Another Google Lawsuit: Age Discrimination

[garyp]

And another law suit...
This one from a former manager at the company.

AP Story

...a lawsuit filed earlier this week by a recently fired Google manager [Brian Reid] offers a less flattering picture, contending the company has cultivated a culture that discriminates against older workers and fostered serious morale problems. [Larry] Page made the final decision to fire [Reid, according to the lawsuit. Reid said company executives initially gave him no reason for his termination before Shona Brown, vice president of business operations, told him he was incompatible with Google's youthful atmosphere. After he left, Reid said he learned he was replaced by someone in their 30s. Reid's lawsuit alleges that Google's office are far from Utopian. The complaint says Google recruited Reid, a technology industry veteran, from his last job as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University West "to correct some very serious problems...with its work force," citing management and morale problems among women in particular.

Here's a bio of of the plaintiff, Brian Reid

[Everyman]

He may be highly qualified, but he's probably not a "team player."

site:www.google.com "team player"

In other words, he doesn't have the energy to rollerblade in the parking lot with Larry and Sergey.

I wish some former Google employee would write about the Googleplex. I wonder if the nondisclosure agreement forbids this? I've heard you need to sign one of those just to sit in the lobby waiting to see someone at the Googleplex.

[NFFC]

"he is responsible for the growth and stability of Google's internet website."

He should get a job anywhere, to keep that thing online and functioning is a huge task, I can't find a fault.

>I wish some former Google employee would write about the Googleplex

A few have, but not from the inner circle, you need to wait until stock options have been turned into $ [if that ever happens].

They are still a good company though imho, compared to the wastes of space that have purported to offer web search in the past. I think its only fair to judge them in relation to their peers, as it is they are streets ahead of anyone else.

[garyp]

Fred Vogelstein's November article in Fortune hinted at a "issues" at the Googleplex.

One of them.

Brin and Page still keep a hand in all the hiring, from executives to administrative assistants. And to them, work experience counts far less than where you went to school, how you did on your SATs, and your grade-point average. "If you've been at Cisco for 20 years, they don't want you," says an employee.

A few week's later, Michael Brin (Sergey's father), was quoted in the Baltimore Sun.

"But there are challenges looming for [Sergey] Brin, several of which were outlined in a critical cover story in this month's Fortune. Giants including Microsoft, America Online and Amazon are developing competing search engines, and there are reports of rifts within the company. "It's not all pinky," Michael Brin observed."

Finally, this passage from a May, 2003 Forbes article:

"Even Google's engineers admit Fast and Teoma deliver results comparable to theirs."

Google's rosy hiring picture may not be that all rosy. I applied for a job and I was told thank you. But then I changed my foreign sounding name to something more English and I was invited for an interview. I did communicate this to Google's executives but never received a reply.

-at