How Google spent 15 years creating a culture of concealment

(www.nytimes.com)

154 points tysone | 1 comments | 20 Nov 24 11:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source

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lupire ◴[20 Nov 24 12:54 UTC] No.42193516[source]▶

>>42192972 (OP) #

Is this different from retention policy at any other business with competent lawyers?

replies(2): >>42197138 #>>42199291 #

ajb ◴[20 Nov 24 23:35 UTC] No.42199291[source]▶

>>42193516 #

At my previous company (a big semiconductor vendor) the legal dept made it clear that if you had a question, you did not ask them by text. You rang them, because that made it privileged. But they didn't try to escape from discovery of emails - they were retained.

Actually they wanted some retention, because for them a big thing was to have evidence of the date you invented something in case of patent litigation. Everyone was given a paper journal in which you were supposed to make notes, which I totally failed to do.

replies(2): >>42199431 #>>42200125 #

1. caboteria ◴[20 Nov 24 23:51 UTC] No.42199431[source]▶

>>42199291 #

I worked for a company that was acquired by LU/Bell Labs in the '90's and their IP notebooks were excellent: hardbound with a sturdy cloth binding and thick, high-quality graph paper. We were supposed to have each page countersigned at the end of the day but that rarely happened. We were too busy makin' the donuts.

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