How Google Lost Its Way | Former Google Insider Claire Stapleton

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? Subscribe and like this video for more conversations with the world's leading thinkers on AI, technology, innovation, leadership, and digital transformation. In this video: 00:00 Intro 00:10 How Google’s culture changed 01:33 Claire Stapleton’s 12 years at Google 06:14 Inside Google’s early “change the world” culture 10:50 Shift in language 11:28 What happened to Google? 18:42 The events that led to the Google Walkout 25:31 Organizing the historic Google Walkout 28:59 How Google responded to employee activism 35:16 Would Claire organize the Walkout again? 39:19 The danger of tying your identity to your employer 44:29 What should you do when your employer violates your values? 50:35 Did Silicon Valley lose its people-first culture? 51:38 Are today’s AI companies repeating Google’s mistakes? 55:03 Why being people-first is good for business 56:05 What Google’s leadership got wrong 01:00:09 Why women led the resistance inside Google 01:01:48 The role of men and allies in workplace activism 01:05:58 Why women take on more unpaid work 01:08:19 How leaders can build a better workplace culture 01:11:23 Closing thoughts #futurofwork #google #workplaceculture #leadership #bigtech #aiandjobs #siliconvalley #techleadership #techlayoffs #techpodcast Connect with Claire: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-stapleton-868a935 X: https://x.com/clairewaves Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/clairewaves/ Our links: Visit our website: https://www.infotech.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InfoTechRG

• 0:01Speaker 00

  In those early years, it was sort of like there's nothing we can't solve together. And the bedrock of that is people. And also that I think that you see the shift in that language now today and the values, because waves of layoffs, the threat of AI replacing jobs. No one is saying from Google anymore that people are the heart of what we do. If anything, it's sort of like prove that you're better than AI. You know, it's just like all these companies constantly threatening redundancy. So they're one to their coders now. Things have really changed.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  This is a show about the future of tech and the future of work. I'm Jeff Nielsen, and today I'm talking with the author of Don't Be Evil, Claire Stapleton. A 12-year vet at Google, Claire went from being a leader of communications to an organizer of the Google walkouts to leaving the organization completely, not without acrimony. Claire had a front row seat to what she called a loss of a moral compass in big tech and is telling the story in her new book. If Google were the only company in the world to be accused of losing its moral compass, I wouldn't be all that interested. But virtually every organization I've ever worked with has had some version of this battle, with their employees being somewhere between frustrated to disheartened to completely checked out.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Few of us have fought the good fight as courageously as Claire, so I want to know what we can learn from her. Should we expect our employers to act morally? What can we do if we're seeing bad behavior? And how can we be a force for good and build organizations that aren't evil? Let's find out.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Claire, thanks so much for joining today. Super excited to have you. I wanted to, I guess, maybe start at the beginning. So you were at Google an awfully long time, I think something like 12 years. And at the beginning, to me, it's very much a story of you very much being Team Google, card-carrying, flag-waving, member of Team Google. And the story kind of goes downhill from there. So I'm curious, from your perspective, to hear you tell it, like, what happened?

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, that really is the entire arc of the book. I was hired straight out of college through college recruiting, which is a very rare window of time that they actually did that at the company. It had a huge hiring burst around 2007, when I was graduating from college. And I was an English major, and I got a job in the communications department, which seemed like, okay, this is a good kind of corporate job if you're a kind of humanities student. And I wasn't even particularly interested in technology, but it was impossible to not be sort of drawn into the lore around the company at that particular moment. They were on the cover of Fortune Best Places to Work, and there were all of this coverage of the kind of lavish perks of the campus.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  And the basic brief of the job was like to become a corporate storyteller. So it's sort of like, where did my genuine idealism and enthusiasm begin? And the kind of requirements of the job end? Because it was sort of like, they wanted enthusiasm, they wanted idealism, they wanted people who could be kind of passionate spokespeople for the company. And I thought, hey, I can do that. And it was coming in, going from college into this environment, it was quite intoxicating because you're kind of being pumped with this rhetoric about how special you are. I mean, there's, from the first day of orientation, they're saying, we get 3,000 applications a minute or something, I don't know the exact stat, something kind of like hyperbolic, and you're the chosen one, and this is the golden ticket.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Particularly as the job market has ebbed and flowed and the dot-com industry has gone through so many different iterations, it did feel like, wow, we got the kind of like catbird seat here for this amazing era of technology that's dawning. I think that inherent to my role was a sense of the mission and the purpose of the company. So I think that now everyone sort of agrees that these big tech companies are very kind of complicated institutional figures and are governing our society, and they feel more nefarious. But if you kind of put yourself back in 2007, this is right before Obama was elected, it was like this moment of kind of like American optimism.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  And tech companies were right, particularly companies like Google, were these amazing American stories that two guys in a garage, two geeky geniuses are going to come through and kind of solve all the world's problems. So as I was going back and writing the book, I was really interested to kind of, to track how the rhetoric of the company kind of really thickened and evolved. And the company culture was a really big part of that. It was a big part of what the company was sort of exporting. And anyway, so I spent a few years in Mountain View, working closely with the founders and a bunch of other executives. On the whole, a great experience, and I sort of wanted to try something else, got a transfer to the New York office.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  And then that next seven years, I guess, tracks kind of slow and then fast disillusionment arc, where I had a really difficult time in the, just a kind of normal, difficult, toxic work experience. Still kind of caught in the lore and mythology of the company because I was working at this in-house creative agency called Creative Lab. It was a really tough experience. But then I moved over to YouTube marketing. YouTube was like hotter than hot. This is in the sort of like mid aughts, but was coming kind of complex and was a really interesting place to work. Also, we were continuing to kind of like cheerlead about it and disseminate the values of the company as a communications marketing person.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  And then I had a kid, I was starting to see things in a kind of like a bit different way. And then Donald Trump was elected, there was a whole kind of uproar at the company around a big scandal, a New York Times story about executive payouts for sexual harassment. Anyway, I ended up getting into labor organizing, organized the Google walkout along with a great group of women. And you can imagine my Google career didn't last much longer after that.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's the basic gist of the book.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  It's really interesting. I mean, it's a crazy story with so many chapters. And it's funny, I mean, you kind of laid it out, but it feels like it's almost an arc of American history. And like, to go back to the period of the mid aughts, there's this sense that you're talking about, about Google, and I remember the period, where they seemed to have this vision of like, this forward-looking, very modern company that had these values that transcended what you would typically expect from a corporation. And that, I think, is some of the idealism you were talking about. Can you add a little bit more color to that? Like, what was the culture? What were some of those values that they were espousing that felt so intoxicating? And did you find they were actually living it at that time?

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I used to give the tours of the campus, and the office design was really a bedrock of it because everything in that moment was a feverish rush to capture talent. So I'm like a comms person, as people come in as community or as customer service reps or something, it's sort of like a service person. But everything was about serving engineers and rock star product talent. So they had people very thoughtfully design offices that would engineer collaboration, and that was the idea of the lunch table. And people stick around for lunch, they're not wasting this time. Sure, it's a sort of a productivity move as well. But the office design was very open and flat to reflect that good ideas come from anywhere,

• 7:41Speaker 00

  and anyone can come in and build the next Gmail or whatever it was. So I think that the culture was also very much about employee voice. And I worked on this weekly meeting, TGIF, hosted by the founders, where, yes, there'd be some sort of presentation, and they'd talk about the product updates of the week, but most of it was a Q and A with employees. And I think it was, it felt sort of radical at the time because people would line up and come with their questions, and oftentimes the questions were very pointed or kind of critical about strategic direction or a misstep. And it was, there was the sense that the executives are so accessible, and they're like peers, and maybe they'd even course correct.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  So I think that there's that, where they really wanted to empower the employees because they felt like that's how they do their best work. And I think that when Larry Page kind of cycled in and out of being the CEO over the sort of early period of time, his second stint at this was when I was in the comms department. He really believed that you need to get the employees hopped up on the mission and the world-changing aspects of the company. And that's what I think was like almost the most bittersweet or somber note for me, is that when I was looking back at everything he said in the sort of like 2011 period, was that, you know, Google could cure death because we are so ambitious in our scope, we have all these talented people, we have all these resources, we're faster than the

• 9:06Speaker 00

  bureaucracy of the state, we're not encumbered by the complexity, which isn't true. I mean, the company was pretty complex already. But we can dramatically solve humanities problems. And when you really look at it, I'm like, it's not to say that Google hasn't transformed the world in certain ways, but if you look at search and YouTube and all these other things, it's like, in a way, I think that tech has sort of really contributed to the challenging, polarized, unequal environment that we now look at society and think like, are things any better than 10 years ago? Feels uncertain, feels worse in a lot of ways for a lot of people, while extreme wealth

• 9:51Speaker 00

  has gotten concentrated sort of at the top of the company. So anyway, but in those early years, it was sort of like, there's nothing we can't solve together. And at the bedrock of that is people. And also that I think that you see the shift in that language now today and the values because waves of layoffs, the threat of AI replacing jobs. No one is saying from Google anymore that people are the heart of what we do. If anything, it's sort of like prove that you're better than AI. You know, it's just like all these companies constantly threatening redundancy. So they're one to their coders now. Things have really changed. But I think that at the time, the kind of, I don't think it was insincere. I think that Larry and Sergey really did feel that Google can have this transformative

• 10:34Speaker 00

  impact on society, not just to like create online ads, but that it's this much more sweeping contribution to the world that, I don't know, people can assess whether that's been borne out, and I would say it hasn't.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  If you don't work in enterprise technology, you can skip ahead or take a quick braincation. But if you do, InfoTech is your secret weapon. InfoTech helps IT teams get projects done faster, better, and at a lower cost. Whether you're rolling out new tech, improving processes, or just looking for cost savings, InfoTech provides unlimited access to practical tools and expert guidance you need to execute at a fraction of the cost of traditional consulting. No matter the project, from AI strategy to cybersecurity to vendor negotiation, InfoTech has you covered. Check it out at the link below and don't forget to like and subscribe. So I'm really curious, and I find it so interesting. You talk to us a little bit about, I guess, what happened to Claire in that time

• 11:35Speaker 01

  and what happened to America in that time. I'm still trying to sort out in my mind, like, what happened to Google? You know, there's this, there's this age of almost like mythologizing and this mission that, as you said, it seems like it was sincere coming from Larry and Sergey. Is it that they stepped back? Is it the company got too big? Like, what happened to Google that's led to this slide? Do you have any reflections on that?

• 12:02Speaker 00

  Well, I do because, you know, Larry Page, this very brief period of time where he was the CEO, he gave a few interviews. He has like vocal paralysis. So it's sort of like he never really spoke in public the same way after this like one year. But he talked about how he was studying why companies fail. Or as a counterpoint, why companies become so big and bloated and sclerotic that they stop innovating on the same level. And that's like such a kiss of death. And, you know, I think that he understood the risk of becoming, you know, super corporate. And ultimately, it seems like that's completely played out. I think that, you know, my vantage point, being in the communications department, was that the company went from this period of rapid growth and just, you know,

• 12:46Speaker 00

  making tons of money and doing all these different things. And it was, you know, so cool and so exciting. But then, you know, contrary to their own kind of, you know, values on paper about HR, they ended up hiring a ton of executives or elevating people to kind of, you know, manage these different sort of business units, these different little fiefdoms. I think that this, this age of executives became a really complicated situation for the company because it corporatized it in a, in a big way. Because all of a sudden, you have people coming from the outside that are kind of, you know, there's people from Microsoft or, you know, people who are kind of used to competently running, you know, really big teams, really big orgs, who might not, you know, believe in that same sort of like freewheeling spirit,

• 13:31Speaker 00

  but they have a different skill set or something like that. The communications became more formal. The amount of trust that you can have in the company, the transparency isn't the same because people's stake feels, you know, more tenuous.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that, you know, the, the company has been plagued by sort of, uh, lack of sort of central organization. So there's, I have an example in the book that there were like five different teams working on smartwatches at the same time. Like, that's not only kind of demoralizing, but it's inefficient. And they've had, you know, many waves of, Ruth Porat is the CFO. When they brought her in, they called her Ruthless Ruth because she was trying to look and see where all the bloat and the, and the waste was coming from. So I could see that as Google moved into, kind of first this age of executives, then this age of branding, where they just put tons of money into marketing. And now it was billion dollar budgets for the marketing department. And then on a much kind of smaller scale note, in my last few years at YouTube,

• 14:31Speaker 00

  I saw this, my dad was a small business owner in Emeryville, California, in the Bay Area where I grew up. And I would tell him sometimes anecdotes about my manager, who's someone who's been very successful at Google. And, you know, she's, she's like a, you know, mid-level executive in the marketing department, department's still there. And I remember we were, you know, talking about doing an event to promote some, you know, YouTube show we were working on. And, um, you know, I, I think I was trying to do some cost saving or even saying, I don't know if we even need to do an event, if we're going to see the ROI from that. And she was basically encouraging me to continue to on with this event and to spend the maximum, you know, as allotted for it. And she said, you know, and I'll never forget it. You don't get a gold star for coming in under budget. And the logic there was if you don't spend,

• 15:16Speaker 00

  then you can't ask for, you know, you didn't ask for bigger budgets, you know, year in, year out. And so what you have with someone like that, and I think there's tons of people like this, is people who are really savvy corporate game players. And their priority isn't the mission of the company and the, you know, the end user and all these other kind of idealistic things that we kind of, you know, we're always talking about obsessively in the early days. Her interest is growing her influence in the org, growing her budget, growing her headcount. She's probably, you know, self-interested monetarily. So, you know, you'll get it. And you, I think, you know, with, with culture shift, organizational culture is so, organizational, organizational psychology is so complicated. But I could see that, very unfortunately, Google had sort of lost its grip on, you know,

• 16:02Speaker 00

  people who were deeply invested in, in the company's success and instead more invested in their success. I'm sure, as Larry Page would say, this is an inevitability that you have to fight aggressively as companies become so, so big. And also, the, you know, the mission of the company is so big and so complicated. And I, you know, when I would, when I joined the YouTube marketing team and I would tell my husband, who's an architect, about my job, it was like, there had also, Google had also undergone, kind of related to what I'm talking about, the old manager, this bullshit jobs-ification, where I would describe what I'm doing. Okay, you know, I run a team that manages the social media presence for YouTube. And, you know, it's not really tied to any particular goal. It's like, we're just supposed to kind of drive positive sentiment. And, you know, he's like an architect. You know, you're building houses sort of like brick by brick.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  It's very tangible. And he'd be like, I just don't really kind of understand how this connects to like YouTube's bottom line or any particular goal. Because our goals would kind of change. It's sort of like, you know, we're going with the, with the wind. And there's, you know, a lot of discussion in the book about, you know, how, how the social media channels change with the political climate. And, you know, now we're doing liberal values. Now we're not, you know, this sort of thing. And, you know, but yet, like, you know, he would say that, and I'd be like, it's so true. Like, what even is this job? And yet, the, the budgets and the headcounts, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. We had, you know, multiple agencies, tons of people. I mean, my boss, you know, had probably had 30 people on her team by the end. This is, she was the person overseeing the social media presence. So you think, all right, I've seen, maybe one time, seen YouTube's Twitter account or Instagram account or something. Think about that, 30 people

• 17:32Speaker 00

  and then maybe 100 other people at these agencies who are working on it. It's just tremendously wasteful. It's, um, you know, it's, it's really hard from the outside perspective to understand how the company could justify that kind of money. And, you know, it's like a jobs program. It's like a jobs, it's like a, you know, it's like some sort of like a big socialist product, project. But it's, you know, within the, the, under the guise of a big corporate, um, big corporate company. So anyway, that's, yeah. I think there's a lot of reasons why the culture has shifted in ways that make it like a bit, you know, less desirable in every way. But it's been so quick.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, the reason I ask is because it seems like it's so obviously underwent like a metamorphosis. And it feels like it's not unique to Google either, right? That there's all these stories of you have companies that get too big and suddenly they have money and they don't know what to do with it. And they do weird stuff. And they get corporatized. And you have, you know, it starts as being very people focused. And you have, you know, someone like Larry who's making sure that it reflects their values. And then, you know, as, as they step back a little bit, you lose that, that North Star. So, so, yeah, it's interesting. And I want to talk more about that through our, our conversation. But I guess just kind of playing the tape forward, you know, we end up a handful of years later with the walkouts and the events leading up to the walkouts.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And for, you know, listeners who don't know, that involves some, you know, fairly egregious sexual harassment payouts. But maybe Claire, you can tell us a little bit about the, the lead up to it and the walkouts themselves. And like, how, I guess, how, how you got involved with that?

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Right, I know. It was, you know, to have considered myself kind of the ultimate corporate good girl and then to be, you know, leading the charge on this sort of revolt was definitely a shocking turn, even, um, even though I lived it. I'm like, how did I end up doing that? The, you know, I think that the, again, the, the kind of cultural context driving, you know, drives so many, you know, forces and, you know, rupture moments, right? So, you know, um, Trump had come into power in 2016. And it, so there were a lot of conversation, you know, the Me Too movement, it was 2018, uh, began. And, you know, there was a lot of, you know, women feeling that there was space available

• 19:55Speaker 00

  to talk about, you know, kind of some of the, you know, systemic cultural aspects of the way, you know, the workplaces we've been in. And just the, the patriarchy in general, right? So, um, I, I had had a baby, which was, which was just personally a very radical experience as it, as it, as it can be.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  And while I was on maternity leave, there was this sort of, all this sort of Me Too stuff kind of came home to roost at Google. Because there was a, an engineer named James Demore who sent around a memo. There was, there's a, lots of mailing lists and people, you know, kind of constantly arguing things at Google. It was a big part of the culture, I don't think is. But he, there was a mailing list that was for controversial takes. And he wrote a big memo, um, basically about how women are biologically less suited to engineering than men. And it's actually been a huge disaster. The DEI, you know, uh, efforts that Google had done to try to, um, bring more women onto engineering teams

• 21:01Speaker 00

  was counterproductive and a huge disaster, you know, all these other things. So I was sort of just like watching this with fascination because it unearthed this conversation about the, the lingering bro culture in the valley, which I think that in some ways was, was sort of... Hard to see. It's not like being in Wall Street where someone's like slapping your butt or something, you know, like in the eighties. I think that, um, you know, I think that, you know, the, the kind of hacker bro culture of the valley has always been there. And there's a good Emily Chang book called Brotopia, which talks a little bit about the sort of like startup culture and sexist, the kind of basic sexism, I guess. Um, but you

• 21:42Speaker 00

  know, it, it, it ended up being this sort of interesting moment where I think, um, women were starting to, to chew on, um, feeling that sort of sense of discrimination or sense of like, I'm a D E I hire and all this. And, you know, and it was really interesting. So then, you know, then Brett Kavanaugh was, um, confirmed to the Supreme Court that fall that I was coming back from maternity leave and, uh, was also another really interesting moment of just talking about patriarchy and sort of, uh, you know, just, it was just a really interesting meaty cultural conversation. So, um, the women at Google, I think, were engaged in a way, um, that, you know, cause usually as a Googler, you're like, I'm so grateful and happy to be here. I'm like, you know, making good money and what a wonderful

• 22:25Speaker 00

  company and, you know, they support, you know, the whole person and all that, right? Um, so it's really hard because I think there's a lot of sense of like, you know, who are you to, you know, people are getting like raped or, you know, like there's so much like there, there's the women face or in people of color face, you know, so much, there's so many difficult, you know, experiences around the world. We're so privileged. How could we possibly complain? It's sort of, you know, a little bit the attitude of, of women at Google, I think. But all this is to say, there was a big New York Times, um, expose of a man named Andy Rubin, who we all knew well, is like a really big, you know, basically like second only to Larry and Sergey as a kind of celebrity of the company. Um, and he had, uh, been investigated for, you know, improper relations with subordinates

• 23:10Speaker 00

  on the team. I guess you could say there's sort of like some very salacious details, um, and inappropriate. It was, it was, it was largely like very inappropriate behavior, uh, for someone running a team and running a huge org. And Google had investigated these, um, claims and basically decided to get him out of the company. Um, but he got a $90 million payout. So of course this is probably was like, he created Androids. It was probably like contractual, you know, like they get paying him some percentage of what Android was worth, you know, and, you know, all this. But there, there were a few other examples in this New York Times story, uh, including of David Drummond, who was the, um, chief legal officer, having, uh, actually having a baby with, with someone who was like an

• 23:54Speaker 00

  on his administrative team. Um, and she was sort of shuttled out of the company with nothing. And, you know, anyway, so it, it, it created the perfect, you know, image in it already charged time for women at the company. Um, that, look, look at the optics here, that, you know, a man abuses his power, gets a hero's farewell, gets, you know, Andy Rubin was going to be like, you know, $2 million a month for, for many years or whatever, some crazy thing. And, um, you know, and meanwhile, these women who are kind of like discarded by the side of the road, um, who are, you know, the victims of these sort of like men in power. Um, and, you know, it's just, it just, I think it kind of, it summed up. It was, it was, it was like the, you know, the, the match that lit the powder

• 24:38Speaker 00

  keg sort of moment. So I was, since coming back from maternity leave, had been following, had been, you know, I love a listserv. So I was, you know, big on the moms group, you know, it was an anonymous group, but I was just really interested, um, to see people's reactions to this. And I, you know, I think people were kind of chiming in with their sort of like me too stories and people started to talk about, you know, what we might do, um, you know, send a letter to the CEO. Maybe we should all get together and go to the T J F and, you know, show United Front about, um, you know, how angry we are. And I think because I've been so deep in the bones of the communications, the internal communications and knew how insufficient they were for accountability at that point in the company's, um, lifespan, as well as just like the moment, you know, it was like, it just felt like

• 25:23Speaker 00

  we should do something, uh, something bigger to log and register, um, our discontent, you know, maybe something public facing. We're gonna walk out. And so I, you know, I think that I was like, I had just hit this point of being sort of like personally and professionally frustrated and kind of fed up with aspects of my, um, management and the way I'd been treated after maternity leave and all these other things. And I just thought, you know, I have good name recognition within the company from my days in communications. I'm happy, I'm never gonna get fired or dinged for this. And I think that the, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's about time that, you know, we, um, that we, you know, make a statement to management about how this isn't okay. These systemic issues are not

• 26:05Speaker 00

  okay. So, um, I just sort of said, I can help put my name on it and plan it. Um, some wonderful people came to the fold and we had this, you know, whole group that was working on it. And it, and we thought we had a couple hundred people, maybe Mountain View, maybe in New York. But one really kind of sobering aspect of it was that it, it seemed to take off so quickly. We planned it within a week. Um, then the protest happened. Um, and I was like, what is, what is happening here? Cause I know, you know, some women are frustrated and, you know, there's, there's women who, you know, experienced really bad things, way worse than what I'm talking about, uh, with, you know, my own feeling of like opportunity discrimination or whatever. And I, so I, I sent out a, um, a Google forum

• 26:47Speaker 00

  saying, why are you walking out? You know, what is, why are you compelled to, you know, kind of step out of line? You know, we're all kind of like good girls, you know, like high achievers here at Google. And I, I got, you know, 350 stories back or 350 responses back. And a lot of them were these egregious stories of just like, you know, I had just, I just said that, you know, like, oh, we, we think we're so privileged. You know, no one's like slapping our butt like they would on Wall Street or something. There's tons of that. There's tons of, you know, inappropriate remarks, just, you know, casual sexism, horrible experiences people had, you know, coming back from maternity leave, having their products given away. Um, you know, these things that you'd think there'd be not just, um, you know, the basic labor protections that you didn't get treat this way, treated this way

• 27:32Speaker 00

  at work, just because of your gender or the color of your skin. Um, but especially at Google, which, you know, foisted by its own petard here, always said it was like the kind of progressive workplace of the future that, um, you know, we treat people, you know, kind of better than, you know, we, workers are the center of, you know, and the lifeblood of this place. And we wouldn't want, you know, all these sort of like HR checks and balances to kind of, you know, theoretically prevent people from feeling like things are completely, you know, unfair sexist, racist and all this. And so I was really shocked that like, under the cover of darkness, um, there was still so much of this going on. Google's response was also kind of interesting and telling where, you know, the head of HR was like, yep, it's inevitable. You know, you have a company of

• 28:16Speaker 00

  90,000 people. There's going to be like sexual harassment. Um, just didn't meet the moment, you know, and it kind of like continued to, um, it kind of, that what was, you know, this kind of pure expression of just anger and rage in that moment, became quickly a kind of operation to kind of continue to push the company to make changes in these ways. We had demands. We kind of were, you know, following up on them. And Google was like, okay, you blew off steam. We're good. Let's move on here. Um, we got it. Don't call us. We'll call you. Um, and yeah, so yeah, they, they ended up, uh, yeah, not, not loving the ongoing organizing at the time. Yeah. And they clamped down on it really hard. So that's, yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Well, well, tell me about the clampdown because, you know, from, from my very distant point of view, what, what I saw was like the, the sort of tacit leadership, like, oh yes, we support you, but please go away or something like that. Like it was like, it was, it seemed like it was like head nodding, but yeah, like whatever the opposite of commitment to action is like, like basically, yes, we hear you, but we're not willing to make any sort of system level changes. So, so tell me about the clampdown and tell me what, you know, what happened next from your perspective.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Well, I just to first mention that the, you know, the company initially took a, if you can't beat them, join them sort of attitude. So when the walkout was getting planned, they, the CEO of the company sent out an email saying, I understand this is happening and, you know, you're welcome to walk out. It was just so weird, but it was good publicity for the event, I guess. Um, and then the CFO of the company was at a Wall Street Journal conference that week and she was like, I walked out myself and, you know, this is, you know, here we have Googlers doing what Googlers do well. You know, we're gonna solve all these problems together and like sexual harassment is yet another problem that Google can't solve, you know, which is crazy. Um, but, so it was sort of like hunky dory. And

• 30:10Speaker 00

  as an organizer, I was invited to go do a meeting with the female, top female executives like Susan Wojcicki and Ruth, the CFO and, um, you know, but the cozy, the coziness was, you know, dissipated almost immediately. Um, they, they did a, you know, an all hands where they said, here's our, you know, kind of like internal site where we're gonna like, you know, make progress on these demands, but they never commit, you know, other than they got rid of forced arbitration, which was a big deal. Um, they, they didn't really do any of the things, but some of them, some of the things we were demanding were quite like existential in nature, like commit to like correcting pay inequity and things like this. But, um, you know, it was a lot of lip service, I think, though what really

• 30:54Speaker 00

  kind of amplified the walkout was that there was a big shareholder lawsuit, which said that the way that Google had handled, you know, these high profile cases was, you know, doing damage to the company. And so there was a big settlement. With the women in the company. However, the, the, uh, the company made very quick work to, my belief, isolate the women who are working on this stuff.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Within their teams, uh, you know, in, in my case, you know, I was, I feel very much that I was sort of like pushed off of my team. But at the same time, they made internal policy changes, um, including, uh, talk about a shift from the, you know, open, transparent Google culture. They very quickly sent around an email saying that, um, now there are penalties for, uh, accessing need to know documents if you, uh, if you don't have, if you, you know, aren't supposed to be looking at these things, which is, it was sort of like ambiguous. How would you know what, because the company was like, all, uh, documents were publicly viewable by default and all these other things that were kind of hallmarks of the culture.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  They ended up firing a group of people after I had already left, but, um, someone was just for, uh, looking on calendars. This guy had looked on, um, HR calendars and spotted that they were, that someone in HR was meeting with this kind of famous union busting firm and, you know, people were getting a hold of, um, documents that showed that Google was, um, basically kind of trying to run a psychological operation to, uh, quell the threat of organizing, quell the threat of unionism. Um, and yeah, so I think that, and it, you know, when people get fired for, for stuff that's confusing like that, which is, you know, uh, what, it was very, there was someone who also put a, uh,

• 32:41Speaker 00

  like a, a pop up on all Linux machines that said, like organizing is a protected right, you know, these things, that person got fired. So, um, basically, you know, that's very chilling. I mean, the chilling effects of that, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, you go, it's a complete about phase from this is, we have Googlers doing what Googlers do well, all the way to, um, yeah, you saw, you, you saw something on a calendar. We don't like that. You're gone. So, and, uh, yeah, there, I think that the, and then that, the shot chaser there was that the tech industry started doing layoffs. So, you know, the, the walkout came, was born of a time where, um, workers did feel ironically enough psychologically safe. Here's me saying, I've been at this company forever.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  They're never, they're never gonna get rid of me for this because, you know, I'm holding Google to its own stated, stated values. So even if they don't like that this is a protest, it's sort of bad PR for, it's drawing more attention to this sort of like corporate malfeasance.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Even so, they, they're gonna have to live with that because the culture is durable enough to absorb these voices and all the, you know, the, the company's not so insecure that they would punish people for, um, for speaking out against things that they deserve to be held accountable for. But how wrong I was because I think that, you know, even though I think that the, all the, pretty much all the women from the walkout,

• 34:02Speaker 00

  left like pretty dramatically and, you know, in public ways. And I thought that, you know, if anything, the optics of that will look so bad for this company that I know so, care so much about being seen as inclusive and progressive and, but anyway, they still did. And, you know, like when I was kind of finishing up the book last summer, I went and saw that the women who were, you know, the head of my department, you know, marketing and at YouTube as well, ended up going on kind of like a roadshow and putting out op-eds the year or two after I, you know, I left and all the sort of fracas at Google about, you know, pontificating about how to build diverse and inclusive teams that, you know, like help people flourish.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  I'm just like, can nobody see this through this ridiculousness that they, you know, um, ended up kind of, uh, you know, that's not, not, not the biggest selling point for your inclusive team that you ended up, uh, pushing out the people that dared to question, uh, question leadership, uh, you know, particularly when we were hired on the back of that sort of promise. But, um, yeah, that was, so that was the kind of like quick shift that they were able to make and the chilling effects remain. I don't think that organizing exists at these tech companies near on the level of the kind of promise of that particular moment.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  When I hear you talk about that period of time and about the walkouts, it's interesting, Claire, and, and tell me if you disagree, but I, I, I sense like a sense of reflection in you. Like it seems like you're like, oh, how, how idealistic I was and, and what a time that was that things like that were happening. And I'm curious, you know, having had the chance now to sort of reflect on it, you know, what, what you make of it now, you know, would you do it again? Would you have done something differently? Do you see it as, you know, being a force for good or, um, you know, just more of a product of its time?

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I think, uh, you know, my naivete at that time was something that I like, feel like is very precious because like even when I went to, when I started experiencing the sort of like changing in my roles and responsibilities and I'm starting to kind of get isolated from the, you know, the main work that I've been doing. Um, I was like, oh, surely if I go to HR, they'll fix this. I mean, it's crazy because I already, I was surrounded by people who either were, um, more kind of savvy labor organizers or people who were just never had the same trust in authority that I did, or, or the kind of deference to authority. They think that, and I like, you know, it may surprise people reading the book, that I actually

• 36:34Speaker 00

  spent a bit of time talking about how, like the, how I was formed such that going to Google, I got so bought in. I was kind of interested to kind of like lightly psychoanalyze, like, you know, went to Catholic school. I, um, you know, was a good student. All these sort of like basic things that make someone, you know, perhaps you could use the word susceptible to, um, to getting kind of drawn in to the, kind of like the corporate, um, BS, you know, or whatever. Or get into, get drawn into the story and not necessarily be able to separate, okay, I have here my values here and my sense of judgment. I'm just going to trust what, versus I'll just trust what leadership says. Um, so, uh, yeah, I think that I completely understand the person that I was as I was like, kind of like starting to have this awakening and like a new kind of like righteousness.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  And it feels to me very pure. Like it was like, you know, it just was honestly like I was, there was this psychgeist moment and I was feeling kind of passionate and hot, you know? So it was sort of like that just happened. I think that, um, yeah, whereas I think that a lot of the other organizers would be like, you need to like do complete, you know, operation security and like get a separate phone and you can't use any Google products for things and all this other stuff that I was just like, again, I was like, you know, Google's never gonna like punish us for this, right? You know? What I do, I, I think that, you know, now knowing what I know, that, um, people who strive to make change, it usually doesn't go well for them, right? In a short-term way.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  It's not like you can necessarily say, oh, Google walkout, like transform Google and there's sexism is gone, you know, or something. Or Google's like never gonna have executives who have used power. I mean, you know, that said, I think it, um, it was part of this bigger culture moment, but it also catalyzed a, a conversation, I think, within people very much like an older version of myself where, you know, someone, it's, it was out in plain air. What's the delta between how Google describes itself and these sort of like values on paper and how a big company, that's a big kind of machine, it's the system and how it actually operates and the kind of humanity and authenticity and, you know, I think it's tremendously healthy for people to like not be so obsessed with their

• 38:47Speaker 00

  company is like gonna change the world and it's a unicorn magical place, like all this other stuff that, whether or not I was completely sold in on that, you know, that was more the direction that I was in. I think that, you know, it, it was a really powerful, moment for me to kind of like learn and grow. And it was so shocking to be like, kind of pushed out the company on the other end. And I'm just like, oh my God, because at the end of the book, you know, like pregnant and I'm like, you know, it's, it was a really kind of weird situation for me to be like, wait a minute, like, how did that like just go so spectacularly wrong? But, you know, I think that the kind of silver lining of it is that, um, you know, it, it forced me to kind of have a bit more agency over my own life.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  It's a little bit the message of the book that, you know, you know, buyer beware, if you wholesale import a corporation's worldview and, you know, kind of hitch your wagon, I guess, for, for a lack of a better way to put it. If you hitch your wagon so hard to one place, I feel like there were many times where I might've left Google in the book because I was sort of like so unhappy or, you know, dissatisfied, bored, whatever. But it was like unfathomable because my, um, identity for various reasons had become so fused with the company. And then, you know, we kind of broke up, me and like, so someone said, um, a, a friend who left Google was saying that they, after they left Google, were served a Spotify playlist about breakups. And they were like, as I'm listening to it, I'm like, why is this reminding me of Google?

• 40:11Speaker 00

  It's like, not every workplace, you know, kind of sets its teeth in emotionally, psychologically, you know, whatever. But I think that, and I, I don't even know if, if Google's capable of doing that anymore. I'm sure, sure people are like anthropic or something, these other companies. Like people probably having that kind of like culty family feeling still exists, you know, in tech. It's very much how they do it. But, you know, I think there's more skepticism and whatever with some of these big companies, but all this is to say, it's such an emotional job. And I, I like, I, I think I came to, um, I came to realize that, you know, it's much healthier, more interesting, you can have a richer life, you know, if you're not so like fused with your kind of like institutional workplace.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  So, yeah, like I, I definitely had that, you know, because I left in 2019. So this was like COVID and I had this like other kid and my life just like changed so much. I kind of like became a sort of part-time worker, stay-at-home mom for a few years and all this. And, you know, it was really hard because I was like, wow, when you're like in charge of your time and, you know, you have to kind of go and figure out what to do and how to make money and all those things. It's like, it's so much easier to just be kind of like on the train, right? But, you know, you know, ultimately it was a really kind of profound and healthy shift for me in my life. So, yeah, there's things that I think that definitely when I look back at, you know, how I kind of like escalated the retaliation and all these things like it.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  It, you know, I think I still see how much I kind of believed that the system would like make it right. And, you know, it kind of just kept deteriorating. I wonder if that's sort of like by design that like the more you kind of like, because my boss, who I was accusing of retaliation, started to be like, you know, you're making things really hard for me. Like, it's really hurtful for me that you're like making these claims, which is like crazy. You know, it's like, it's, it, you know, it was so emotional, you know, but it was totally but it was like, I was so, it was so stressful. I think that that's, you know, I wonder if I might have approached it, you know, just purely from a legal standpoint or something, you know, like, I'm like, okay, this is wrong, so I'm just going to take this to the lawyer as opposed to what I tried to do,

• 42:18Speaker 00

  which was spend that last bit of belief, you know, and capital in the company to go through this HR process, which is so crazy and so full of these moments where they're like suggesting I take a medical leave. There's a, the first HR person I told, first HR person I talked to told me I should like, you know, propose taking my manager out of the office for like an activity or coffee or something. I'm just like, it was, it's the gaslighting of just like pushing it back down to the person created a few months that, you know, I still feel like for my younger kid, I'm like, I was so stressed out during the pregnancy with you, but he's pretty chill. So, but yeah, it, it, it, I, I think I, I made my life a little harder with, with my last gasp of like believing Google would make it right. But for the most part, I, I feel also that speaking out so much about

• 43:04Speaker 00

  just the kind of like disingenuous, two-faced nature of a corporation or Google in particular. It's like, I've had such an interesting inbound of like the, of just other people commiserating. You know, people like, I remember this email I got from someone who was like, I was at IBM in Romania in the 1980s and like, they made my life hell. And I'm just like, you know, it's like, everybody, I think a lot of different people can relate to feeling so small. And if you have, it really comes down to like, obviously this is a really big conflict with the company, but you know, you could read my story as this sort of like a management tragedy, you know, sort of like the, the manager exerting this power, you know, reinforcing

• 43:45Speaker 00

  the powerlessness of the employee, the kind of cautionary tale of that. And I'd be really curious, I'd be really curious if that manager, I'm sure she would never admit weakness or reflection here, but if, if she feels like it could have been handled any differently, if that situation could have been mediated, so it wasn't, you know, kind of so dramatic as it was. But, you know, yeah, so it, it was a great learning experience. So at this point, as I sort of like processed the trauma of it, and I'm like, yeah, well, it is what it is. It was the fire that tempered the steel, like crazy trajectory at Google.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  That, that's the spirit. I like that. I like that analogy and that, that sentiment of, yeah, tempering. So, you know, Claire, to me, like, the most interesting part of all of this is, you know, you had such a unique front row seat to this, but the, the experience itself of becoming disillusioned with your employer, with believing that they should be operating within a certain values framework, that they have your back, that they're going to adhere to some, you know, I don't know, some sort of moral foundation that's better than like a cost benefit analysis or like the bare minimum.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  And then watching that fall apart and just feeling like, should I speak up? Should I do the courageous thing? Am I going to get punished if I do the courageous thing? Like, I, I feel extremely confident that there are literally millions of people in some version of that, you know, that plight right now. What's, what's your advice to them? Like, what's your advice to your younger self? What's your advice to somebody who's in this scenario and doesn't know what to do?

• 45:30Speaker 00

  I, I think you have to be sort of clear-eyed about the risks. And in organizing, there's a lot of conversation about the spectrum of risk tolerance. And there were, there were people that, you know, were deeply passionate about certain ethical issues within the company. It was personal for them, but they wanted to remain anonymous because they're, you know, sending money home to their family or, you know, these things were like, it's completely fair to want to keep your job and that's, you know, a risk that not everyone's going to want to take. I think that, you know, my advice to people usually is to find a job where, you know, you don't feel like you're so compromised that is sort of like you're the manager, the nature of the work, the, the skills that you bring to the job, that there's something

• 46:15Speaker 00

  sort of like, you know, something you can stick your teeth into, maybe not have to, you know, tack some, you know, kind of big ideological framework that you're changing the world or the grandiosity that I saw at Google. But I think that there's so many small ways that you can make a better world. I mean, honestly, it's like, I, I think that, you know, some of, probably that some of the stuff I'm, I look back on in my career as I became a manager was, you know, you sit in the performance reviews and you, you understand all the kind of like implicit bias that comes in, you know, all the very subjective ways people's value is measured. And, you know, it, it, it replicates, you know, really kind of like complicated human systems. I think that there, you know, there's a way to kind of like speak up for other people

• 46:59Speaker 00

  and like use a little bit of your privilege without, you know, kind of blowing your wad like me and, you know, getting fired or whatever. But, yeah, I think that like cultivating a mind where you can observe, you know, what the company is doing, stay in touch with your own kind of values. And I think that, you know, as I've seen along the way, people reach a point where they just get fed up with it. And then you either, you know, try to commit to your, to make your dissent known. And I, I remember I so admired in my old apartment, which didn't really welcome people challenging authority the way that it was in sort of Google in the old days, but people who would ask challenging questions.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  And I think that, you know, it can't be all people who are like perfectly compliant. It's like there, there, there's, I think there's, there's kind of sophisticated ways that people can maintain their own humanity, try to check the, the balances of power, maybe in small ways in their teams or in bigger ways in this sort of like, you know, organizing efforts as well as, but like being aware of your, your, your privilege and being prepared to spend a little bit of it is, is, is like how kind of like slow ruptures and changes happen over time. I think people are offered opportunities to make small changes in a lot of different ways. And I've also seen, you know, what kind of disappoints me is I see a lot of people put their head in the sand, you know, when they certainly, like even like I, a couple,

• 48:23Speaker 00

  there are a couple of people that were kind of close colleagues of mine and they, when I left, they never said anything or, you know, it's like, and sometimes like if those people now, you know, years later, they'll be like, you know, commenting on like an Instagram story of mine or something or like just some minor thing, right? My, a minor touch point. A couple of these people in the writing of the book, I actually responded to them to say, I'm curious, what, what happened when I left and you saw your friend from work go through this like crazy traumatic rupture and kind of like the, this like was awful is like the heads of my department were like, Claire's a liar. She's making up this whole thing. I mean, it was like kind of crazy situation.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  And, you know, I had this, one of these conversations, someone said to me, I was basically like too chicken. Like I, I felt that, you know, they were, the management was saying one thing and to like even express support to you privately was something that I didn't feel comfortable with at the time. And I'm just like, don't be that person. I just can't imagine, like, I personally can't imagine being like, I need to now be like so in my box of like the management line that when I see something that's so clearly wrong, that, you know, I, I couldn't like, you know, reach out to my friend or whatever. So I, I feel like, you know, having a little bit of courage, a little bit of moral outrage is a really important thing to like maintain in a world where, you know, things are so

• 49:48Speaker 00

  complicated and we do feel so small and, you know, the kind of ripple effect that can exist. And I think, but the, the kind of good thing now is as opposed to in 2007 where it would have been really weird if you were like saying, oh, Google's this like evil company or whatever. Now people, there's so much more awareness of the, you know, complex influence that tech is having on our lives. And a lot of people are reading nefarious influence and/or, you know, crazy kind of like capitalistic, you know, goals, having like these companies in a chokehold such that like, who cares about what their values are on paper? They're just soulless or whatever. So all this is to say, there, the little, there's, you know, these little kind of cracks here where it, people are freer to think, to think more freely and not be so like, you know, what management says is true or whatever.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  That that transition, I guess culturally is like, one of the things that makes me feel really sad is like, I don't know, I'm sure you remember like that age, you kind of described it where like, talent mattered and people wanted to like, measure employee engagement and like,

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  It felt like what you thought mattered versus, you know, companies are kind of like clamoring to replace you at the drop of a hat. Now, I'm curious from your perspective, you made a throwaway comment earlier about Anthropic and oh, maybe things are better at Anthropic. Do you have any sense like Google in its heyday was sort of this paragon of being people driven, value driven. Are, you know, that that crown seems to have fallen, that's pretty clear. Are there organizations now, you know, that you hear people talking about that you you feel are, you know, picking up that mantle and are, you know, leading the charge there? Or is this just like really, you know,

• 51:34Speaker 01

  the lost idealism of the age and the world has moved on from?

• 51:38Speaker 00

  I think it's maybe a little bit the latter, but I find the Anthropic example interesting because I can't really assess the sincerity of it, but I think it's a really good marketing tool, you know, I think that the, that Google vacated a spot of sort of like the virtuous Googly corporation. And I think that, you know, even though, as I said, I think a lot of the kind of ideals and the kind of philosophy they were exporting was pretty sincere at the time. It also was really self-serving and I think that like, you know, even the, you know, the campus design or, you know, taking the journalists around from, you know, Germany and France and people would be like, this is all obviously like a big plot to just keep

• 52:21Speaker 00

  the workers here, you know, 24/7 and like squeeze the most out of them and, you know, kind of like, wow, what a cynical, you know, skeptical kind of perspective. But of course it was powerful because it did attract an amazing group of people and, you know, that, you know, those were some kind of glory years where, you know, people felt really good about working there and they did want to like, you know, give 110% and all those things like those two things kind of work symbiotically the. So anyway, so as I've seen kind of like some of these AI companies really use a lot of that rhetoric, I'm reading Empire of AI right now, which is such a good book, but it talks a lot about this, this, you know, how these companies sort of set the stakes of, you know, humanity is that, you know, this is everything in the world is at stake and, you know, the, the, the

• 53:05Speaker 00

  survival of the human race even and all this. And I think that it does attract a certain kind of person that, you know, is deeply invested in humanity, right? And like, why would a company not want people that are, you know, tremendously, you know, creative and brilliant? And I mean, now you see what the pay packages are for people in AI. Like clearly these companies do believe talent is really important. And so I just hear kind of from friends in tech that it's like, like, you know, wow, everyone's trying to like go work at Anthropic now and all this. And I'm like, you know, I, it's, I can't assess, wow, is that a pure-hearted, like a pure-hearted, um, you know, direction for the enterprise? Does, do they really, you know, when the going gets tough, would they stick to those values? Or is it just a really powerful market positioning tool?

• 53:50Speaker 00

  It's probably a mix, right? So, um, you know, and I think of that, you know, it still is a story of tech. So as I said, with, you know, my chain of management, if they really didn't care about being perceived as, you know, a wonderful company that really cares about people, you know, they wouldn't put op-eds out, you know, saying how they're, you know, such a wonderful company, constantly reflecting on how to, you know, be more inclusive and all, you know, all those other things, even at a time when like DEI is like kind of falling out of favor and such. But that, you know, something in these companies, even if they're constantly threatening to replace white collar workers, something in them wants to attract and retain talent. Right? So, um, yeah, I think it's, I'm definitely interested to, to follow

• 54:32Speaker 00

  like some of the parallels between that early time at Google and AI, because it seems like the AI wars are sort of like heating up the way I remember, like the social media wars heating up, which felt like, you know, much less crazy stakes because now the world seems like it's like, you know, going to hell in a handbasket. But, um, yeah, that there, that the rhetoric seems to be really, really sweeping again. The, um, you know, not, not just changing the world, but like saving humanity is like, just kind of like, wow, could there be a bigger stake? Bigger stakes.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  There's, there's an implication in something you said though, that I find really interesting, which is that being people focused, being virtuous, like, sure, there's a world where you're doing it for its own sake and it's just because it's the right thing to do. And, you know, sadly, I think you and I are both a bit too cynical to believe that, but that it's also just like, it's good for business to be focused on people. Right? You can attract and retain talent, you can build a better company, you can build better products. And like, I don't know, like to me, it's just sort of with that mindset, it's just tragic that we're losing that. And it feels like if you're a good leader, you don't have to be caring about people just because, you know,

• 55:48Speaker 01

  you're virtuous. It would be nice if you were, but like, it is still the right business decision to do it too. And that doesn't mean like, hey, write an op-ed and like pat yourself on the back, you did it. Like actually valuing people, it just seems like it's, it's the right business thing to do.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think like leadership still matters. I think that's a little bit was sad coming out of the, you know, and I think it could absolutely be some of the like unique complexities of Google's leadership. I think it's really hard to be a leader in, you know, in a world where,

• 56:22Speaker 00

  you know, the shareholder dynamics drive a lot of business decisions, where things are really complex and there's a lot of eyes on Google and all, you know, all those other things. But I kept waiting for leadership kind of post-walkout to like, to figure out how to like, not just neutralize what the women of the company were bringing to leadership, but to like actually hear it, you know? And I think that, that for whatever reason in that moment, the threat of further organizing became so existential for the company that they just had to like clamp, you know? And, and that's exactly what happened with my chain of, of leadership, which I don't think that we're like the most amazing leaders anyway. And unfortunately, I think you end up this like self-perpetuating cycle where

• 57:04Speaker 00

  the people who are the best at serving the system kind of get, continue to get elevated instead of the people who know how to like, um, maybe, you know, deal with the friction, you know, kind of create stronger, more resilient cultures. Like that was the kind of what I got out of Google at the end was like, wow, how fragile is the, is the leadership in this culture? At the, one of the walkouts, TJFs or town halls they did, one of the executives was like, you know, went on this whole kind of like temper tantrum-y rant about how, you know, it was, the way people were talking about executives in this, in the walkout and all of our comms was so discriminatory about executives. And it's not all executives, you know, who are like, you know, having improper relations and, you know, you know, we're, we're really good people and you guys are like, you know,

• 57:49Speaker 00

  painting this with a broad stroke. And I'm just like, yeah, this is what it means to be a leader is like, um, you, you bear a higher, it's like being a politician, like, I mean, not that that matters to anyone, but you bear a higher standard of moral conduct. You have to absorb more. That's what you sign up for. That's why you're getting like whatever billions of dollars from your fortune. Google, that's what the money is for. And, you know, I, I, I wish to see, and I, I think Larry and Sergey have changed a lot over time. Like if you look at the, um, you know, the, there's a leaked video from TJF when Trump was elected and you have Sergey was kind of always like, sort of considered to be the sort of moral bellwether, sort of like you can't, he's a contrarian, he's just going to do what he, he's going to stand up for what he cares about morally, even if it's not what the board wants or something.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  And he was, he goes, he says this kind of like beautiful remarks about how, um, you know, how disappointed he was in the election, you know, and, and how it, you know, kind of like offend, so deeply offended his values, but you know, wanted to understand, you know, why this happened and, you know, it just sort of like, some of these things he holds so dear, you know, as like an immigrant and, you know, all these other things in the country and as, you know, someone who cares about women or whatever, all these things. And then now he's like, you know, front row at the inauguration behind Trump, like, you know, second, and, and he's like, you know, a huge MAGA guy and saying that, you know, he was totally brainwashed before and all this. And I'm just like, wow, you guys have changed a lot. I'm not going to even, I'm not going to even ascribe a moral value to any of the statement here or there. It's just, it's just more that you guys have gotten in line with sort of like,

• 59:16Speaker 00

  you know, kind of the power and that swung around a few different ways in the, in the span of time that we're talking about. And I think it probably, I'd be really interested to understand what happens to your brain, your life, your priorities, your values, as you go through such a stratospheric, like, you know, wealth events and like, you know, you live so much life in the public eye and all these things. I think it's really hard to stay tethered to your humanity. It's like the same advice I have, you know, for kind of like people at any point, you know, at any stage of organization. But, um, yeah, it's, it's really, it's really sad how, how kind of little like interesting and authentic leadership I see, um, you know, at least in this one company that I've been tracking and living in for so long.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's fair and it's, it, yeah, it's its own kind of depressing to, I guess, see that abdication of, of value-driven leadership there.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  One of the things you mentioned, Claire, as you were talking was about leadership, like not actually hearing the concerns. As, you know, hearing was the verb there and I'm curious. And I want to approach this a little bit delicately, but the story you lived and the story of Google here that you're telling is in some ways a very gendered story. It's, it's the story, as you said, it's tied to Me Too, it's, you know, Women who have had these experiences, sharing them, saying, "That's not okay." Comparing notes, saying, "We're all having similar experiences. We're not being heard and we're being mistreated and there's something that needs to be done about it."

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  And then ultimately, yeah, not being heard and being dismissed in some way.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  I'm curious, and this is coming from me, and I'm a sample of one. I've talked to a handful of women who are, I think, almost exclusively ex-Google now, who in my mind are part of this sort of resistance movement, who have had some of these experiences and have been brave enough to speak out about it. I don't see a lot of men in that movement. And I didn't hear about a lot of men in your story. And I'm curious, what role, if any, what role, if any, you saw men playing or not playing? And what you see as the role of men in, I guess, conflict like this? Like, how can men be a force for good? And how does this not just become, "Oh, it's those damn women and their problems"?

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  You know, like, to me, this is so obviously everybody's problem. And I don't know, maybe, anyway. So what?

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  It's hard, but I think, you know, things like with the kind of culture going as it has, I think a lot of this is sort of swung out of favor. I mean, at that time in Google, I think we were doing a lot of like, privilege walks and bias training and all this other stuff that was trying to get people that don't really identify as being from a marginalized group to take stock of the ways in which they've enjoyed a lot of sort of like privilege in the system that we have. And maybe think about, as I said before, think about ways that they might consider spending some of their privilege to speak up for others. But I think that, like, you know, I, with organizing at Google, I do think that there is a tradition of male engineers who feel very strongly about the way technology is deployed.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  So in a way, that's personal for them. Because it's like, I don't want the code that I write to be used as like a weapon of war. That some of the, you know, earlier, the thing, the organizing that preceded the walkout, Maven, Dragonfly, some of these other things that were about, there was a movement called Tech Won't Build It. And I do think there are quite a few people on the kind of technology side who were willing to stick their neck out. And a lot of who, as you would say, like cisgender white men, right?

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  But I do think that a lot of times when I'd be in organizing circles, it is women and people of color. I think that it is, it's people who can deeply relate to, empathize with, have experienced something that radicalized them in a little bit of a way. Not like, you know, that doesn't mean, you know, any one thing. I just mean that it made them feel a bit more kind of like rebellious, I think. Of like, and it made it personal for them, such that they feel like something's at stake for them or, you know, people that they love and all this other thing. I think that's why you sort of like, in the MeTube movement, you sometimes see, you know, like politicians saying like, "As a mother of, or as a father of daughters, you know, this is personal for me," or something.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  It's like, whatever it takes, make it personal for you. But it really is personal for people who've experienced discrimination in any form. I think like that, you know, part of the experience of me writing this book is like, you know, in so many ways, I'm like, you know, so privileged, right? So it's like, you know, I, you know, knowing trans people and people who have, you know, Palestinian or Lebanese family or something, who like, you know, as they see the way that Google was engaging in like global conflict or in the, on the trans issue, Google was very fickle about, you know, its support YouTube. It was constantly like, "We're speaking out for trans kids." And then it's like, "Oh, no, we're not, because this is like not popular anymore, you know, and this is like dangerous. Now the administration's changed," whatever.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  But, you know, people, I think that people who, you know, what is it, what does it take for someone to risk anything? And I think that the, you know, the deep lived experience, I think, just propels people to take more of a risk. So, you know, I think, like, I do urge people who feel like they, you know, it's like the people who are so comfortable in the company. I think, like, again, I'm like, I encourage people to like, try to cultivate a sense for, you know, the morality or lack thereof of a corporation. It's the sort of like a neutral, you know, neutral or negative, whatever. It's like, these decisions that these, you know, companies make,

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  you know, don't just become completely like, you know, insulated from it, numb. You know, it's like, sometimes I feel this kind of extreme cynicism. Like, I have, you know, friends who are still at these tech companies are like, "Oh, yeah, of course, these companies are evil. Like, you know, I just got to keep like collecting my paycheck and whatever." I'm like, "Do better, you can do better, you know? Okay, we can like, we can try, we can try to like, you know, stand up for others." Because a lot, a lot of people around, out there, you know, who are more vulnerable, don't have the same ability to just say, "I'm just going to kind of like, you know, laugh it off. Nothing's at stake for me, even though I think these companies are evil." So, yeah, but I do think that there, you know, behind the scenes, as we, as we were leaving, I would say there were a lot of great allies. And there were a lot of men who took part in the, in the walkout.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  But I think when like, you know, push came to shove, like, a lot of the people that are actually really actively engaged. The other thing I will say too, which is like a slightly different point, is how I think women are also really used to doing unpaid work. It's like, I would, it's like, almost a cliche, but like, I was really involved. I was really involved with my kids' school. Our kids' preschool, you know, it's like kind of a co-op preschool in our Brooklyn neighborhood. And I would just be like, looking around these board meetings. And we, you know, we have some great men too, you know? But it's just like, women are so used to supporting their communities and caregiving, you know? And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's part of how we're oriented to the world. It's part of how we're conditioned. It's part of just how we like, you know, how we expect our lives are going to be.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  That there's like, you know, that there's, that it's gratifying and fulfilling. And like, I think that's what the example of being in the preschool is that women, I think, are sometimes more able to say, "I see what's in it for me, because it feels good to like, you know, show up for my community and spend time with other people and all this." Whereas, you know, I think that, you know, men on the other side are like, you know, conditioned to like, think about work and be, you know, concerned about what they're taking home and being the breadwinner. You know, all these other things, you know, these very kind of like gendered notions of how we structure our days and our lives. But yeah, sometimes I would like, you know, like, have a male friend in these sort of volunteer positions. They're like, "This is actually kind of awesome." Like, you know, it's like the, being the one guy, you know? It's like, that, you know, like, "Oh, yeah." Like, I was kind of grumbling about the time commitment, but it's, can be great.

• 1:07:18Speaker 00

  So, yeah, like, it is just very, it's just very interesting. My, my book too is like, you know, when, when I, like, the cover of it is so like Google. It's like, and I remember saying, like, one of my early feedback things about it was like, "Can you tell this is like a woman's book?" Because actually, quite a bit of the book, quite a bit, you know, or quite a bit of points in my arc, which reckon with my condition, my unique conditioning as a woman and how that played into how I approached my role and how difficult I found it to fight for myself or advocate for myself, how I often fell into doing sort of like unpaid work. And women are constantly doing that. It's like, you know, it's not like necessarily more light needs to be thrown on that. But I think that that definitely plays into the sort of like dynamics of organizing as well.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  No, I hadn't thought about that. And it's like, yeah, as I said, there's like a sadness to that being like, "Oh, yes, of course." Like, they're just willing to do more because that's what society is sort of demanded. But it's interesting, I hadn't thought about it through that. Claire, as we, as we start to wrap up this conversation, and we've covered, you know, quite a lot of ground. And it's been, you know, really interesting and insightful to hear about your experience. Any sort of final thoughts, I guess, for any business or tech leaders who are listening to this? And having some of the struggles or concerns that you had or are interested in building, I guess, a more, a better or more virtuous culture in their organization? What can they do?

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, my dad, reading the book, is like, he was a small business owner. And I think he was like, you know, kind of like, had to like, kind of bust the union, sort of like, you know, the employees and the organizers always like trying to like, you know, impede the innovation and like, you know, we need kind of like, you know, unfettered, you know, an unfettered road to just like, do what we want to do. And even as a small business owner, selling art supplies, which we did. And I think that, I hope that leaders and kind of like execs and managers will read the book and understand the employee perspective as well. And the kind of, some of the challenging natures of that. I think interpersonal stuff can be really messy. It can be really hard to manage an employee who's outspoken. But also, there's a lot of heart in it.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  And I think that, like, again, it's like, to me, it's sort of like, a confident leader would be able to absorb, not absorb, but would be able to hear the concerns and the fire and the anger of the walkout and transmute that into something that made the company better. There are so many like possible paths. And I actually, because I've never run an organization, I really don't know what those paths might have been. And I think there's, every now and again, a Google executive, I don't like, will sort of like riff on the, you know, the complexities that make it really hard to be a leader there, or whatever. I welcome that. But I think that, like, you know, my first-person account is definitely something that, you know, is written for other people who are experiencing like the challenges of corporate life

• 1:10:12Speaker 00

  in a very chaotic world that we live in today. It's for that person. But I also hope that, you know, leaders can, can find lessons in it as well. Because I think that it, that dissent doesn't have to be threatening. It can kind of be like what Google used to say, which is that it is a hallmark of a healthy culture that, you know, celebrates and welcomes the insights and, and the accountability that employees can offer. I mean, if anything, I think we can all agree that the tech companies don't have a lot of accountability. You know, it's a really important role that, that workers can play and that I think that managers can like, try to like, be a bit toughened up about, you know?

• 1:10:53Speaker 00

  So, you know, I wonder, you know, where we're heading with the kind of like employer-employee relationship. But I'm sure there'll be many other iterations of it in our lifetime as tech continues to be like, you know, one of the major employers of our world, right? So, and, and also emperors of our lives. They're so tremendously powerful that, you know, I think it would, it would behoove these companies to try to dig in and reflect and be better.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  I think that's well said. And I don't know, I'm, I don't know if I'm cautiously optimistic, but at very least, I want to be. And I can see that future that you're building. And yeah, I think we all kind of owe it to ourselves and our, you know, companies to try and build that future.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  Definitely.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Claire, I wanted to say such a big thank you for coming on today. Really great, interesting stuff.

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, thank you. And yeah, look forward to reading the book.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, bye.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

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