Overall reasonable post, but thanking Chris DiBona in this post honestly makes me question the whole narrative. When I was at Google he was on the short list of petty tyrants to avoid at all costs. Just a mean person having way too much fun running a tiny Kingdom Of No.
I am a personal friend of Chris, and was with him through most of his tenure at Google (we both got laid off at the same time). When Chris said no (and it was rare), it was usually because people were thinking of themselves over the good of the company (and usually around personal projects they wanted to own instead of Google).
You might disagree with it (and I'm sure you do), but Chris always thought of the company first. He was the personal embodiment of early Google culture and a fantastic manager.
I just wish they'd made him a VP of Open Source (a position IMHO Google sorely needs). He probably could have staved off some of the failures.
I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level.
To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course.
Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.
> Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.
Unless I misunderstood the author she was his manager. It is not like he chose some random "black woman in leadership at Google" to attack.
While I don't think mentioning her by name was necessary (she's just an example of the culture of bad middle management he's calling out), I do think highlighting her race as a meta-criticism does neither the OP nor Banks herself any favors.
My rule of thumb: unless given an obvious reason not to, assume good faith on the part of individuals.
Aside from, but including, this instance, I commend anyone who calls out their manager for toxic behaviour and outright being bad at their job, as long as like any criticism it leaves a person room to take the feedback and change in some measurable way; even better if the person levying the criticism left of their own accord and has a mountain of career capital to stand on while doing so.
People in positions of power, particularly those in-charge of others, should be taking it on a responsibility and duty; like any other person, sometimes they do a shit job, and I think managers (unless they've committed sexual assault or something) often get exempted from criticism, while any failures ironically tend to be shoveled onto individuals as replaceable units. How many people out there have managers that end being directly responsible for burning them down and out, causing problems in their family lives, and otherwise cultivating an environment that makes the task of getting work done all but impossible?
Throwaway didn't claim bad faith necessarily, but just pointed out an important variable.
It's good to have good faith, but it's also good to understand that good faith individuals also suffer from blindspots and unconscious biases.
Hypothetically if there is a set of leaders, directors, and VPs, that all seem equally incompetent, but you call out only one, what might be the reason for it? It could be random. It could be because they were this person's actual direct manager. It coudl be because they're genuinely the one that are the most incompetent of the lot. But it could also be that they're the one perceived to be the most incompetent of the lot. Why? Does them being a woman or black factor into it? Who knows. Not even OP might.
It's not helpful to jump to racism at a moment's notice. It's not helpful to use race as a shield from criticism. But it's also not helpful to pretend that racism doesn't exist, even unconsciously within folks that would otherwise believe they don't have a prejudiced bone in their body.
In conclusion, people shouldn't ACCUSE, and other people shouldn't get DEFENSIVE. It's OK to discuss. I thought Throwaway did a decent job of not accusing. Many responses got too defensive tho.
I agree with you that some reactions were a bit strong.
But I reject that "pretending racism doesn't exist" is a good description of objections like mine above.
In my view it's just as fair to say that taking your position means pretending that racism exists in all interactions between people of different races, and must be contended with before other matters.
Unconscious racism is a thing, yet I question the utility of bringing it up when you have no actual evidence that OP is affected by unconscious racism. He might just hate women too, right? Can't rule that out.
Acting like race determines everything isn't exactly the healthiest strategy either.
Ultimately we're discussing assuming someone is a racist because they said something negative about a person of a different race. That assumption is also a racial stereotype.
The dickishness/meanness of singling someone out by name in a public article on the Internet, which is what the comment here was primarily about.
And then the second level, which the commenter deliberately downplayed as a minor second point (but people here jumped on it...) that said person is a minority, so it makes one extra-suspicious about motives.
So I'm not sure where you got this "acting like race is about everything" point, because that wasn't in the comment.
It's pretty unusual to publically throw someone under the bus by name like this in a professional name.
Given it's an unusual situation, people are reflecting on what makes this allegedly incompetent VP different from other incompetent VPs who aren't called out like this?
I'm not pretending anything like that. I assume good faith on the part of individuals (intentional word choice), because individuals are not systems or institutions and they really do tend to be decent and well-intentioned.
> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level
Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ?
I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. That's a premier-IC-turned-leader position if I've ever seen one.
No wonder she doesn't have a strategy. That's a terrible match for a hire.
Btw, it's very funny to see projects, which were predestined to fail, because they send their shittiest, and somehow they became better, and slowly more important than the executives star projects. There are meetings in such cases (I was part of such projects and meetings, several times), after almost everybody should be fired immediately, if you want anything good for the company. But of course, most of the employees of large, and old companies don't care anymore about products, or their respective companies.
This seems likely. Google makes 90% or some very high percent of their money from ads. I doubt there is any focus on on comparatively small side projects
I find it fascinating how you speak with so much authority. I know Jeanine Banks and I've been really upset with all the "diversity hire" nonsense coming from many of you who cannot hold a candle next to her. For your information she had been programmingor since high school and was hired into a government agency as a high school programmer-intern. That internship was her introduction into the worlf of technology. She has been an executive at GE and Amazon. Let's take alook at your resume and see if you can get into the rooms that Jeanine has been in. The condescension from many of you and particularly Ian's hit piece has been a disappointment to see.
This seems like a bizarre mid-representation of GPs point. They sated she was “par for the course” for that department. Meaning everyone was bad, not just her. And found it concerning she was the only person they singled out.
If she is in fact "par for the course" and the failures of that department were at multiple levels then that type of criticism is certainly suspect. I give you a C- at attempted strawman though.
Calling her out by name felt a bit harsh within the context of the post. Sure, call out Sundar as he's a public figure, but this lady, never heard of her, never seen her.
He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.
Maybe it was too much, but one counterpoint: if horrible managers never get called out how are you supposed to know to avoid them / how will they face consequences?
I understand authors frustration, I've experienced the same in the past but could not voice this beyond just some close friends and coworkers (who knew it already anyway), for fear of repercussions. I've since left but of course this person remains, and from what I hear is still as bad.
Outsiders might join that organization unaware of this. Others working with those teams might not know this and can get burned by it.
Was this particular call out justified? I don't know. But I don't think it is inherently bad.
I think the right/ethical move is to identify your organization (ie Flutter) and not name anyone specifically.
I agree completely with the article, but naming someone publicly makes the author seem like they are living in a bubble. Ie in their world the head of their org is a public figure, but hardly anyone knows what Flutter is let alone the org structure.
It is the right thing to do. Flutter team losing someone like Hixie is a big loss to everyone. It is very much possible Tim also left Flutter because of her. This terrible manager has nothing to contribute compared to that. I hope other googlers speak up.
As a person of color who is also disabled, I find bringing race into the discussion to be reductionist. It reduces the individual to the skin color, which is just as bad as what you accuse others of doing. People shouldn’t be judged based on whether there are enough black women at Google.
Seems more reasonable to me to focus on the head of the division since she has ultimate authority over it. Any incompetent people below her in the org structure are her responsibility. If they’re so bad, why didn’t she realize that and remove them? If you don’t ever want to be criticized then you shouldn’t seek out top management positions. He was also very critical of Sundar, is that also wrong because it could hurt his feelings? As for why he felt the need to air his dirty laundry like this, he must feel extremely aggrieved.
The department could be one of those "wilderness" assignments where you send somebody you don't wanna fire but also don't want to have a big impact. A useful place to help someone develop their executive leadership skills, or keep those with really bad skills from wreaking havoc.
I had the same reaction. I'm ex-Google, but never worked in that org or heard of her ever but it seemed in profound bad taste (or just mean?) to me to be pinpointing people by name like that. I'm not sure what it accomplishes, unless there is a vendetta at work here?
Also seemed out of tone with the rest of the article, which I agreed with the substance of and enjoyed reading.
And this is why it's getting incredibly difficult to have open honest discussions. It has to be about somebody's identity credentials somewhere. So tired of this nonsense.
So you think he left a (very) well paying job, working on a project that he created and has been building for nine years, one that he is now working on for no pay, just because a black woman became his manager? I dare say you are subconsciously biased, perhaps consciously biased. Subconsciously biased in that you won't even allow yourself to consider the possibilty that a black woman could be a bad manager, so bad that it would cause a prolific engineer like Ian to leave, and consciously biased in that you then actively jump to resolve your subconscious bias' flaw with reality with racism.
It seems she, being his direct manager, was a large part of the reason he decided to leave after 18 years. There is probably a lot of anger and frustration. I do agree this part of the post could have been phrased better.
It's Ian Hickson - the co-creator and lead of the entire Flutter project. He described her in his post as "Jeanine Banks, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase". As the head of Flutter he would be directly underneath her in the corporate hierarchy.
