A Crisis Forces Google to Uphold Its Values While Fostering Debate
There are about 87,000 Google groups — essentially email lists formed around a central theme —
and more than 8,000 discussion groups like “misc” — short for miscellaneous — where employees debate and disagree on topics ranging from the optimal temperature in the office to the brand of laundry detergent the company should use for washing employee towels.
Memegen, Misc, Internal G+ and our many discussion groups are a big part of our culture — they keep us honest —
but like any conversation amongst colleagues, we should keep it respectful,” wrote Brian Katz, a Google director of protective services, investigations and intelligence.
On Thursday, as Google prepared to hold a companywide meeting to discuss the memo, questions submitted
by employees for the event on another internal system called Dory started to appear in the media.
Google’s embrace of openness was tested a few years ago when an engineer created a spreadsheet for employees to share salary information.
Memegen, an internal forum that uses images overlaid with funny captions, was filled with irreverent posts
that openly mocked how an email discussing the memo from Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, had leaked to the media so quickly.
A number of employees sent emails to Mr. Pichai and told managers
that they planned to skip the meeting because they were worried that they would face online reprisals for speaking out.
