Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

So we person to look similar a tech institution successful immoderate ways to beryllium capable to bash what we do.

If I could get into the existent communicative of your career, you said successful your archetypal blog station erstwhile you took the president relation that you’ve ever been a champion of Signal. I deliberation you said you utilized RedPhone and TextSecure?

I did.

I tried those astatine the time, capable to constitute astir them. But they were beauteous janky! I’m impressed oregon possibly a small weirded retired that you utilized them backmost then.

But I was successful tech. Right? All the chill radical successful tech were already utilizing them.

And you were astatine Google astatine that time?

Yeah. I was with Google then.

What was idiosyncratic similar you adjacent doing astatine Google, honestly?

Have you ever heard of needing wealth to unrecorded and wage rent, Andy? [Laughs.] Have you heard of a nine wherever entree to resources is gated by your quality to bash productive labour for 1 oregon different endeavor that pays you money?

I get that! But you are present specified a vocal anti-Silicon-Valley, anti-surveillance-capitalism idiosyncratic that it’s hard to imagine—

I’m not anti-tech.

Yeah, I didn’t accidental that. But however did you extremity up astatine Google?

Well, I person a grade successful rhetoric and English lit from Berkeley. I went to creation schoolhouse my full life. I was not looking for a occupation successful tech. I didn’t truly attraction astir tech astatine that time, but I was looking for a occupation due to the fact that I graduated from Berkeley and I didn’t person immoderate money. And I enactment my résumé connected Monster.com—which, for Gen Z, it’s similar old-school LinkedIn.

I was interviewing with immoderate publishing houses, and past Google contacted maine for a occupation arsenic thing called a … what was it, user operations associate?

Consumer operations associate?

Yeah. What is that? None of those words made sense. I was conscionable like, that sounds similar a concern job.

So I acceptable up a Gmail relationship to respond to the recruiter. And past I went through, I think, 8 interviews and 2 weird benignant of IQ tests and 1 penning test. It was a chaotic gauntlet.

What twelvemonth was this?

I started successful July of 2006. Ultimately what a “consumer operations associate” meant was a temp successful lawsuit support. But nary 1 had told maine that. And I was like, what is this place? Why is the foodstuff free? The costly foodstuff is free. I’d ne'er been successful an situation similar that. At that point, Google had deed an inflection point. They had a mates of 1000 employees. And determination was a condemnation successful the civilization that they had yet recovered the look to beryllium the ethical capitalists, ethical tech. There was a existent … self-satisfaction is possibly an ungenerous mode to enactment it, but it was a weird exuberance. I was conscionable truly funny successful it.

And determination were a batch of blank checks lying astir Google astatine that time. They had this 20 percent clip policy: “If you person a originative idea, bring it to us, we’ll enactment it”—all of this rhetoric that I didn’t cognize you shouldn’t instrumentality seriously. And truthful I did a batch of maneuvering. I figured retired however to conscionable the radical who seemed interesting. I got into the engineering group. I started moving connected standards, and I was just, successful a sense, signing my sanction connected these checks and trying to currency them. And much often than not, radical were like, “Well, OK, she got successful the room, truthful let’s conscionable fto her cook.” And I ended up learning.