Ruth — of systems & designAug 25, 2024

Eric Schmidt:

‘learned that there were people who I call “glue people”. The glue people are incredibly nice people who sit at interstitial boundaries between groups, and they assist in activity. And they are very, very loyal, and people love them, and you don’t need them at all.

[..] I kept trying to get rid of these glue people, because they were getting in the way, because they slowed everything down.’

quoted in Contempt for the Glue People by @norootcause

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2021/08/28/contempt-for-the-glue-people/

Contempt for the glue people

The clip below is from a lecture from 2015 that then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave to a Stanford class. Here’s a transcript, emphasis mine. When I was at Novell, I had learned that there were …

Surfing Complexity
Show threadRuth — of systems & designAug 25, 2024

Contempt serves to self-elevate by denigrating. It is a classic power-over kind of move, for it takes personal power from.

Still. The importance of “glue people” might be better understood if we used a word that connotes cohesion rather than adhesion??

Show threadDawn AhukannaSep 11, 2024
@RuthMalan
This is contempt & monolithic, colonial exploitation mentality-monopolize political power & hold conquered societies/ppl as inferior.
I assume he is working 25 hours a day (he somehow bent time & added the extra hour), does not eat, does not sleep or do any commercially “useless” activity.
Calling people “glue” is such reductionist and linear thinking about human adaptability.
Life of living, breathing beings is like a kaleidoscope with many perspectives, not a one-eyed monocle.
Show threadd@nny disc@ mc²
@dahukanna @RuthMalan part of the reason this framing really hurts me is that a very close friend who i worked on research together with was exactly just such a glue employee at google and was roundly considered one of the most empathetic humans by so many and recently passed from an illness and i wonder (not too often or it hurts too much) to what extent this contempt for glue was responsible for his death
Sep 11, 2024 at 12:44pmWeb
Show threadRuth — of systems & designSep 11, 2024
@hipsterelectron @dahukanna 💔💔💔
Show threadd@nny disc@ mc²Sep 11, 2024
@RuthMalan @dahukanna he also maintained the re2 regex engine which is a ludicrously critical component of google systems especially web search but god forbid the silent background infrastructure be lauded over the sound of plundering