Why I left Google (9 min read)

Or how I became the focus of a massive ritual against generative AI and what I did about it.

I've left Google. For now, I'm returning to the world of open source projects. After 3 years of working hard on the cutting edge of documenting cloud services, I realized I wanted to help maintain the world's slow, stable technology instead.

Looking back, my time at Google felt like a full graduate course in technical writing and teamwork. I will treasure the skills and professional relationships I developed there for the rest of my life. While I wish I had stayed longer, I know now that moving on is the best path for me.

Such a big change comes with both external motivators pulling you to a new place and internal factors driving your exit from your current place. For the latter reason, I'll just note that Google itself has adjusted its goals and tone quite publicly in the three years since I joined, to the point where it feels like a different employer than the one I interviewed with. I don't blame Google for downsizing its sails. Life is change, for individuals and organizations alike. Inevitably, tensions between my values ​​and the company grew to the point where the three-year anniversary seemed like a natural graduation day. And so I got there.

Initiating these changes often requires a shift in perspective. Sometimes they come with a catalyst, an unexpected encounter that shocks you with new realizations. This happened to me at the end of May, so let me share my story.

A theater-loving friend recommended that I see a show called “Hahahahahaha,” a one-woman show by self-described clown Julia Masri. My friend instructed me to go see it without reading anything beforehand, which I did.

As I was choosing my seats while buying my tickets, I noticed with interest that, except for a few audience members who bought seats right at the stage, most people chose seats as far back in the theater as possible. The middle rows were strangely empty, especially along the center aisle. I shrugged and chose a seat in the center of row four, not knowing what I'd get.

The gist of the show is that, after an atmospheric introduction that mixes meditative chanting with sudden bursts of furniture-smashing violence, Masri asks the audience to name their problems and then improvises solutions. On the night I saw the show, audience problems included anxiety about homelessness in Los Angeles, grief over the loss of a friend, anger about the Gaza conflict, the exhaustion of raising three kids, and stomach aches.

In every case, Masri responded creatively, sometimes with small gestures. She instructed the friend of the stomach ache to place his hand on his stomach, as gentle touches feel good. Did he feel better? Yes? Problem solved.

When a grieving woman said her favorite memory with a friend was smoking a cigarette together behind her high school, Masri paired her with another audience member who was holding a cigarette, and asked them to join him outside the theater in memory of their fallen friend. Masri followed them with a wireless microphone, and over the theater's speakers, we heard the woman on the sidewalk laugh and say that she hadn't smoked a cigarette since high school.

Inevitably, after trying several solutions, Masri approached me as I was sitting exactly in the target area. “Problem?” she asked sing-songly, with a smile. “Problem?”

I laughed, I can't complain.

Yes, of course you can. Tonight, here. Masri is Estonian with what might be called a Russian accent, and her clown persona adds to that with a slow, measured rhythm.

Amy, who had researched the show and knew exactly what we were expecting, sat down next to me and I turned to her: What is my complaint?

Amy and I are married, so many of our complaints are work-related, so she responded as succinctly as she could: “AI?”

Masri looked terrified and quickly backed away.

Sure, we can start there, I said.

“Oh, AI. That's so scary,” Masri said. “It's so scary. I'm worried that I'm going to lose my job because of AI.” Are you worried that you're going to lose your job because of AI?

No, I'm afraid my job will get even worse.

Oh. What is your job?

And there was only one answer to this, and it came to me right away, but I waited a moment before saying it.

artificial intelligence.

I stared silently at the performer while the whole theater waited for its response. It was a beautiful moment.

After all: And you have a moral dilemma about this, don't you?

I looked pained. I moved my jaw. I was about to say, “Let's start there,” a weak callback joke. But Masri, the actual artist here, had already taken control. “Okay. Tonight you're going to represent evil. We're all capable of evil! But tonight you're going to represent it. OK.” And then she moved on to the next troublemaker.

Masri solved some problems by bringing out props from the wings, some of them surprisingly large: Weary mothers were given full-size lounge chairs, sleep masks and noise-canceling earphones; a conversation about Gaza resulted in the name of a Gaza children's charity being written in highlighter on the back wall, and another audience member symbolically repaired the chair Masri had broken while screaming at the beginning of the show.

And Masri found an opportunity to speak about the importance of washing away our collective demons together, returning to my seat, holding out her hand, and inviting me to come onstage. I watched with the seated audience as she pulled back the curtain to reveal a full-sized shower stall. I responded as best I could with a posture of solemn, silent acceptance. Then she instructed me to get ready backstage.

Masulis' assistants met me as I entered the backstage wing and walked me up a flight of stairs to give me costume and blocking instructions for the rest of the show. A pair of shorts roughly the same color as my skin was already laid out for me. I changed into them, then wrapped myself in a white towel and robe, then hoisted both up against the marbled stall door after my entrance so I appeared nude. This was a gag.

I got changed, walked down the stairs, and returned barefoot to the stage, preparing to take a bath while Masri worked out a solution to yet another mess. The audience cheered in amazement and delight. I couldn’t see very well, having left my glasses up there, but I sat on a stool on the stage and watched the performer finish her work. She was collecting socks from the audience to burn in a bucket. To be honest, I never found out what the problem was here. When it was all over, Masri motioned me, with a gesture and a spotlight, to enter the bathroom. As soon as I flushed the water, dance music started, and I raised my arms and swayed as if I was on a crowded club floor, as did everyone else I was watching.

The guy finished the chair, and we all had a good time. Amy captured the moment in the photo that accompanies this article. You can see my hand reaching over the shower as I lift up the guy who made the chair. The woman in the photo, if I remember correctly, was in the middle of ordering a flight to Berlin on her computer, following Masulis' instructions.

So the next day, Friday, I went to work as usual. By lunchtime I felt strangely unwell. By the end of the day, I somehow understood why. I wrote a summary of the night's events and showed it to a few friends. One friend, knowledgeable in modern magic, said, “Yes, it was definitely a ritual. I got naked (or pretended to be naked) in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, engaged in a clearly symbolic act of cleansing of a named demon, and drew all their attention to me, because outside the ritual setting I was an active and direct participant in the named.”

So what can I do then? One of two things, really. I can reject the experience, swallow the tension it caused me, and let all that energy out and get my feet on the ground. It will take a while, and I'll feel sick all the time, but I can do it. Maybe I'll emerge with a new, burning determination to succeed at work for my employer.

Or I could accept the night's absurd, circuitous energy as a truly unexpected gift that might come once in a lifetime, if we're lucky, and let it transform me. Acceptance requires an act of reciprocity, an act of completing a circuit and crystallizing focus. I would need to do something to shift myself from a passive receiver of an audience's one-off attention to an active, ongoing transmitter, someone who chooses to adjust my stance to make the world less bad.

And I chose the one I did and am pretty happy about it.

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