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Google fired a cloud engineer who interrupted Barak Regev, CEO of its Israel business, during a speech at an Israeli tech event in New York, according to CNBC. “I’m a software engineer at Google and I refuse to create technology that drives genocide or surveillance!” The engineer was seen and heard shouting in a video captured by freelance journalist Caroline Haskins that went viral online. As he was dragged away by security, and amidst boos from the audience, he continued speaking and made reference to Project Nimbus. This is the $1.2 billion contract that Google and Amazon had won to supply artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to the Israeli military.
Last year, a group of Google employees published an open letter urging the company to cancel Project Nimbus, in addition to denouncing the “hate, abuse and retaliation” that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian workers are receiving within the company. “Project Nimbus endangers members of the Palestinian community! I refuse to build technology that will be used for apartheid in the cloud,” said the engineer. After being removed from the scene, Regev told the audience that “part of the privilege of working at a company that represents democratic values is allowing room for different opinions.” He ended his speech after a second protester interrupted him and accused Google of being complicit in the genocide.
A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel CEO Barak Regev at the Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in New York.
“I refuse to build technology that fuels genocide!” she shouted, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract. pic.twitter.com/vM9mMFlJRS
—Caroline Haskins (@car0linehaskins) March 4, 2024
The incident took place during the MindTheTech conference in New York. Their theme for the year was apparently “Support Israeli Tech,” because investments in Israel slowed after the October 7 Hamas attacks. haskins wrote a detailed account of what she witnessed at the event, but she could not stay until it was over, because she was also expelled by security.
The Google engineer who interrupted the event told Haskins that he wanted “other Google Cloud engineers to know that this is what engineering looks like: you stand in solidarity with communities affected by your work.” He spoke to the journalist anonymously to avoid professional repercussions, but Google clearly figured out who he was. In a statement to Engadget, a Google spokesperson said: “Earlier this week, an employee interrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation, interfering with an official company-sponsored event. This behavior is not okay, regardless. of the problem, and the employee was fired for violating our policies.”
Update, March 9, 2024, 1:58 pm ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Google.
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