IT’S NOT AN INDUSTRY THAT CAN FLOURISH WITHOUT TRUST: Megan McArdle: Silicon Valley Will Pay the Price for Its Lefty Leanings: A lawsuit alleges that Google discriminated against conservatives. It won’t end well for Google. “There are expensive, time-consuming, exasperating lawsuits, and then there are radioactive lawsuits that poison everyone who comes within a mile of them. And this lawsuit almost certainly falls into the latter category. . . . Google has an immense amount to lose, even if a court ultimately vindicates its corporate culture. The company’s internal systems, featuring an immense array of internal employee communications, will be ripped open to scrutiny. If I were a Google executive, I wouldn’t want to bet that employees haven’t said much worse things in emails and on message boards than those featured in the lawsuit. Things that are plainly, inarguably, expensively illegal. . . . Google’s very wealth and power mean it is even more vulnerable than usual to the political and economic pressure that such a lawsuit will bring. To a first approximation, every single conservative in America will learn about every single bigoted thing that a Googler has said about conservatives. If I were a Google executive, I would be willing to devote a considerable portion of the company’s riches to paying off Damore before this thing ever gets within shouting distance of a courtroom. The question is whether Google even has that option.”
Related: It’s not just Google: All of Silicon Valley has a trust problem now. “When you use Facebook or Google (or Twitter, or Amazon, or Netflix) you’re sharing a lot of data with a company that you have to trust won’t abuse that. It’s much harder to trust a company that has decided to aggressively pursue thoughtcrime. . . . People were already agitating for stricter antitrust scrutiny of Google, Facebook and other Internet giants. One of the main protections those companies enjoyed against such scrutiny was their general image as benign and – aside from a vague sort of libertarianism – nonpolitical. Pichai’s handling of the Damore matter destroyed that image. Now Silicon Valley looks political, partisan and maybe even a bit sinister. It’s not a good look.”