Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
At the Code Conference in June, I sat down with former executives at Facebook, Google, and Twitter to ask why their internal cultures of activism are so different. The answer I got, from former Google communications chief Jessica Powell, is that at Google activism had been part of the culture from the beginning. What changed over the past few years, she said, is that what had once been an internal discussion about company policies and procedures had lately spilled into public view.
In a comprehensive piece at Wired today, Nitasha Tiku explains how that came about. Over the course of more than 11,000 words, she details how the company nurtured a culture of dissent right up until the point that it boiled over into public view — at which…