Sundar Pichai’s strict missive to Google employees: ‘This is a workplace, not…’

Sundar Pichai said that the company has a culture of vibrant, open discussion “that enables us to create amazing products."

Sundar Pichai said that employees need to be more focused “in how we work, collaborate, discuss and even disagree.” The message came in a blog post by the Google CEO following nine employees of the company being arrested for staging sit-in protests. The employees were protesting against the company working closely with Israel after which another 28 employees were fired in connection to the protests.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks during the Stanford Business, Government and Society Forum at Stanford University. (AFP)

Sundar Pichai said that the company has a culture of vibrant, open discussion “that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action". Emphasizing that it is important to preserve this culture, he said, "Ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”

“When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that,” he added.

Chris Rackow, head of security at Google, also sent a stern message to employees saying that every employee should know how to conduct themselves in a workplace. He said, “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again."