Just like people repeatedly breaking the windows of a coffee shop nearby because the owners are "bankers from London" (this was stated as the #1 selling point for boycot in a flyer) this entire movement exposes the worst Kreuzberg has to offer: an incredibly self-righteous xenophobia.
People think they are so incredibly open minded when they are pro refugees, but as soon as it's the "wrong kind of Ausländer" (the one where it's not possible to impose moral standards as easily as it's not possible to exploit their need for protection anymore) it's all evil all of a sudden.
People will need to realize that they will need to be welcoming to either everyone or noone, everything else is just bigotry. Let's be welcoming to everyone I would propose.
I think you might be missing the bigger picture. 5 years ago these views would not have found any traction because nearly everyone loved Google. The general level of hatred in the community towards Google has increased significantly in that time. In my estimation this is due entirely to Google's own behavior since Sundar Pichai became CEO. When your CEO has an inability to resolve conflict in the direction of positive sum solutions, the losers of the zero sum game are going to hate you intensely and will certainly not come to your defense when you are attacked.
I honestly doubt that any other CEO would have made any difference.
Google's business model is fundamentally based on data mining as much as possible about their users, and what's changed in the past couple years is (a) a much greater awareness of the potential negative consequences of this data collection and (b) the sense that the American internet giants are becoming unstoppable juggernauts.
There is truth to this. I would suggest, however, that it is at least theoretically possible to maintain good will and strong relationships with the community, even as your power grows, so long as the bonds of trust are rock solid. The most effective way I know to do that is to refuse to contribute to the polarization and by always choosing to be on the side of the win-win solution.
By firing James Damore, by allowing YouTube videos to be demonetized for holding the wrong opinions, etc. Sundar Pichai has destroyed the bonds of trust. It takes backbone to stand up to the ideologically possessed who are determined to play the zero sum game and to persuade them that their needs can be more sustainably met by other means. Sundar Pichai has no backbone! Nobody has any respect for a weak leader who habitually chooses the easiest path without regard to the long term consequences.
Sorry, but I think this is complete BS. Sundar Pichai was put into an absolute no-win situation with the James Damore issue. While I agree a lot of the reaction to Damore's "manifesto" seemed knee-jerk and groupthink, I absolutely think that anyone with half an ounce of emotional intelligence should have anticipated that reaction, and should have known that writing that as he did would have been completely counter-productive and cause a huge shit show for the company.
Do you honestly believe that if Pichai had kept Damore around that it would have engendered good relationships with "the community"? If so I hate to break to you but "the community" is a lot more than people who think like you.
Uncomfortable situations can be perceived as “no-win” situations or as “huge opportunities” depending on what your aim is and how committed you are to achieving it. It could have been used as an opportunity to show the world how to resolve the polarization that plagues us by forcing the 2 sides to talk until a mutually acceptable resolution was achieved and the team could unify in support of a mission of contribution instead of turning against each other. The ability to bring people together is what makes you are leader.
Even if you were on the winning side of the zero sum game, you will never rest well if you have weak leader. A man who will easily bend to the will of a handful of radical feminists is unlikely suddenly grow a backbone when facing a much stronger opponent like Donald Trump.
Not without being a completely different company. Google earns 90 percent of its revenue from advertising, and the amount they would be able to earn would go down significantly if they weren't able to provide highly granular targeting info to their advertisers.
Saying "the point is, it doesn't have to be" is like saying "Apple doesn't have to be a designed-focused company." True, they don't have to be, but they are, and that is a huge reason they are successful.
They aren't hyprocrites at all. Of course is not the CITY that is against Google, it's a group of people, as always. It's much a safer bet that this crew is against refugees even more (which BTW I agree 100%).
That's not what they're saying. They don't want Google specifically, for reasons they detail in-depth on their website. Being welcoming to everyone doesn't really work, or otherwise we wouldn't have prisons.
I don't know if you live in the area (I only work there), but this is a recurring pattern that has happened quite a few times over the last years, not only to Google. Everything that is a. wealthy and b. from abroad will receive instant hatred. I talked to a few of these people and unfortunately it's only a very short way to conspiracy theories and open antisemitism surfacing.
If you show up being German and wealthy, treatment will be way different unfortunately.
These patterns are likely to happen in times of extreme wealth inequality. Many people point the finger at Google and the like, and they may have a good case.
They might hate you for the money, but you won't be dragged into the depths of paranoid conspiracy theories about "wall street" taking over. Which, to me, makes a huge difference.
I don't really think you can compare "multi-national megacorp" with refugees.
It's not like they said "People who are working at Google or have worked at Google are not welcome" - for me this is a clear message to Google, the company.
I don't have a real opinion on the matter per se, so please don't take this as taking a position.
Sounds like London - people are open-minded as long as you tick the boxes to meet the requirements for being open-minded about. They fancy themselves open-minded but are really just mindlessly following another fad.
Well it is a form of a fortified society. Google is a threat in form of displacement of the people there by financial means. Invulnerability of ones home is a constitutional right regardless of if you’re an owner or just a renter.
>>People will need to realize that they will need to be welcoming to either everyone or noone, everything else is just bigotry
If an individual or company violates prevailing prosocial norms within a community (not paying taxes in either case), the community reserves the right to remove them. If a company or individual threatens the long-term well being of the community (e.g. the business ecosystem) the community has the right to reject them. In the limit this is obvious (and provides a fairly robust counter-example to "Let's be welcoming to everyone"): a company can reject criminal or criminal organizations. Google's tax avoidance behavior has been pretty clearly antisocial (e.g. the double Irish Dutch sandwich arrangement), and arguably criminal.
There are limits on Uber in Germany and limits on AirBnB in Berlin (IIRC it is not Germany-wide) for exactly this reason. It seems that Berliners are similarly worried about negative externalities entailed by Google establishing a campus there. If Google is willing to conform to community standards it may well have a place there. But that would probably require paying some back-owed taxes :)
I'll wait a bit to see if they will make the connection to the Jewish world conspiracy (often refered to as "wall street", "financial elite" in such circles).
> I'll wait a bit to see if they will make the connection to the Jewish world conspiracy (often refered to as "wall street", "financial elite" in such circles).
This is very important. It's so deeply rooted in all of this it has me full of disgust. But apparently it's ok as long as you're german and you're not making rap music.
> People will need to realize that they will need to be welcoming to either everyone or noone, everything else is just bigotry.
AFAICT, Germany hasn't accused the NSA of doing anything illegal after the Snowden revelations. Should Germany be welcoming to the NSA in your opinion, lest Germany be accused of bigotry?
If the answer is that it is a separate issue because the NSA is a government agency of a nation-state and not a citizen, then I think good faith requires that you grant FUGoogle an edge case to your argument as well. After all, the argument they are putting forward is that Google is a powerful organization that surveils, censors, and avoids paying taxes. (Also, they make the argument that Google can't legally say no to participating in U.S. wide-net surveillance programs.)
Argue the substance, of which there is much, but please don't branch off into, "They came for Google and I said nothing." It's low effort.
Gentrification is a problem, but long time renters in Germany are really having it good. An example of how does the system works here: I pay twice as much as some German friends living in my district because my parents didn't sign me up in a union 20 years ago. I'm OK with that, it's the game, but refusing new buildings/companies to keep the rents low is BS.
Kreuzberg is very well located, Berlin is huge, time to accept that 1989 was a long time ago.
I don't understand this new mentality that "Gentrification is a problem," companies and wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy. The problem of affordable housing has less to do with those companies moving in and more to do with local real estate monopolies that lobby against rezoning for residential and expanding building permits. That's basically the bay area in a nutshell. People complain about the lack of affordable housing, yet building new residential areas is a tapestry of red tape. And let's face it, that's largely to protect real estate investors that don't want prices to come down.
I would like to see bigger companies that move new offices to areas to use their weight to push for more housing developments and permits as part of their local agreements. I think that would go a long way (though still short) in helping the situation.
Because Germany used to be different; if you had a long-term contract from 90s that e.g. stated your rent was 300 EUR/month, there was very limited room for any increases (basically only when your house went through some kind of renovation or the energy etc. costs rose significantly). So somebody who lives long-term in that neighborhood pays e.g. 400 EUR/month, whereas new tenants pay 1500EUR/month for the same. It's pretty normal in the US to see these kinds of yearly increases, but not in EU outside UK and EEU.
Most Finnish rent contracts have a clause that allows the renter to adjust (i.e. increase) the rent yearly by a given percentage (usually according to a cost of living index).
companies and wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy.
This would only be true if everyone owned their own residences and profited from the increase in land values. In reality, the inhabitants of gentrifying neighborhoods are usually just evicted from their homes so the owners can sell to developers, and they end up worse off than they were before.
I'm as yimby as they come, but I'm not sure this is true for everyone. It does mean that the local burger joint can charge more for hamburgers and that the line cooks can plausibly negotiate for higher pay. But its a pretty strong statement that this is true for everyone.
> real estate monopolies
In what areas are even 25% of residences owned by a single entity? In what areas are 25% of rental residences being offered by a single entity?
> People complain about the lack of affordable housing, yet building new residential areas is a tapestry of red tape.
> wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy
Wealthier people buy up houses and kick out residents living there since decades.
Wealthier people moving in does not mean that pensioners or factory workers will suddenly earn engineer wages.
Wealthier people usually even lead to a reduction of apartments, as they combine smaller apartments to a bigger one. Increasing density is not always possible and often connected with a reduction of life quality (e.g. less green)
If you kicked out every company that's done anything unethical or amoral, you'd have no companies left. If Berliners really want to shoot themselves in the foot like this then Google can take its operations elsewhere at no loss while the locals are out better paying tech jobs and a market signal that would invite more tech companies and startups to the area. I'm glad I don't live in Berlin right now.
> Real talent doesn't just exist everywhere you go.
Colleges outside cities, like the one I went to, are brimming with compsci students that are then forced to move when they graduate, like I was. I'm sure if companies set up locations in such areas, they'd be able to tap into a decent amount of people like me who'd take a moderate pay cut to be able to live and work in a less dense region - not just the graduates I mentioned, but people who'd moved away from their home town and now could move back, or at least to somewhere more resembling it.
I don't disagree but it seems to be a bit like the chicken and the egg problem: companies would love to tap on that talent but most business developers want hard evidence that the investment will repay itself, and for that to happen somebody has to actually try. It becomes a mutual deadlock.
Furthermore, emphasizing on hiring graduates isn't a very sustainable strategy; many startups prey on the naivete and energy of young people and their hiring strategy usually revolves around draining a wave of young people of their creativity and energy, fire them when they realize what's going and then hire the next wave of naive and energetic youngsters.
Many companies do that, not only startups. But for that model to work they need a big hiring pool. Not sure if rural-like areas have the volume of candidates for that hiring model to be sustainable.
I love comments like this. Probably not intended as a critique of capitalism but this guy is clearly very close to seeing how exploitation is at the very heart of our system.
Pretty immature website, I get why people are against Google and specifically this campus but this website rubs me the wrong way. If they made the same arguments, cleaned up the language and delivery and cited it with studies, papers and facts it would be a much more credible site. They should probably change the domain name as well.
The lack of numbers and clear facts in there are very telling. I'm always wary when significant claims are made but no numbers or studies are cited to support them. In this case it's just about feelings; believing something like a sort of religion.
I'm not saying all of their claims are outright wrong, but this borderline childish website did not persuade me of anything - if anything I have some antipathy against this movement now.
It's fully childish, it's called "Fuck off Google" and the call to action button is "WTF?", and it's promoting tagging graffiti on stores/public places with ugly slogans and calling it "street art": https://fuckoffgoogle.de/2018/04/17/street-art-against-googl...
I agree with your points, but it's worth noting that to non-native English speakers, certain words, in particular profanity, don't have the same meaning/impact that they do for native speakers. Just the same as if you uttered a string of, say, Hungarian expletives at the dinner table with your family (assuming you aren't Hungarian speakers), it would not be considered terribly offensive, most likely.
There is some blatantly false information on this page.
> Google was caught red-handed participating in NSA’s illegall surveillance of almost everyone
PRISM was infiltration. The wiki also calls out Apple in this event, who are known to proactively limit surveillance. Many of the arguments also suffer from severely flawed logic, especially where the actions of others are held against Google.
There is some truth here, but it is far outweighed by false information.
According to the leaked documents, the companies were "partners". Of course the companies denied it, what else did you expect?
>Government officials and the document itself made clear that the NSA regarded the identities of its private partners as PRISM’s most sensitive secret, fearing that the companies would withdraw from the program if exposed. “98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft; we need to make sure we don’t harm these sources,” the briefing’s author wrote in his speaker’s notes.
Poorly represented information (lack of links to proper sources, and use of profane language), but there is content worth discussing about.
Would Google's entry to Berlin trigger a rise of inequality for the city's inhabitants and make life difficult for everyone that is not working for Google? (for example private Google buses for their employees in San Francisco)
Also a company that is morally a bad one in the public eye, with all the data collection, appearance in NSA revelation, is not something that the citizens of a city would NOT protest...
I'm from Munich where Google opened their first engineering office in Germany and continuously expanded their presence ever since. I don't see that Munich and the area were transformed by this as described here. However, Munich is a very different city than Berlin. I can see why it might be tempting for a big tech company to open an office or campus in Kreuzberg, because it represents a certain style, but personally, I don't think the area is ready for this yet.
I think the author is correct in thinking that Google will cause him discomfort by creating this campus. Everyone in this area not employed by Google will have to move because Google is basically buying the land, directly or through its employees.
Some of Google's money will flow to locals not directly employed by Google, but will this offset the increased cost of their living expenses?
Well, I think I can make a simpler argument. Google will change this neighbourhood. The culture will change, the cost of things, not just rent, will increase. Assuming that the author is very happy with how his neighbourhood currently is, I can see how he doesn't want Google's change.
I think that, if the majority of the people in the area side with the author, there is an argument to be made to, through political means, block bringers of gentrifications such as Google from entering this area.
I'm all for self-determination of individuals and groups. And the delicate quest for the balance between those.
If the majority wants Google out, I want them to be able to do that. Currently, that decision is very likely not up to them.
> The boroughs of Berlin are not independent municipalities; the borough governments' power is limited, and subordinate to the Berlin Senate.
And even if it were up to the district/borough, there are 270+ thousand people there. They should hold a referendum, and let's hope for a high brow campaign.
Also, singling out Google is easy, and important. It's a milestone. It means that gentrification is already - very likely - going to continue to happen with full force there. Google picked the place because it's full of "talent", small startups, "cool places/parties", etc.
I'm aware, that they are at the mercy of the owners.
But that's a general problem, completely orthogonal to Google.
Gentrification is just a big sign, that renting as a means for providing shelter is a very fragile system without proper market controls.
Of course, in general the inequality of the situation leads to exploitation of those who don't have enough money to buy something to hedge against rising rents.
To be honest their argument is sound: the business model of google is to transform grey matter or brain power into money. And that is the ultimate business model.
There was this company, how it was called, erm, ah I know: Nokia. It was the dominant force in fastest growing industry. For some reason they decided to become a headless chicken for some US corp, who knows why?
That's the short version of any EU-based competition to US companies in software. Dreams don't correspond to reality.
I don't have a dog in this race, so I'm not interested in the premise, but that favicon is great. Also, it's refreshing to see that standard startup site template used for 'why fuck google'.
> Instead of a nice friendly “campus” we see a Google farm for harvesting Kreuzberg’s brains and talents, or a Google mine in which ideas and data will be extracted out of Berlin
It's simply not a zero sum game. Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin.
Is that actually even true? Google already has an office in Berlin. They can just buy more buildings.
Even if some local politician decides to block a construction plan, I’m not sure how they would stop Google from just buying existing stuff nearby their old office like Amazon does.
Google in Manhattan bought a building the size of an entire block essentially. It isn’t even what I would call a campus there either.
Berlin’s council can prevent additional real estate acquisitions by Google. They’re already taking measures to keep housing affordable with government intervention.
Germany is not broken how America is, so it’s easier to put people ahead of corporations there.
The kind of culture that comes with being a place where young, highly educated, liberal, high earning people come to work and live. It seems like that final bit is the problem for these campaigners, they seem pretty enamoured with the idea of their city staying poor (but sexy).
It's not poor. It's just sort of cheap, quite affordable compared to other places.
But if locals want to keep it that way, then they need to show that they are the majority in that municipal area, or they should have bought the buildings a long time ago.
Or at least strategically important flats (the cheap ones on the ground floor next to the hallway, or just simply the cheapest ones, maybe just a lot in the basement, that grants private property rights) - though it depends on the co-owned property rights in Berlin/Germany, but I hope a condo cannot be sold without all the owners agreeing.
> Jonathan Rosenberg is the former Senior Vice President of Products at Google and current advisor to Alphabet Inc. CEO Larry Page.
> Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and software engineer. He is known for being the Executive Chairman of Google from 2001 to 2017 and Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017.
That book surely will paint a fair and objective view.
Geez, "culture" on how to be a corporation. How relevant to the residents of a community.
I can't complain, I'm also just a yuppie whom Kreuzberger would probably hate, but if their claim about the tax regime is correct, then what's the point of attracting a cancer that would just make everything in your area more expensive...
So we’ve reached the point where hagiography of corporations is now the same thing as culture? In that case, I hope Google doesn’t bring its “culture” of colluding with competitors to fix wages to Berlin.
The book has a detailed accounting of the type of culture the founders and executives were intentioning. It is not an unbiased source of information and should be read with discretion.
Wages in Berlin are extremely bad (unless contracting). But I doubt Google is going to pay 250k overall comp like they do in Zurich... They already pay much less in Munich.
As a person from post-Communist country where this argument ("offices of big corporations in your area will bring culture, resources, and set you free") is used all the time by everyone from media, politicians, to employees, I find this hilarious. Obey.
The argument being made is that Google will impart value onto Berlin while receiving value from the people of Berlin. I never claimed them to be a panacea.
There are tons of books written about Google's culture, but my favorite is ”How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg.
With regard to resources, Google has by far has the most sophisticated access to future tech (quantum, ML for example), the most infrastructure (GGC, oceanic fiber, DC/pops), and their incredible scale comes with great advantages.
So even more research becoming only possible at companies, and not at public universities? Even more research that will be kept secret? Even more infrastructure that is only available to the Google monopoly?
I think you mean knit bombed and unable to find parking. plenty of street art as well as graffiti on buildings.
you have to wonder, if Berlin is just a bunch of nonsensical leftists and anarchists, why would Google be so interested in opening an engineering office here? it couldn't have anything to do with the talent they want to hire and retain wanting to live in Berlin, would it?
I mean, does Google really give a shit about 18euro pqm versus 24 o4 25 in Frankfurt? highly doubtful. so what do you think the reason is, if you truly believe your Berlin anarchy thesis?
