I see a very different explanation which could also explain this pattern. Employee activism doesn't make the news that often, but it's actually pretty common - as long as the activism doesn't challenge any core element of the business.
If you want your call center to be more ecofriendly or your consulting firm to support Fight For $15, you may or may not get support but you probably won't see consequences. In tech itself, I've watched plenty of people push for green policies, or organize donations to support immigrants, or even recruit for the DSA with no issues at all. But they were recruiting for border reforms and political groups, not workplace unions and H-1B liberalization - and certainly not user privacy. When it comes to the Kickstarter union or Wayfair stopping sales to the CBP, the accommodation dries up fast.
That doesn't mean the activism is insincere, or even about not making waves: there's also a powerful selection effect invovled. If you're passionate about the environment, you probably don't take a job at Shell, or you quit in protest. But if you're passionate about LGBT issues, there's much more reason to be optimistic about workplace activism, and it's mcuh easier to reconcile keeping your job while you do it.
So what's up with Google? They used to do one thing in one way, then branched out rapidly, so they have lots of employees who bypassed the normal selection effects. And now they do everything, so every issue is simultaneously non-central to Alphabet as a whole and a direct challenge to some component of it. We haven't heard much about Google employees protesting search ranking algorithms or advocating for GDPR, because that's been selected against from the beginning. But AI, military work, internal transparency, and even corporate hierarchy are comparatively new issues for Google. The people who object aren't gone yet, and nobody can tell what's fundamental and what's safe to challenge.
If you want your call center to be more ecofriendly or your consulting firm to support Fight For $15, you may or may not get support but you probably won't see consequences. In tech itself, I've watched plenty of people push for green policies, or organize donations to support immigrants, or even recruit for the DSA with no issues at all. But they were recruiting for border reforms and political groups, not workplace unions and H-1B liberalization - and certainly not user privacy. When it comes to the Kickstarter union or Wayfair stopping sales to the CBP, the accommodation dries up fast.
That doesn't mean the activism is insincere, or even about not making waves: there's also a powerful selection effect invovled. If you're passionate about the environment, you probably don't take a job at Shell, or you quit in protest. But if you're passionate about LGBT issues, there's much more reason to be optimistic about workplace activism, and it's mcuh easier to reconcile keeping your job while you do it.
So what's up with Google? They used to do one thing in one way, then branched out rapidly, so they have lots of employees who bypassed the normal selection effects. And now they do everything, so every issue is simultaneously non-central to Alphabet as a whole and a direct challenge to some component of it. We haven't heard much about Google employees protesting search ranking algorithms or advocating for GDPR, because that's been selected against from the beginning. But AI, military work, internal transparency, and even corporate hierarchy are comparatively new issues for Google. The people who object aren't gone yet, and nobody can tell what's fundamental and what's safe to challenge.