[bloblaw]

Without an understanding of their motive, I think tying "google" to a person's mental health crisis is clickbait.

Folks dealing with mental health issues might end their lives for a variety of factors. This is very sad to hear, but the headline (and article) that attempts to connect an employer to a person's death without any evidence is unfair.

Note: I do not work for Google.

[neom]

Well if it was a google employee who committed suicide at home, or off of the various many other places you could chose to kill yourself in Manhattan, I'd generally agree. This person however, jumped off their employers office building.

[haswell]

> This person however, jumped off their employers office building.

Why does this indicate anything other than the fact that he chose a building he’s familiar with and to which he had access?

What if their personal life was not in good shape and they wanted someone to find them?

There is no basis at this point for speculation that Google was a primary causal factor.

[aaomidi]

The timing of the layoffs, etc. yes there is room for speculation. There’s always room for speculation.

[haswell]

Sure, there's always "room" for speculation, and someone will always speculate. But that doesn't give this speculation any basis nor should it excuse irresponsible dialogue that seeks to generate answers for the sake of answers instead of accuracy and real information. There's a time during which such speculation is straight up irresponsible. It fuels narratives and feeds anger for reasons that can't be justified with data.

Layoffs are happening across industries. Are you suggesting that there is something specific about the way Google did theirs?

Suicides are higher across all demographics right now, and there's a pretty clear emerging consensus that there's a growing mental health crisis, and that it's not tied to a single employer.

Does this mean that Google had nothing to do with it? We don't know. But for anyone suggesting a connection, at least provide a plausible reason the connection exists, how it explains this scenario, and why that explanation is specific to Google. Otherwise why would such speculation provide any value?

The HN community is pretty good about demanding evidence and eschewing simplistic narratives that have no evidence to back them. Suicide is a tragic subject that evokes emotional responses, but that does not excuse baseless speculation.

[aaomidi]

So you agree there’s room for speculation.

That’s all I was saying. Did not state if I think it’s relevant or not.

[haswell]

I never claimed there wasn’t “room” for speculation and I can’t stop people from speculating.

My comment was about the basis for such speculation - for which there is none - and a criticism of this kind of speculation due to the problems it causes.

It’s uninteresting and is often the precursor to misinformation/disinformation.

[tempsy]

there’s no indication it was an intentional jump. the article says no note or video and that they found handprints, meaning at some point this person was hanging on a ledge.

so it is misleading to say he “jumped” if it ends up being an accidental fall.

there’s plenty of people who climb ledges in NYC to take photos at night, so would not be surprised if this ends up being entirely accidental as a result of trying to take photos

[neom]

I've been through that building very many times. DigitalOcean NYC2 is there, I've had lunch/dinner/drinks there more times than I can count. You don't just "fall off" 111 8th.

[tempsy]

Yeah, and I mentioned that he could have purposefully climbed a ledge to take nighttime photos and tripped.

I’ve seen dozens of “daredevil” skyline shots of NYC where people climb rooftops/bridges to take photos. Someone intentionally jumping does not “hang” on the side, they just jump.

[sterlind]

unless they have a change of heart? or maybe they're standing on the ledge trying to get up the courage to jump, and slip? a lot of people who attempt suicide immediately regret it (of the survivors.)

[tempsy]

ok but the criticism is the headline says he jumped when they don’t know, and that a fall is not a jump

[protonimitate]

An employee of Google who jumped from the Google office is a pretty obvious connection. Don't really see how this is clickbait.

[bhouston]

Google employs 200,000 people. Suicide rate in the US is ~13 per 100,000 per year. This means there is an expected base rate of Google employees committing suicide per year regardless of working conditions that is likely higher than just 2. Maybe there is a real issue but two suicides within such large number of employees isn’t statistically significant.

EDIT: I added "statistically" in the last sentence to clarify my intended meaning.

[pengaru]

> Google employs 200,000 people. Suicide rate in the US is ~13 per 100,000 per year. This means there is an expected base rate of Google employees committing suicide per year regardless of working conditions that is likely higher than just 2. Maybe there is a real issue but two suicides within such large number of employees isn’t really significant.

How many of those 13/100,000/year have jobs?

[totalZero]

You're assuming randomness among the US population. Might be a good assumption.

However, there are externalities to this suicide that may affect others who work at Google or in NY, and so the story is worthy of being contextualized. It might be clickbait to put the word "Google" in the title but not because of probabilistic irrelevance. People who kill themselves at work have an impact on coworkers and company, no two ways about it.

[protonimitate]

Suicide is tragic regardless of the circumstances, and it's a really bad take to try to minimize this because it's not statistically "significant" or "clickbait".

[khazhoux]

They weren't "minimizing." The point is that this article is trying to create a "Googlers are killing themselves" narrative, which is unwarranted.

[protonimitate]

There's nothing in the article (if you read it) that tries to paint that narrative. As far as NYP goes, it's actually pretty mild and factual. I don't understand why so many commenters here are jumping at the chance to defend poor little Google from the evils of bad journalism.

Also how is > Maybe there is a real issue but two suicides within such large number of employees isn’t really significant.

NOT minimizing?

[khazhoux]

It's /mildly/ crafting the narrative in the very title... "second worker," which is implying "this is a pattern." Even the first word of the title is "Google."

As for the minimizing, remember that on HN we aim to take the best possible interpretation of our fellow members' comments. I'll assume that the person who wrote "isn't really significant" isn't a heartless monster, and therefore what they meant what that "this didn't merit a Google-focused NYPost article."

[bhouston]

I agree that suicide is tragic and we shouldn't minimize any instance of someone taking their own life.

I was trying to say that linking it to Google and implying it is a trend based on just two suicides given their extremely large employee count isn't statistically sound without additional supporting data. I was speaking about the link to Google rather than the suicides themselves.

[jckr]

If you want to have a meaningful comparison, then compare Google’s suicide rates with those of people in their thirties, gainfully employed / making six figures and have free access to mental health resources.

[hgsgm]

Mental health resources at Google are there to collect evidence in case the company closes to fire you and needs to defend against a lawsuit.

[hgsgm]

2 per year worldwide vs 2 per half-year in NYC office.

[relativeadv]

Bad take

[khazhoux]

"Significant" here meant "worth of a national news article."

It's clear that the journalist is crafting a "Why are Googlers killing themselves?" narrative.

[atlantic]

If you're seriously considering suicide, why would you bother going in to work, and then commit suicide in your place of work (your company's HQ, no less), if not to make a statement of some sort?

[haswell]

Why is this a pretty obvious connection vs. just the pragmatic reality of having access to the Google building?

The factors that play into suicide are numerous, and there is no apparent reason that Google was a causal factor.

This is also not to say that they aren’t, but to point out that speculation about this has zero standing.

[ziziyO]

A worker kills himself at work by jumping off a work building and you are here trying to tell me speculation about work being involved has zero standing? I don't buy it.

[haswell]

It has no more standing than speculating that the suicide was related to a failed relationship with a coworker. And even in that case, a failed relationship is not usually the cause of suicide, even if it's a precipitating factor. Causes generally tie back to systemic issues.

Of all the ways one can die, suicide stems from the most deeply complex and systemic factors in one's life. To sit here and speculate about the cause with no information is irresponsible and I'd argue at the heart of what's wrong with social media today. For some reason people feel the need to have answers, even poorly considered speculation. I'd argue that it's far better to be willing to accept that there are times that require us to just withhold speculation until there's enough information to do so responsibly.

Whatever the cause turns out to be, these early discussions are the last contact most people will have with the topic, meaning whatever speculations are shared are likely to be the primary memories of those involved.

This community is quick to demand evidence and citations on most subjects (and rightly so), and this should be no different.

[woooooo]

I don't think they'd have put Duane Reade in the headline if one of their employees killed themselves. Probably wouldn't be a story at all, actually.

[everly]

If it happened on the job then, yeah, they probably would. Just like there is a Walgreens security guard in the news currently for killing a shoplifter in SF. If he had killed someone outside his capacity as a Walgreens security guard, they wouldn't describe him as such.

If this engineer had killed themselves in another manner besides jumping off the top of their workplace, they might not be described as a Google engineer.

Edit to add: Statistically, I suspect that there have to have been many instances of Google employees committing suicide outside of work. I doubt those got headlines at all, let alone headlines including Google's name.

[Jenk]

Alternatively it is a high-up point from which to jump that the person(s) has easy access to.

[bsimpson]

Just like how people famously jump off the Golden Gate Bridge to protest bridges.

[Ferret7446]

Their living in NYC is a more obvious connection, as there are studies showing that urban populations have significantly higher rates of mental disorders.

[at_a_remove]

One of the statistical slights of hand of which I am rather unfond is gun deaths that don't mention that slightly more than half of them are suicides. This reminds me a bit of that.

Google says that Alphabet had 190,234 employees in 2022. The annual age-adjusted suicide rate is 13.42 per 100,000 individuals. Males die by suicide 3.5 times more often than females. A real actuary (I wish I had known that was a profession!) could work the numbers better than I, but I don't think this is out of line on a statistical level, sad as it is to say.

[dehrmann]

People also did this with Foxconn. Supposedly at Foxconn's scale, the suicide rate wasn't alarming, but with people living in dorms and having suicide nets set up, it looks bad.

[pengaru]

It wasn't clear when I read that the rate wasn't alarming if they were comparing the Foxconn rate to the entire general population rate or just the employed general population rate.

I think the difference is obvious.

[dehrmann]

It was very much Foxconn spinning it as to be expected. I have no idea how much to trust that.

[conradfr]

There was also a big case in France https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50865211

[okdood64]

> I think tying "google" to a person's mental health crisis is clickbait

It's total clickbait and highlights the shameful narrative on HN and Reddit about "Mmm, Google bad." A guy just died and people are trying to push their own narrative without any sort of validity. Shameful and disgusting.