Xoogler Meredith Whittaker Explains How to Be Google Grade
May 7, 2021
I read the interview called “Ex-Googler Meredith Whittaker on Political Power in Tech, the Flaws of ‘The Social Dilemma,’ and More.” Very Silicon Valley. You will need to work through the transcript yourself. Here are the points I circled as checkpoints for being Google Grade. The phrase in my lingo means “How to keep your job at the GOOG.” I identified six behaviors; your mileage may vary.
- Be a white male.
- Float above the concerns of non-Google grade type people.
- Emulate senior Google leaders; for example, the affable, other directed Jeff Dean.
- Ethics. Ho ho ho. Embrace phenomenological existentialism within the Google context.
- Respond like a Pavlovian dog or pigeon when money and power are the payoff.
- Fight the impulse to be a contrarian.
And the interview ends on an interesting note. The Xoogler allegedly said:
It’s going to be really hard to repurpose that toward democratic, people-driven ends, given the consolidation of power that is right now dominating those infrastructures and given the neoliberal capitalist incentives that are driving those who dominate those infrastructures.
Maybe not hard, just too late.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2021
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