proposed that the company should intervene
in searches for terms like “Islam,” “Muslim,”
or “Iran” that were showing “Islamophobic,
algorithmically biased results.” (Google
says none of those ideas were taken up.) At
around 2 pm that Saturday, an employee on
a mailing list for Iranian Googlers floated the
possibility of staging a walkout in Mountain
View. “I wanted to check first whether any-
one thinks this is a bad idea,” the employee
wrote. Within 48 hours, a time had been
locked down and an internal website set up.
Employees also spent the weekend pro-
testing as private citizens, out in the open. At
San Francisco International Airport, a hand-
ful of Google lawyers showed up to offer
emergency representation to immigrants;
many more staffers joined a demonstration
outside the international terminal. But one
Googler in particular made national news-
casts. On Saturday night, without informing
anyone at Google, Sergey Brin showed up
at the airport to join the crowds. He offered
no other comment to the press except to tell
Forbes, “I’m here because I’m a refugee,”
and to make clear that he was there in a per-
sonal capacity.
Between pressure from employees and
Brin’s trip to the airport—which had effec-
tively committed the company to sticking
its neck out—Google’s own official calcula-
tions began to shift. Over the course of the
weekend, the company matched $2 million
in donations raised by employees for crisis
funds for immigrants’ rights. And then on
Monday, at the last minute, Pichai decided
to speak at the employees’ demonstration.
In his short, off-the-cuff remarks to the
packed courtyard, Pichai called immigration
“core to the founding of this company.” He
tried to inject a dose of moderation, stressing
how important it was “to reach out and com-
municate to people from across the country.”
But when he mentioned Brin’s appearance at
the airport, his employees erupted in chants
of “Ser-gey! Ser-gey! Ser-gey!” Brin finally
extricated himself from the crowd and shuf-
fled up to the mic, windbreaker in hand. He,
too, echoed the protesters’ concerns but
tried to bring the heat down. “We need to be
smart,” he said, “and that means bringing in
folks who have some different viewpoints.”
As he spoke, a news chopper flew overhead.
And that was pretty much the last time
Google’s executives and workers presented
such a united front about anything.CAST
OF
CHARACTERS
BY
ZAK
JASON
SUNDAR
PICHAI
Google’s CEO for the
past four years. He
has led the company
to record profits and
added some 40,000
employees. He’s also
presided over a string
of major leaks, scan-
dals, and controversies.
KEVIN
CERNEKEE
Chrome engineer and
prominent internal gad-
fly against Google’s
“social justice political
agenda.” After receiv-
ing a warning from HR,
he filed a charge with
the National Labor
Relations Board.
JAMES
DAMORE
Search engineer who
wrote an explosive
memo arguing that
biological differences
help explain the engi-
neer gender gap. He
was fired, then filed a
class-action lawsuit.
LIZ
FONG-JONES
Site reliability engineer
and prominent inter-
nal activist who was
harassed online after
her Google communi-
cations were leaked to
far-right outlets. She
resigned in January.ANDY
RUBIN
Android cofounder
who, as The New
York Times reported
in late 2018, received
a $90million exit
package after being
accused of coercing
a female employee to
perform oral sex.MEREDITH
WHITTAKER
Former Google Cloud
program manager who
organized a petition
asking Google to shut
down Project Maven,
co-organized the 2018
Women’s Walkout, and
petitioned to remove
the president of the
Heritage Foundation
from Google’s AI ethics
council.CLAIRE
STAPLETON
Former YouTube
marketing manager
who helped lead the
November 2018 Wom-
en’s Walkout, at which
20,000 employees pro-
tested sexual harass-
ment, discrimination,
and pay inequity.