Former Google exec alleges that he was pushed out in April after he lobbied for a human rights program to formalize Google's free speech and privacy principles
Ross LaJeunesse left the tech giant in April after lobbying for a human rights program for two years
What makes this one different is rank and subject: LaJeunesse was an executive, and his cause wasn't workplace speech but a two-year internal lobbying effort to formalize Google's free speech and privacy principles into a human rights program — meaning the allegation concerns how the company governs its own values, not just how it treats dissenters.
First-order effects
Google now faces a public allegation from a former senior executive that internal advocacy for a formal human rights program ended in a push-out, adding a governance-level case to its run of employee-relations controversies.
LaJeunesse converts two years of private lobbying into outside pressure, giving journalists, employees, and watchdogs a named insider account of how the company handled the proposal.
Second-order effects
Each successive public exit lowers the barrier for current and former Googlers with grievances to go on the record rather than litigate internally, as the December firing of the security engineer already showed.
Google's standard response playbook — disputing individual characterizations while avoiding structural commitments — gets tested against a claim about missing institutional machinery rather than one person's conduct.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, formalized human rights oversight inside large tech companies will arrive through external force — regulation, investor pressure, or public campaigns — rather than internal champions, because the corpus suggests internal advocates exit before programs materialize.
The trend: Senior insiders are increasingly taking Google's internal values disputes public, shifting pressure over free speech and privacy governance from HR processes to reputational and regulatory arenas.
There's a lot in here to unpack — and there's a lot in here we already knew (Dragonfly/China, Saudi government apps etc.) but it's quite remarkable to see Google's former chief diplomat say the company should “no longer” be allowed to operate freely without government oversight.
This description of @google 's abandonment of the “Don't Be Evil” standard is fascinating on many, many levels. The devolution on everything - from confronting Chinese censorship, to interior management practices - is just awful. https://medium.com/...
Two things make this particularly striking: 1/ this isn't some disgruntled rank-and-file engineer upset about having a product canned 2/ the bluntness of the call for increased government regulation. The author worked in California state politics before joining Google.
Happy New Year, Google. This blog post could prove extremely damaging. Alleges a complete break down in principles. Sundar Pichai greatly admired, we'll see how he tackles this. Larry and Sergey have of course already left the building. https://medium.com/...
“Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights, it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price.” https://medium.com/...
Read every word of this bombshell first person account of @google's dramatic turn away from their “Don't be evil” mantra. There are simply too many stories and quotes to list, but the one below is a particularly awful one: https://medium.com/...
Lot of juicy, damning, familiar nuggets here as one of google's top policy execs recounts being pushed out of the company for literally being too principled and, like, respectful of others at work https://twitter.com/...
Google's head of international relations created and internally lobbied for a program to support free expression and privacy for its users in China—leaned in, you could say—and then last year got purged. “'Don't be evil,' has been relegated to a footnote."https://www.washingtonpo…
Google's former top diplomat now blames the company's “disengaged” founders and earnings-driven leadership for Google's departure from its core value, “Don't be evil.” He's also now running as a Democrat for Susan Collins' senate seat in Maine. https://www.cnbc.com/...
In medium post, @RossforMaine blames disengaged leadership (Page and Brin) and hiring of CFO Porat from Wall Street for the shift away from “Don't be evil” mantra at Google. (Among other things.) https://medium.com/...
A Google exec says he was forced out b/c he was *too* committed to human rights. So, @RossforMaine took to Medium, writing Google “never intended to incorporate human rights principles into its business....” https://medium.com/... More from @nitashatiku https://www.washingtonpost…
Google veterans: The company has become ‘unrecognisable’ At the IPO in 2004 it had 1,907 full-time employees. In September 2019 it had 114,096. 🤷🏻♂ ️ https://www.cnbc.com/...
I kind of think that big companies are the way they are for a reason. The incentive to become just another uncaring faceless machine is stronger than any corporate culture. https://www.cnbc.com/...
The former Google policy exec who's running for senator in Maine says he was forced out of the company for his internal activism on diversity. From @nitashatiku https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
New, from me. Based on interviews with @RossforMaine, emails & documents. Execs at Google rarely break ranks but Ross' experience pushing for real human rights accountability shows how Google can sideline internal critics, even trusted people near the top https://www.washingtonpo…
Terrific context on @RossforMaine's story from @nitashatiku, who reports that while @Twitter & @Facebook have hired human rights directors, @Google has not. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Transparency, accountability, ethics, values, trust. These are the makers and breakers of empires. Always have been of course but the speed and gravity of their impact - esp negative - is increasing. https://www.cnbc.com/...
So it's not just Google Ads that has this bad customer service model. It's the internal approach to HR as well. https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/...
When Page became CEO in 2011, he became “obsessed” with reading about why companies fail from being too big, Stapleton, a 12-year veteran, said. “It's sort of sad that a lot of the things he was afraid would happen, actually happened.” via @jenn_elias https://www.cnbc.com/...