Ethical Behavior and the Ivy League: Redefinition by Example
April 5, 2022
First, MIT and its dalliance with the sophisticated Jeffrey Epstein. Then there was Harvard and its indifference to an allegation of improper interpersonal behavior. Sordid details abound in this allegedly accurate report. Now Yale. The bastion of “the dog”, the football game, Skull and Bones, etc., etc.
“A Former Yale Employee Admits She Stole $40 Million in Electronics from the University” makes clear that auditing, resource management, and personnel supervision are not the esteemed institution greatest strengths.
I gave a talk at Yale a decade ago. The subject was Google, sparked because one of the Yale brain trust found my analysis interesting. Strange, I thought, at the time. No one else cares about my research about Google’s systems and methods. I showed up and was greeted as though I was one of the gang. (I wasn’t.)
At dinner someone asked me, “Where did you get your PhD?” I replied with my standard line: “I don’t have a PhD. I quit to take a job at Halliburton Nuclear.” As you might imagine, the others at the dinner were not impressed.
I gave my lecture and no one — absolutely none of the 100 people in the room — asked a question. No big deal. I am familiar with the impact some of my work has elicited. One investment banker big wheel threw an empty Diet Pepsi can at me after I explained how the technology of CrossZ (a non US analytics company) preceded in invention the outfit the banked just pumped millions into. Ignorance is bliss. Same at Yale during and after my lecture.
Has Yale changed? Seems to be remarkably consistent: Detached from the actions of mere humans, convinced of a particular world view, and into the zeitgeist of being of Yale.
But $40 million?
An ethical wake up call? Nope, hit the snooze button.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2022
Uber Plays Algorithm Roulette With Driver Pay
March 25, 2022
A fuel surcharge which is in the $0.50 range may not keep Uber drivers in the chips. Uber remains a major player in the gig economy. Some of their drivers love the flexibility, while others are fed up with how the company treats them. Uber is a revolutionary company that flipped the transportation industry on its head. The drive share company is about to do it again, reports the Markup in, “Secretive Algorithm Will Determine Uber Pay In Many Cities.”
Uber released a new feature called “Upfront Fares” that allows user to pay an upfront fee for rides. It replaces fees that are based on trips’ time and distance. An algorithm relies on several factors to determine the upfront fare. Uber explains it offers drivers more transparency, because it allows them to see the fare, drop-off, and pick-up locations. Drivers have asked for the this information, especially since locations are not revealed until they accept a job.
Since the change, drivers say they have seen lower earnings. Before the new feature, drivers could calculate fares. It appears that Uber is shaving more off the top from drivers. Other gig economy companies like Instacart, DoorDash, and Shipt instituted pay algorithms and their pay has steadily declined. Gig economy companies could purposely be doing this to confuse workers and take more money:
“The more opaque the fare calculations, the more drivers, regulators, and the public have a hard time holding the gig companies accountable to fair and transparent pay standards, said Amos Toh, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch who studies the effects of artificial intelligence and algorithms on gig work.”
The gig economy is beneficial to many, but it has a downside. Workers can easily be exploited and based on their contracts they have little recourse. No matter the company, workers should be paid a decent wage with transparency on how it is determined.
Whitney Grace, March 25, 2022
Google: Managing with Flair
March 24, 2022
I had forgotten there was a Google employee survey. I read “Googlegeist Survey Reveals That Google Workers Are Increasingly Unhappy about Compensation, Promotion, and More.” Unhappy employees suggest that the Google zeitgeist is out of joint if the information in the write up is accurate.
I noted this passage:
In the latest Googlegeist or the annual Google survey, the company noticed that there was a growing trend of “increasingly unhappy” workers over compensation and other key issues.
How could those admitted to the Walt Disney Wonderland of technology and doing good be unhappy? How could the senior managers craft an artificial environment at odds with the needs of humanoids?
Is there a silver lining to the clouds hanging over the Google? Yes. I learned:
The survey which took place two months ago, yielded the most desirable results when it comes to advertisements, cloud, and searches. Moreover, the highest score came from the values and mission of the company. However, it should be noted that the lowest remark tackled the context of execution and compensation on the part of the labor force.
And how did the management of the firm respond? According to the write up:
Addressing the survey results is considered to be “one of the most important ways” for evaluation, as CEO Sundar Pichai said during an announcement via email. This would help the company assess the willingness and desirability of the workers to work inside the firm.
There you go. Management insight. Be happy or begone.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2022
Google Management: Fame and the F1 Crowd
March 23, 2022
With a grip on online advertising, what better way to cement exciting weekends than hanging with the in crowd at chi chi F1 venues. Will the happy Google colors find their way on the next McLaren road rocket? Are those McLaren confections climate friendly?
What does the Google team contribute to McLaren? “McLaren Racing Announces Multi-Year Partnership with Google” says:
McLaren will use 5G-enabled Android devices and Chrome browser across its operations during practice sessions, qualifying and races to support the drivers and team, with the goal of improving on-track performance.
According to the write up, a McLaren wheel will feature a Google logo. Perfect for the Google store or the ultimate booth give-away.
But those parties? The gear heads? Will Google executives abandon their daily drivers for a McLaren?
Nope, this is a high school science club interest which has been observed at Northern Light and Autonomy years ago.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2022
Silicon Valley Change? It Is Happening
March 21, 2022
I read a New York Magazine article which used the phrase “vibe shift.” You can find that story at this link. This is a very hip write up, and the vibe shift is a spotted trend, not to be confused with a spotted crocuta.
I came across this story which has hopped on the vibe shift zoo train: “The Vibe Shift in Silicon Valley.” Now the locale becomes important. The table below provides the vibe shift which existed three years ago and the spotted trend of the vibe shift:
| The Unshifted Vibe | The Shifted Vibe |
| Facebook is the “center” of the digital universe | TikTok, the China-affiliated outfit, is the new center of the universe |
| Info diffuses quickly | Info struggles to be diffused |
| Fix the Web | Replace the Web |
| Data are “mind control” | Data are a “personal liability” |
| The US is the big dog in tech regulation | Europe and Apple are the kings of the rules jungle |
| Tech destroys “our politics” | Tech harms children |
The article says:
Of course, there are many more shifts you could probably name that would support a full-time tech reporter at any publication: the heightened importance of chip manufacturing and innovation; the global supply chain; the post-COVID gig economy; and the decriminalization of psychedelics, which isn’t exactly tech but is definitely tech-adjacent. But when I think about my own coverage, these are the shifts that are guiding it: my evolving sense of where power is moving in tech and the surrounding culture.
What adaptations should one make? Here are a few suggestions:
- Watch TikToks then post your own TikToks in order to immerse and understand the new power center.
- Info does not diffuse. That’s interesting because in my upcoming National Cyber Crime lecture about open source intelligence, information is diffusing and quite a percentage of those data are helpful to investigators.
- I like the “replace” but is the alternative Web 3? How do those Web 3 apps work without ISPs and data centers? They don’t unless one is in a crowd and pals are using mobile based mesh methods. Yeah, rip and replace? Not likely.
- Mind control and a personal liability. Remember Scott McNealy’s observation: Privacy is dead. Get over it. Reality is different from the vibe.
- In the US, government has shifted responsibility for space flight, regulation, and community actions to for profit outfits. In Europe, a clown car of regulators are trying to tame the US outfits which have made less than positive contributions to social cohesion. That’s a responsible path for what and for whom?
- Tech has destroyed politics. Okay. Tech is harming children. Okay. I am not sure politics has been torn apart, and children have been at risk is a well worn rallying point when certain entities want to contain human trafficking and related actions.
What is the situation in Silicon Valley? Here are my observations:
- The Wild West approach to business has irritated quite a few folks, and there is a backlash or techlash if one prefers hippy dippy jargon
- The high school science club approach to decision making has lost its charm. Example: Google is sponsoring an F1 vehicle and the company is probably unaware that two other content centric outfits used this “marketing” so senior executives could sniff fumes and rub shoulders with classy people. And the companies? Northern Light and Autonomy.
- The lack of ethical frameworks has allowed social media companies and third party data aggregators to “nudge” people for the purpose of enriching themselves and gaining influence. Yep, ethical behavior may be making a come back.
- Many in Silicon Valley ignored the message in Jacques Ellul’s book Le bluff technologique. Short summary: Fixing problems with technology spawns new problems which people believe can be fixed by technologies. Ho ho ho.
Vibe shift? How about change emerging from those who are belatedly realizing the inherent problems of the Silicon Valley ethos.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2022
The Google: More Personnel Excitement? Of Course!
March 19, 2022
Google has quite a few bright employees. In my experience, the current crop is delivering stubbier ears of corn than the 2002 digital farmers produced. But that’s just my opinion, of course. “Google Is Accused in Lawsuit of Systemic Bias Against Black Employees” reports:
Google maintains a “racially biased corporate culture” that favors white men, where Black people comprise only 4.4% of employees and about 3% of leadership and its technology workforce.
After the employee push back and the spectacular Dr. Timnit Gebru matter, Google has demonstrated that it at age 20 may have the equivalent of corporate Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. The confusion and shaking of Googzilla’s left foreleg may be signals, important signals.
The plaintiff is The plaintiff, April Curley. The write up adds:
Curley said Google hired her in 2014 to design an outreach program to historically Black colleges. She said her hiring proved to be a “marketing ploy,” as supervisors began denigrating her work, stereotyping her as an “angry” Black woman and passing her over for promotions. Curley said Google fired her in September 2020 after she and her colleagues began working on a list of desired reforms.
Google’s legal eagles will attempt to explain this away, probably proving that Ms. Curley is not a high school science club type.
But what about Dr. Gebru? Yeah, that may be an anomaly because …. Gentle reader, you fill in the reason.
Stephen E Arnold, March 19, 2022
Management: A Flaw of Information Technology Outfits
March 7, 2022
I read “Enterprise IT Finds Itself in a War Zone – With No Script. This is an interesting essay.
One passage about “management” and “leaders” struck me as on the money. Here it is:
the lack of leadership is the most pressing. That’s not the sector’s fault: effective embargoes need coherent and unambiguous governmental and regulatory guidance, neither of which are visible.
The context is the turmoil roiling established business processes. When outfits like McKinsey & Co. of opioid fame pull out, something is up. I don’t think it is leadership. Management wants to avoid more problems.
For large technology companies run by confident wizardly individuals, the statement in the cited article cannot be dismissed. The essay, I believe, is accurate. After all, if one commands billions of dollars and bytes, the political turmoil is not “our” problem.
The failure of management in the information technology sector is what Henry James’ wordy bother said. Each person has a “certain blindness.” I think this means that the companies struggling to respond to the “troubles” are unable to perceive what other see clearly.
With information technology becoming the lubricant for business, a lack of leadership suggests that the digital supercars racing down the information super highway have a higher probability of spinning out of control.
I would suggest the script is a variation of “Fast and Furious.” Just a terrible rewrite with a less happy ending.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2022
Facebook Has Dictator-Like Control Of Platform
February 9, 2022
Russia is not shy when it comes to criticism. Russians usually target rival governments and politicians, but when they are driven it is not odd for a company or business leader to be in their critical crosshairs. Sputnik News is a Russian news service and it criticized Facebook for blocking it: “Muting Sputnik Arabic: Facebook Control Is Something Any Dictator Would Dream Of, Analysts Say.”
It is ironic that Facebook, a US-based company, where the first amendment in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights guarantees the right to freedom of speech, blocked the Arabic account of a Russian news outlet. If you did not catch the ironic bit, Russian is the former Soviet Union and as a socialist country it censored any undesirable information. Facebook Concierge Support did not explain why it blocked Sputnik’s Arabic account other than there was “potential non-compliance.” The Sputnik Arabic account has never been blocked, but some of its post have been flagged for “violating community standards.”
Facebook has silenced ideas it does not agree with in the past and this is yet another example of them doing it again. Facebook does not care about remaining neutral, the company only cares about its bottom line and controlling information.
Facebook whistleblower Ryan Hartwig said:
“ ‘The message from Facebook is clear: they have carte blanche to interfere in elections, influence politics, and control the news that Middle Easterners can be exposed to,’ Hartwig highlights. ‘This type of unilateral control of news and propaganda is only something dictators have dreamed of, and it’s being foisted on sovereign countries in the Middle East.’ According to the whistleblower, Facebook’s conduct is “extremely dangerous” because the platform is used by a substantial portion of netizens. ‘Free speech essentially doesn’t exist for the 3 billion users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp,’ Hartwig stresses.
Facebook is a platform and a medium of discourse. It does not have the right to enact censoring in order to control the narrative. Instead Facebook is taking center stage in censorship as well as purporting that state-linked media is bad while privately owned social media is good.
Fortunately Facebook is already viewed as a toxic brand and younger generations see it as dated and meant for Baby Boomers. Facebook continues to control an interest in the media narrative, but time will erode its hold. It is too bad we have to wait for Facebook to lose its grip, but congratulations to Zuckerberg for drawing criticism from Russia! That is one heck of an accomplishment!
Whitney Grace, February 9, 2022
Google: Ethical Ethics and Managing Management
February 3, 2022
I read “Two More AI Ethics Researchers Follow Timnit Gebru Out of Google.” The write up includes this statement:
“In a word, tech has a whiteness problem. Google is not just a tech organization. Google is a white tech organization,” Hanna writes. “More specifically, tech organizations are committed to defending whiteness through the ‘interrelated practices, processes, actions and meanings,’ the techniques of reproducing the organization. In this case, that means defending their policies of recruitment, hierarchization, and monetization.”
I also noted this passage:
Hanna and Baker told Bloomberg they also believe Google has become less willing to listen to employees in recent years. They specifically pointed to the company’s pursuit of potential contracts from the Pentagon over the past and the very public objections of its workers.
Google reported record financial results. The company faces headwinds outside of hefty ad revenue generation. The question is, “Will the firm continue to thrive despite its apparent approach to handling certain topics (ethical artificial intelligence), staff composition (diverse), and political (alleged monopolistic behavior)?
My hunch is that just as Facebook’s customer acquisition has slowed, Google faces similar erosion; for example, technical debt costs, increased customer acquisition cost, and what I call “trust” cost. Will the numbers offset the intangibles of managing and messaging?
Will Dr. Gebru’s new venture identify the risks of Google’s approach to content management and shaping? Worth watching the antics of the Google in crowd it is.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2022
Google Management: A Midas Touch for Some. Others? Nah.
January 31, 2022
There is nothing like great management in action. This recent pair of moves from Google, however, is anything but. Insider reports, “Google Boosted Base Pay for 4 Top Execs to $1 Million and Handed Them up to $34 Million in Stock, Weeks After Employees Raised Concerns About Pay and Inflation.” In this time of rapidly rising prices, one might ask, shouldn’t the company grant cost-of-living increases to all? Don’t be silly—if the executives paid workers enough to keep up with the costs of food and fuel, they would not have as many millions to sprinkle across the C-suite. Writer Martin Coulter tells us:
“According to a summary of executive salaries disclosed in SEC filings, the four Google execs — chief financial officer Ruth Porat, senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan, chief business officer Philipp Schindler, and legal chief Kent Walker — will see their annual salaries bumped from $650,000. All are also eligible for a $2 million bonus if they help Google to meet its ‘social and environmental goals’ for 2022. … As well as their increased annual pay, the executives were granted millions of dollars’ worth of performance and restricted stock units, which variously vest at different times and depend on the execs sticking around.”
Those stock units total $23 million for two of the four executives and $34 million for the other two. These lavish terms follow yet another very profitable quarter for the company. During those three months it took in over $65 billion, nearly $20 billion of which was pure profit. It seems Google believes only the top brass is responsible for these gains—what would rank-and-file workers have to do with it?
Having their request for pay commiserate with inflation rebuffed is but the latest grievance for Google workers. In The Verge’s piece, “Google Will Pay Top Execs $1 Million Each After Declining to Boost Workers’ Pay,” writer Jay Peters points out:
“The raises were also given as Google is embroiled in a legal battle with employees over charges that they were illegally fired in 2019. The employees are planning to call one of the recipients of a new $1 million salary, Kent Walker, to testify as an adverse witness. Employees are also reportedly dissatisfied with the company’s seemingly different remote work policies for higher-ups. In July, senior vice president for technical infrastructure Urs Hölzle announced he was moving to New Zealand, which two employees told CNET was emblematic of a double standard for executives.”
Google’s management methods are remarkable and well matched to the company’s objectives. The employees’ objectives? Hmmm.
Cynthia Murrell, January 31, 2021
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