A former Google employee claims that her boss, now a top executive, used his position of power to have an affair with her that turned abusive and he had other affairs in a work environment where blatant womanizing and philandering were tolerated.
Jennifer Blakely, a former senior contract manager in Google’s legal department, said in a Medium report Wednesday that she had a years-long affair with David Drummond when he was general counsel. She was his direct subordinate. Drummond is now the chief legal officer of Google parent Alphabet.
Blakely told part of her story to the New York Times in 2018.
The consensual affair began in 2004. In 2007, Blakely and Drummond lived together and had a child, she said. Drummond was married at the time. Stacy Sullivan, then-head of human resources and now chief culture officer, told Blakely that Google discouraged managers from having relationships with subordinates.
“One of us would have to leave the legal department,” Blakely wrote. “It was clear it would not be David.”
Blakely transferred to the sales department but had no sales experience and quit, saying she felt secure at the time in her relationship with Drummond. In 2008, Drummond left Blakely. He broke up with her via text message, saying, “Don’t expect me back. I’m never coming back,” Blakely wrote in Medium. She accused him of refusing to pay child support. There was a custody battle. Blakely won.
“‘Hell’ does not begin to capture my life since that day,” Blakely wrote. “I’ve spent the last 11 years taking on one of the most powerful, ruthless lawyers in the world.”
Drummond is now the chief legal officer of Google parent Alphabet and senior vice president of corporate development. He was introduced to two Stanford grad students — Larry Page and Sergey Brin — while working as a partner at a San Francisco Bay Area law firm. They later came up with the idea for Google. Drummond was initially hired to legally incorporate Google and help the cofounders find funding, Business Insider reported.
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In late 2018, Google employees staged a walkout after a New York Times investigation revealed that the company had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of misconduct, while staying silent about their transgressions. Payments included $90 million to former senior vice president Andy Rubin, who allegedly coerced a subordinate into performing sexual acts, CNN reported.
“The #MeToo Movement has been the beginning of a sea change for women, exposing the double standard between women and men in the workplace oftentimes resulting in abuse toward women,” Blakely wrote. “I lived through it first hand and I believe a company’s culture, its behavioral patterns, start at the top. Rarely do we hear about what happens to women after they are forced out of their jobs but I can tell you what happened to me.”
Drummond had multiple affairs including with Blakely’s former colleague at Google, she said, but he discouraged Blakely from discussing it. “David was (and is) a powerful executive. His ‘personal life’ was off-limits and since I was no longer his ‘personal life’ it was time for me to shut up, fall in line and stop bothering him with the nuisances or demands of raising a child.”
Years later, when the #MeToo Movement began, Blakely said she was contacted by reporters.
“For me, the abuse of power didn’t stop with being pushed out,” Blakely said. “Afterwards I was pushed down, lest I got in the way of the behavior that had become even more oppressive and entitled. Until truth is willing to speak to power and is heard, there’s not going to be the sea change necessary to bring equality to the workplace.”
In a personal statement obtained by BuzzFeed, Drummond said “it’s not a secret” that he and Blakely had “a difficult break-up 10 years ago.” He said he “regrets” his part in that breakup.
He also insistes that “Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.”
This past weekend, Drummond “got married to someone who once worked in his legal department at Google, per multiple sources and a LinkedIn profile timeline,” Axios reported. “The woman … left Google for around three years, which is when Drummond tells people they began dating. She later returned to Google’s legal department, by which point Drummond was technically with Alphabet.”
