Yandex employees are among the tech elite in Russia—overwhelmingly well-educated, liberal, and cosmopolitan. They were opposed to the Crimea invasion in 2014.
This is such a poor argument. It is not like a Russian programmer working in Russia has tons of well paying job options. They can work there because they get to work on interesting problems. Clickhouse came from inside Yandex.
Just because they have to toe the line of a goverment where they operate, should they stop serving the hundreds of millions of Russian people.
Isn't Twitter toeing the line of EU while censoring RT? Not that RT was publishing truth anyway but my point is companies toe the line on the basis of where they operate.
You don't expect Baidu to put the image of Tank man on their home page.
Should Apple employees have quit when the iPhones they designed were being manufactured by labour working in inhumane conditions? At least that was something that Apple could have easily controlled instead of trying to maximize the margins on their products.
In ordinary times, I wouldn't expect Russian citizens living in a brutal autocracy to pursue unrealistic civil disobedience. But these are not ordinary times. While Ukrainian civilians are being shelled, Russian civilians should not expect to live in security and contentment.
Sometimes you have to take scummy jobs to keep a roof over your family’s head.
In fairness, they weren’t supporting a warring regime a month ago. I won’t say I would have worked at Yandex then but it wouldn’t have been the reflexive “no” that it is now.