Google kept silent about sexual misconduct charges on Andy Rubin, the ‘Father of Android’
It paid him $90 mn for exit
San Francisco: Google gave Andy Rubin, the creator of Android mobile software, a hero’s farewell when he left the company in October 2014.
“I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next,” Larry Page, Google’s then-chief executive, said in a public statement. “With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users.”
What Google did not make public was that an employee had accused Rubin of sexual misconduct. The woman, with whom Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship, said he coerced her into performing oral sex in a hotel room in 2013, according to two company executives with knowledge of the episode. Google investigated and concluded her claim was credible, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be named, citing confidentiality agreements. Page asked for his resignation.
Google could have fired Rubin and paid him little to nothing on the way out. Instead, the company handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years, said two people with knowledge of the terms. The last payment is scheduled for next month.
Rubin was one of three executives that Google protected over the past decade after they were accused of sexual misconduct. In two instances, it ousted senior executives, but softened the blow by paying them millions of dollars as they departed, even though it had no legal obligation to do so. In a third, the executive remained in a highly compensated post at the company. Each time Google stayed silent about the accusations against the men.
The New York Times obtained corporate and court documents and spoke to more than three dozen current and former Google executives and employees about the episodes, including some people directly involved in handling them. Most asked to remain anonymous because they were bound by confidentiality agreements or feared retribution for speaking out.
The transgressions varied in severity. Rubin’s case stood out for how much Google paid him and its silence on the circumstances of his departure.
Sam Singer, a spokesman for Rubin, disputed that Rubin had been told of any misconduct and said he left the company of his own accord.
“The New York Times story contains numerous inaccuracies about my employment at Google and wild exaggerations about my compensation,” Rubin said in a statement after the publication of this article. “Specifically, I never coerced a woman to have sex in a hotel room. These false allegations are part of a smear campaign by my ex-wife to disparage me during a divorce and custody battle.”
In settling on terms favorable to two of the men, Google protected its own interests. The company avoided messy and costly legal fights, and kept them from working for rivals as part of the separation agreements.
When asked about Rubin and the other cases, Eileen Naughton, Google’s vice president for people operations, said in a statement the company takes harassment seriously and reviews every complaint.
“We investigate and take action, including termination,” she said. “In recent years, we’ve taken a particularly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority. We’re working hard to keep improving how we handle this type of behavior.”
After publication of this article online, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and Naughton wrote in an email to employees that the company had fired 48 people for sexual harassment during the last two years and that none of them received an exit package.
“We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work, and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately,” Pichai and Naughton wrote.
Some within Google said that was not enough.
“When Google covers up harassment and passes the trash, it contributes to an environment where people don’t feel safe reporting misconduct,” said Liz Fong-Jones, a Google engineer for more than a decade and an activist on workplace issues. “They suspect that nothing will happen or, worse, that the men will be paid and the women will be pushed aside.”
The $350 million man
Rubin joined Google in 2005 when it acquired his startup, Android, for $50 million. Over the next few years, he helped build Android — the software now used in 80 percent of the world’s smartphones — into a huge success.
That success gave Rubin more latitude than most Google executives, said four people who worked with him.
In a civil suit filed this month by Rubin’s ex-wife, Rie Rubin, she claimed he had multiple “ownership relationships” with other women during their marriage, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to them. The couple were divorced in August.
The suit included a screenshot of an August 2015 email Rubin sent to one woman. “You will be happy being taken care of,” he wrote. “Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people.”
Rubin built a robotics division within Google named Replicant.
Around that time, Rubin was casually seeing another woman he knew from Android, according to two company executives briefed on the relationship. The two had started dating in 2012 when he was still leading the division.
By 2013, she wanted to break things off but worried it would affect her career, said the executives. That March, she agreed to meet him at a hotel, where she said he pressured her into oral sex, they said. The incident ended the relationship.
The woman waited until 2014 before filing a complaint to Google’s human resources department and telling officials about the relationship, the people said. Google began an investigation.
While Rubin denied the accusation, it became clear that — at the very least — the relationship was inappropriate, the executives said. Page decided Rubin should leave, they said.
When Google fires lower-level employees, it typically marches them out immediately and pays little, if any, severance. But for senior executives, Google weighs other factors, said former executives. A wrongful termination lawsuit could mean unwanted media attention for Google and the victims of a misconduct case, with a loss resulting in significant damages.
In the end, Google paid Rubin $90 million, said two people with knowledge of the terms. The package was structured so that he received $2.5 million a month for the first two years and $1.25 million a month for the following two years.
A provision in the separation agreement precluded Rubin from working for rivals or disparaging Google publicly, they said.
The company then went out of its way to make Rubin’s departure seem amicable, including Page’s public statement of gratitude.
Afterward, Google invested in Playground Global, a venture firm Rubin started six months after leaving the company. Playground has raised $800 million. He also founded Essential, a maker of Android smartphones.
Rubin’s wealth, fueled by Google, has increased by 35 times in less than a decade. According to his ex-wife’s suit, his net worth is now about $350 million, up from $10 million in 2009.
Courtesy: economictimes.indiatimes.com
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
