TIME EMPLOYEES) right at the top.

When an employee starts working at google they go to orientation where they get briefed on a lot of things about the company, fill out HR paperwork etc. One of the documents they get and one of the discussions they have is how you don't release confidential information of the companies or its clients.

I don't see how it's possible to go through employee orientation and not know that releasing a document that says "INTERNAL ONLY" would be a terminable offense.

jpwagner• 16 years ago

So was there really an ad smack in the middle of the email?

staktrace• 16 years ago

Didn't they just redo the AdSense interface? Maybe you can bid for ads on internal memos now.

joshu2• 16 years ago

Or maybe they announced that they dis it just to keep people from doing it in the future.

Not like someone is going to stand up and say that they weren't caught (or at least not till they leave their jobs.)

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

He probably used his Gmail account ...

bretthellman• 16 years ago

wait a sec... Is it really a 10% raise? "we're moving a portion of your bonus into your base salary"

gvb• 16 years ago

The bonus to base salary is an additional change. The 10% raise is discussed in the previous paragraph, and then the bonus change is in the next paragraph, starting with "There's more."

nspiegelberg• 16 years ago

Good thing Google took a hard stance on data protectionism! Wait, where have I heard about data protectionism again?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/facebook-slaps-google-openn...

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.

variety4• 16 years ago

Talk about carrots on a stick.

What underscores the utter ruthlessness of Google's actions is that it's impossible to imagine that the leaker meant any harm at all coming to Google from their what they did. If anything, they were probably nothing if not deeply proud of Google in that moment; and giddily euphoric -- and thought it could only help Google for the world at large to know of its generosity to its employees.

Had they only known.

kragen2• 16 years ago

Look at the constant media beating Google takes over the leaked, internal "don't be evil" slogan.

tedunangst2• 16 years ago

It's hard to imagine what harm would be caused by waiting a day to leak the memo, except for the missed opportunity for the leaker to be the hero. The timing would indicate the leaker's motive was not "hey, our PR department keeps sitting on this awesome news."

aneth• 16 years ago

If they didn't take action, then "CONFIDENTIAL: INTERNAL ONLY GOOGLERS ONLY (FULL TIME AND PART TIME EMPLOYEES)" would turn into a joke. Now people might listen - or at least leak more carefully.

michaelhart3• 16 years ago

Which leads me to think that this just may be a setting stone to future, more important memos. No sense in scaring them unless they wanted to secure the channel for something else.

hartror• 16 years ago

When is ensuring employee confidentiality not good general business practice?

mkarmac• 16 years ago

A somewhat classier, less-heavy-handed approach would have been to simply not give that employee a raise.

roel_v5• 16 years ago

Would that have made the headlines? If not, it wouldn't have the same effect.

zem• 16 years ago

no, this way they're saying "okay, we can't trust this guy, he's out of here". denying him a raise would just be punitive, which isn't too classy.

throwaway16753• 16 years ago

I work at Google, and I am really happy that someone got punished for leaking this memo. A firing like this increases accountability and shows that loyalty and keeping confidentiality mean something. When it is done fairly and with cause, firing an employee can make a huge positive difference in an organization. The best situation is where a problem employee who was lowering the morale of others is fired.

seldo2• 16 years ago

Wow, that just seems kind of mean. Obviously the notice at the top says otherwise, but there's really nothing very sensitive in this memo and it was so broadly distributed there's no way it wouldn't have found its way out eventually.

Why, personally, is your morale lowered by knowing people leak stuff? I just don't see get it.

nostrademons• 16 years ago

Imagine the following hypothetical situations:

You come from a working-class family, but through long years of studying hard, you get a job at Google. Your extended family all have blue-collar or service jobs. Your cousin gets laid off, and then reads in the paper that you just got a 10% raise, plus $1000 holiday bonus, plus a portion of your bonus pay up-front. Awkward Thanksgiving ensues.

You have a long-time sibling rivalry with your brother, including a game of one-upmanship that extends back to grade school. Finally, you got tired of it, and after his latest raise, you just stopped telling him your salary. Now he hears on CNN that you just got a 10% raise, which leads to much whining about how come you're making more money than him. Awkward Thanksgiving ensues. He goes to his boss and asks for a raise because Google gave one, and his boss replies that he's not worth it, which results in him quitting his job with no plans for what to do next. Awkward Christmas ensues.

Your mom calls you because she just heard on the radio that you got a 10% raise and $1000 bonus, and you didn't tell her, and why do you never talk to her anymore? Awkward...oh hell, if your mother is that neurotic, Thanksgiving would probably be awkward anyway.

You go out for drinks with your friends from other companies, but since you are now apparently rolling in dough, the expectation is that you're buying. These people probably aren't the type that you'd invite to Thanksgiving anyway.

You've been trying to teach your kid about the importance of managing money prudently, and so have restricted their allowance. They come home from school saying, "My friend told me that her daddy said that he heard on the radio that you just got a raise, but you said that you didn't have money to give me a raise. I hate you forever." Sullen, miserable Thanksgiving ensues.

The point isn't that any one person was financially harmed by the leak: it's that by leaking, the leaker has robbed his coworkers of the ability to control to whom and when they break the news. There's no way that the leaker could possibly know the personal circumstances of 30,000 Google employees. Many of them may have very valid reasons for not having details of their compensation plastered across the evening news. When and how they reveal that should be for them to decide, not for one person to decide.

throwaway16753• 16 years ago

First, it lowers my morale because it drains my confidence that very important secrets are safe. Some corporations do not leak at all - Apple comes to mind. They are notoriously mean at hunting down leaks, and it makes people paranoid. This is good. The ability to shock and amaze with new products has contributed substantially to Apple's brand. Other companies envy it.

Do you think it is mean for traffic officers to give speeding tickets? We know some people speed despite posted limits, but we are all safer because most people do obey the limits.

loewenskind6• 16 years ago

You sound really naive and honestly it might do you good to get fired so you learn a simple life lesson: Google is a company that only exists to make money. That's its sole purpose. It's not your friend, it's not your family. You don't work their because they enjoy your company. You work there because the right people assume that you provide more value than your salary costs (i.e. they make a profit on their exchange with you). You need to grow past this "loyalty" nonsense.

It's true that I wouldn't personally go releasing information like this, but that's because I can make more money if I'm known as someone who doesn't air company laundry, not because of some misplaced and immature sense of "loyalty".

Ironically, the leak probably helped Google as some good talent out there never gave them a second look because they have a reputation of not being competitive with their salaries. They make billions so there is no valid excuse for paying less than places who only make hundreds of millions.

blueben3• 16 years ago

Just because you are jaded and have given up on loyalty and the idea of responsible corporations that care for their employees doesn't mean the rest of us must do so as well.

You paint a very black and white picture. Either the world can have caring corporations, or it can't. Your opinion leaves no room for middle ground. That alone should convince you to re-evaluate what you believe.

throwaway16753• 16 years ago

This is clearly flame bait / troll comment, but I would like to make a comment to rebut the central point, namely that personal relationships somehow "do not matter" or are purely exploitative at organizations.

First, I've found that one's work experience is dependent to a huge degree on the direct manager. If your manager is an asshole, you will hate your job. If you don't get along with your manager, you will dislike your job. If your manager does not care about you, you will dislike your job. If you work at an enlightened organization, you may be able to raise the issue up the chain with your manger's manager and apply for a transfer. Otherwise it is best to find another job.

That was the practical angle. Here is the theoretical one: if you call "social capital" the propensity of employees to form relationships, care about each other, and be loyal to each other, then the argument put forth is that low social capital corporations will somehow be better adapted than high social capital ones and will push them out of existence Darwin-like. This simply hasn't happened - Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple are all examples of places that by and large treat their employees fairly. I've heard that Oracle is more "cut throat" but I don't really know what that means in practice and have never worked there. Oracle does, however, seem to suffer from Ellison's weirdness. Just as there is a market in employee salaries there is also a market in corporate culture - a company that is not nice is not going to attract top talent. I have never heard that Oracle has attracted a substantial number of top-notch engineers.

On a personal level, it is always advantageous to be friendly, nice, respectful, and take everything in stride because it wins you friends and lets you do things like get other companies to hire you, a process which increases your market value as an employee. It is also completely free.

Keep in mind that this is specific to large tech companies - other sectors like Finance and Sales are going to obey their own cultural trends which may be more selfish and greedy. The start-up sector tends to attract and encourage a rather different breed, but the conditions are also completely different from a traditional corporate environment, so different personality characteristics will be adaptive.

kragen2• 16 years ago

Silicon Valley owes much of its existence to people sharing information between companies: at the Homebrew Computer Club, at Hackers, at First Tuesdays, at user groups, on tours, at parties, in lectures. Some of that sharing was officially sanctioned, and some of it was not. It's a special part of its culture, and I think accounts for much of its innovation. Apple has always been an exception.

Google grew up in the shadow of much bigger, better-funded competitors: Microsoft, then later Yahoo. I speculate, without having asked anybody, that this accounts for the culture of fanatical secrecy, outstripping even that of Apple, that has enveloped the company since its early days, and which I think now is a permanent part of Google's culture, even though the bigger, better-funded competitors are now the underdogs, unable to execute.

This firing is a symptom of that tradition of secrecy.

I fear that the next half-century of the Valley will be poisoned by this, because Google is today's Fairchild, Mountain View's Microsoft. Every new startup will be backed by Googlers or Xooglers, founded by Xooglers, or at least advised by [GX]ooglers. So this poisonous culture of secrecy, which kills innovation, will fill the Valley like a vile miasma, along with the many wonderful things that come from Google experience.

gregable• 16 years ago

This may all be true, but the particular example we are discussing does not support your point. I don't see how whether or not another company knows who received raises has an rats ass to do with innovation.

jonhendry• 16 years ago

Silicon Valley also owes much of its existence to the defense industry.

krishna2• 16 years ago

Hmm..If only Yahoo had followed (or would follow) such a procedure!

[there used to be confidential VP-only meetings and information and that would also somehow end up on blogs..imagine that].

mfukar3• 16 years ago

So, to summarize: Google managed to appear more intimidating to any and all its competitors (by giving everyone a 10% raise) and fuck up its public image, all in two days.

Zuckerberg must be laughing his ass off right now.

adambyrtek• 16 years ago

I don't see how it could possibly affect the public image in a negative way. Google, like any other company who shares a lot of information internally, is very serious about confidentiality. A guy who deliberately leaked a memo clearly marked as "internal only" deserves to be fired, period.

blueben3• 16 years ago

You think Facebook wouldn't fire an employee who leaked confidential internal company information?

mfukar3• 16 years ago

No, but it's irrelevant anyway. Google should've fired the guy (gal?) anyway, but it's publicized as well. That, in anybody's eyes, shows a greater lack of professionalism and company adherence to confidentiality than leaking a (positive!) memo.

JoachimSchipper• 16 years ago

Does anyone know if the leaker got paid for revealing this memo? If so, I have little sympathy...

seldo2• 16 years ago

I just don't understand why they would care that this information leaked. It's not like they could possibly keep it a secret that every single Googler got a 10% raise at the same time.

robryan• 16 years ago

Sets a bad precedent, that it's okay just to forward any confidential memos on.

known• 16 years ago

Do no evil.

johnyzee• 16 years ago

Way to destroy the goodwill you just spent millions of dollars on.

Google fires employee who leaked memo on raises

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