An expose by The New York Times suggests Google failed to act against men accused of sexual misconduct, and even hushed up allegations.
Bengaluru: An investigation by The New York Times has kicked up a storm with its conclusion that Google repeatedly failed to act against employees accused of sexual misconduct.
It reportedly found several instances where high-ranking employees, including the ‘Father of Android’ Andy Rubin, either continued in their positions despite the allegations, or were allowed to negotiate a graceful exit that earned them a fat severance. All of this, while hushing up the allegations and the ensuing investigation.
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According to the report, NYT reporters Daisuke Wakabayashi and Katie Benner heard the accounts of more than 36 current and former Google employees before publishing the report.
Internal affairs & founding fathers
Google’s internal policy prohibits employees from having consensual relationships with subordinates who report to them directly or indirectly, without disclosing them to the human resources (HR) team.
But there have been plenty.
Larry Page, one of the two co-founders of Google, once dated Marissa Mayer, who was one of the tech giant’s earliest engineers before she went on to become the CEO of Yahoo.
Sergey Brin, the other co-founder, had a consensual extra-marital relationship with an employee in 2014. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO, hired his mistress to work as a consultant in the company, the NYT report states.
All these instances are clear violations of not just the company’s internal policy, but also the workplace power dynamics.
David C. Drummond
David C. Drummond, a senior counsel in the organisation, was married when, in 2004, he started an extramarital relationship with Jennifer Blakely, a senior contract manager in the legal department who reported to Drummond’s subordinates. Blakely told The New York Times that they had a son in 2007, after which Drummond disclosed their relationship to HR.
Blakely was promptly transferred to sales and Drummond maintained his position in the legal department. They ended their relationship in 2008. Blakely subsequently quit, but not before Google made her sign legal waivers saying she was leaving voluntarily.
Drummond went on to become the chief legal officer of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and then the chairman of CapitalG, Google’s venture capital fund. NYT reports that he had already benefitted by $190 million since 2011 from stock options, and stands to gain another $200 million.
Google’s treatment of Blakely is very representative of how women are always seen as dispensable to the work force, especially in the face of a senior male employee. Women are often complicit, for various reasons: Either helplessness, internalisation, or forced to feel both in a bro-culture.
The HR staffer who informed Blakely that she will have to leave legal was Stacy Sullivan, now the chief culture officer at Google.
Richard De Vaul and Amit Singhal
Another executive who has been named in the NYT report is Richard DeVaul, a director at the Google X R&D department.
DeVaul interviewed a female applicant, invited her to an event known as ‘Burning Man’, forced a massage/back rub on her, and then didn’t hire her. Star Simpson, the interviewee, told NYT that when she contacted Google’s HR, an official told her that action was taken but requested her to not speak about the incident. It is unclear what action was taken against DeVaul, whose LinkedIn profile states that he’s a director of rapid evaluation and mad science at Google X.
Yet another incident that was reportedly brushed under the carpet was that of IIT-Roorkee alum Amit Singhal, who headed Google Search. As senior vice-president, Singhal allegedly got inebriated at a party and groped a female employee in front of dozens of colleagues, though Google claims there were no witnesses.
Instead of firing Singhal, Google negotiated an exit plan that allowed him to resign and appear to leave voluntarily. Singhal took millions when he left. In under a year, he became the head of engineering at Uber. When reports began to surface about the allegation, Singhal was forced to leave Uber for not disclosing it at the hiring stage.
Andy Rubin
The biggest protection scheme Google launched for male perpetrators of sexual misconduct was the one for Andy Rubin.
Rubin had joined Google in 2005 after the tech company bought his startup, Android. An operating system, Android is used in the majority of cell phones today and generated billions of dollars in revenue for Google. So when an allegation surfaced against Rubin, he was paid $90 million and allegedly given a hero’s sendoff by the top executives. And this was after several public reports of Rubin insulting employees and the alleged discovery of inappropriate sexual content on his laptop.
Even though Rubin met and married his wife at Google, he openly had several extramarital affairs, especially with women in the Android team. These relationships were not disclosed to the HR, flouting company policy.
Several of these were “ownership relationships”, his wife alleged in the divorce suit she filed. Rubin had allegedly paid thousands of dollars to the women. He had, in fact, written in an email to one of them: “Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people.”
An employee who worked under him in 2013 and had a relationship with Rubin accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on him at a hotel. The woman complied because she was reportedly worried about her career if she ended the relationship.
Google conducted an internal investigation and found Rubin guilty. However, he was given stock grant worth $150 million, which he used to bargain for an exit package of $90 million to be paid out over the subsequent years.
NYT explains: “When Google fires lower-level employees, it typically marches them out immediately and pays little, if any, severance.
“But for senior executives, Google weighs other factors, said former executives,” the report added. “A wrongful termination lawsuit could mean unwanted media attention for Google and the victims of a misconduct case, with a loss resulting in significant damages.”
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What’s more, Google went on to invest in Rubin’s next venture, Playground Global. Rubin also owns Essential, a company that makes Android phones.
What is glaring in all these stories is that companies run by men protect men, going above and beyond what they’re supposed to do to avoid backlash. For a company that prides itself on equal opportunity, Google has had a very jarring track record of blatant violation of sexual harassment guidelines.
Responding to the NYT piece, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had toughened their processes since 2015 and fired over 48 people for sexual misconduct.