People zoom in on the wrong things. What this person did is one thing. In a normal company that kind of thing results in a chat with your boss and ultimately some kind of resolution that probably involves people leaving the company.
What happened here instead is years of this being the status quo with people looking the other way that really should not be. Even helping to cover this up; or even actively harassing people pointing out that this wasn't cool. Google is firing people who speak up and rewarding people who abuse their power & privilege.
This person was very gently nudged out the door when he should have obviously been fired years ago. This kind of thing is a no-brainer in modern companies. You fuck around like that and you fail to keep it a secret, that's a career ending event. It's a failure of leadership right there. That leadership is still in place. The problem is still there.
What happened here instead is years of this being the status quo with people looking the other way that really should not be. Even helping to cover this up; or even actively harassing people pointing out that this wasn't cool. Google is firing people who speak up and rewarding people who abuse their power & privilege.
This person was very gently nudged out the door when he should have obviously been fired years ago. This kind of thing is a no-brainer in modern companies. You fuck around like that and you fail to keep it a secret, that's a career ending event. It's a failure of leadership right there. That leadership is still in place. The problem is still there.