The text of their "tweet that got me fired" is:

> Introducing the Google Workspace CLI: https://github.com/googleworkspac e/cli - built for humans and agents.

> Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included.

Yeah, that absolutely looks like an official product announcement from Google. Surely it was obvious they'd get in trouble for that.

I work at Google so was curious. This person did attempt to follow the process, but was belligerent in review and it was cancelled. They continued anyway.

No surprise they were fired. If you work at google just search this CLI and you will see for yourself.

Put aside whether this was justified or not, or the potential Streisand effect or PR damage (or vice versa). What signal is this sending to the young Google engineer who wants to build the next Gmail? Even if this violated every internal policy, firing someone who created something that people actually want is sending a very disturbing message (internally and externally).

Also, is this somehow relate to Addy Osmani’s recent departure from Google? (Was it in sympathy, was it a retaliation as this was “the tweet that got OP fired”?)

IMO: If the project leverages Google branding or authority improperly, then it shouldn't be on github and should not be under active development by Google employees; yet it is. If Google is suddenly alright with the way the project leveraged Google branding and authority, then the cause for firing the original developer, especially given Google's famously lax stance toward 20% projects and internal open source, is a lot weaker. In other words: Healthy companies do not fire individuals simply for breaching branding guidelines in a way that is ultimately beneficial and looked favorably upon by the company. That's literally just not a thing that happens; at worst you get a reprimand, and in many healthy companies you'd actually get a promotion.

So, something does not add up. It might be the story of the person fired. It might also be on the other side; that our external impression on what's been going on inside of Google needs to be re-adjusted, and this company will be a lot weaker in ten years than I would have originally estimated.

Usable link for anyone else without a twitter account: https://xcancel.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069482265953087602

It'd be a fairly major faux pas to release a "non-product" open-source project in a way that smells like a product, but I don't think it's an automatic firing offense in most of big tech, especially if you're just releasing some technical (CLI) tool. It's more of a "stern talking-to" situation.

I'm guessing something more happened here. Maybe someone was displeased with how the author initially responded, or some powerful exec really wanted to make an example out of him (sounds like another group was working on an identically-named official product with the same name?), or they were just looking for an excuse to cut this particular role.

Great that it was available, but compared to Peter's version this one is inferior. It didn't have draft email as a default and asking it to write a draft would just send the email, oops lol. And doesn't have mutli-account support or a number of other features. I think one thing it could do better was inline commenting (maybe), but neither CLI can initiate their own comments...

Gog cli - https://github.com/openclaw/gogcli

Former Google employee here. This is exactly the kind of shit-for-brains action I'd expect from Google executives. Bravo on further dragging your image through the mud.

For me it hangs on how the author describes his product “THE google workspace CLI” as opposed to “A google workspace CLI”. That sounds very much like an official google product to me.