Holman Jenkins: "Google Confronts Its Bolsheviks"

From behind the WSJ paywall:

We may have to refine our theories of creative destruction. America’s big tech companies—Google in particular—suddenly seem less at risk from nascent competitors than from the politicization of their own employees. ...

The Google protests have been led by a group calling itself the Tech Workers Coalition, whose avowed purposes are ideological rather than strictly work-related. It got its start helping the Teamsters organize subcontractors who operate Silicon Valley’s employee shuttle buses. ...

They want politics to be in control of business. That includes deciding which products and services will be developed. According to San Francisco’s KQED, the activist group is reluctant even to name its “founders” due to the word’s “negative associations with what they call the capitalist-driven ethos that has become pervasive in Silicon Valley.” ...

Notice an irony here: Google’s bosses are shielded from any challenge coming from disappointed shareholders by a special voting-rights lockup. This was justified at the time of Google’s initial public offering as protecting management’s ability to make brave, long-term decisions without concern for short-term market reaction.

Now management seems to be in need of some bravery to defend the company’s long-term interests against a small band of employees who feel entitled to substitute their political hobby horses for their employer’s business priorities.