I
first started working for GDS in 2017. I’d been recommended by my
friend, who I am going to refer to as Dan. Dan was also with GDS and I’d
known him for over a decade.
Before
joining the team, I’d been working in entertainment as a producer; I’d
continue that work at GDS, this time in tech. It was my first job out of
LA and my first job making good money. I could grow into this role. I
was excited for my future, despite having left so much of my life in
southern California.
When
I showed up in Mountain View, I tried to get the lay of the land. I
asked colleagues where they were from, where I should go, and what I
should see. Most of them, including my boss and the director of our
department, said they weren’t from San Francisco or the Bay Area. Not
unusual, I wasn’t from the Bay Area either. What was unusual was that
they were all from the same place, a town called “Oregon House,” which
turned out not to be a city or an industry hub, but a small rural
community about 150 miles north, outside of Sacramento. For a time, it
seemed like half of my colleagues were from this very small place in the
California foothills hours away from where we worked.
As
I made friends at work, we started to talk about this. My colleagues
also noticed how prevalent Oregon House was. Cronyism and nepotism is
not uncommon, especially in my line of my work, but it was unusual on
this scale: At least 12 people in of the 25, or so, I had met, all from
this small town, all of whom knew each other beforehand and had close
relationships.
The
ties didn’t end there either. GDS contributed a lot of business to
Oregon House, mostly wine. Oregon House has a winery — called “Grant
Marie,” formerly “Renaissance” — from which we’d buy wine by the crate
for the events we produced (between nine to 12 a year). They’d even set
up booths just to talk about their wine at these events — events like
the Google I/O after-party and the Android Summit, large events with
thousands of guests. Sundar himself could have drank this wine — it was
certainly served around him. The wine was our most consistent feature,
and the invoices I’ve seen suggest we were buying hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth every year, just from Grant Marie.
I
didn’t think much of it until around late 2018, while at lunch before a
shoot. I was speaking to my director of photography, a freelancer for
that day, meaning someone who didn’t regularly work with us. I asked him
where he was from and he told me he was from Grass Valley, a small city
north of Sacramento.
“Oh, you’re from the place everyone we work with is from,” chimed in my friend and co-worker, who was chatting with us.
“Oregon House,” I clarified for my friend.
At
that, I saw the blood leave the freelancer’s face. He was gravely
serious. “Oregon House isn’t a town,” he said. “It’s a cult.”
We
chatted uneasily for the remainder of our meal. He told my friend and I
what he meant: A group called the Fellowship of Friends lived in Oregon
House, a group that our colleagues were likely a part of. I asked my
fill of questions and it seemed like this person was pretty well versed
on the Fellowship of Friends. But, of course, I couldn’t form a real
impression from one conversation. I brushed it off and we moved on with
the day. I pretended to forget.
When I got home, I looked into it. The Fellowship of Friends was a real, documented cult: I found support groups
where ex-members talk about their time in the group, including
discussions of sexual abuse and grooming. There were articles in
mainstream outlets dating from the 1990s that described them as a cult
(in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee, to name a few), including an in-depth piece on the group’s “cult wine.” I even found episodes about them on a podcast aptly named “Cults.”
I
can describe the cult in more detail. Some of this I learned long after
I first looked up the Fellowship of Friends, including very recently
through a detailed six-part podcast called “Revelations” that’s entirely focused on the cult.
The
Fellowship of Friends is a bizarre group. It claims to have hundreds of
members and dozens of “centers” across the world, many in “stately
mansions” outside major cities like Paris. They reportedly try to
recruit in different countries. One of the things they became known for
was placing bookmarks in metaphysical bookstores — some members have
described looking for guidance in a book, coming across a Fellowship of
Friends bookmark, and joining the group as a result.
The
group puts a premium on “high culture.” At its headquarters in Oregon
House, in a compound called Apollo, members describe studying
philosophy, art, and music, watching ballet performances, and practicing
the violin, all while working on the cult’s natural wine vineyards.
Members describe paying at least 10 percent of any earnings to the cult
as a tithe, with the group receiving millions every year as a result.
Its leader, Robert Earl Burton, reportedly goes on lavish shopping
sprees all over the world using members’ tithe money, buying European
paintings, Ming dynasty furniture, expensive clothing, and exotic
animals like white camels and peacocks.
The
compound, named “Apollo,” has been referenced as an “ark” and cult
members believe that when the world ends, they will help rebuild a new
one.
The
culture and fine wine hid their other activities though: Robert Earl
Burton has reportedly sexually abused dozens of members. Members have
described him grooming and sexually assaulting male followers, including
minors, and described at least one “love fest” where he tried to have
sex with as many as 100 of his male followers in a single day. He has
settled a lawsuit by a former member for sexual assault. He reportedly
forbade other members from having sex outside of marriage; one member
described being fined $1,500 for having sex with a woman when they
weren’t married.
I’ve
seen statements alleging that women were forced to undergo abortions
when they got pregnant because it “wasn’t time for children to be on the
ark.” Homosexual relationships were reportedly forbidden (except for
the leaders of course) and same-sex couples were forced to break up. Men
from across the world were reportedly flown into the country on
religious visas to visit the compound before learning that sexual favors
were an expected part of their stay — sex trafficking, in other words.
The
Fellowship of Friends is also seemingly a patriarchal, Anglo-centric,
Europhilic group. Women were disparaged and subservient to male members:
Robert Earl Burton taught that women were less spiritual beings than
men, and there’s only one woman among the 81 “angels” who look over the
group (Queen Elizabeth I). Its leaders were seemingly obsessed with
white European culture — Robert Earl Burton’s chateau in Oregon House
was created in the style of a French villa, its grounds host a statue of
Ganymede, and European arts, music, and dance dominate the group’s
culture. One former member called the culture “white supremacist.”
Not
only that, but there was pretty suggestive evidence that my colleagues
were a part of it. I found property records of both my boss and the
director of our department, both listing Oregon House addresses. I also
found photos of both of them with the leader, Robert Earl Burton.
It was clear to me what was going on.
I
was devastated and furious — I’d been unknowingly supporting a cult, a
group with a well-documented history of sexually abusing its youngest
members, and I’d moved nearly four hundred miles away to do so. Worse,
more than a dozen of my colleagues were seemingly in on it, people like
my direct manager. I did not know who I could trust, but I resolved to
do something. I thought, naively in hindsight, that if I could make
people aware of this, there would be change.
The
first chance I got, I brought it up with my friend Dan, who was a
manager within Google by this time and, more importantly, someone I knew
wasn’t in the cult.
Within
a week of my discovery I spotted Dan in our office. I approached his
desk and let him know that I had found out something very disturbing
about a number of our colleagues.
“I think I know what you’re going to say,” he said, to my surprise. “Let’s go off campus.”
So
I drove us to a ramen shop in downtown Mountain View. He told me that
he already knew about Oregon House: Another concerned manager had let it
spill while drinking, weeks earlier. People already knew, he said.
That didn’t surprise me; it would have been hard not to raise suspicions that something
was going on. But what did surprise me was how he dealt with it. He
told me that the cult was a problem and he was horrified just as I was
after initial research. Despite this, he had softened on them, at least
as they existed within GDS. He liked our department lead, Peter [ed. - Peter Lubbers, currently Director, Google Developer Studio], and
said he was a “good guy,” despite what he was doing for the Fellowship
of Friends. He felt he owed him for a recent promotion.
At
a certain point, he said he had thought about both quitting and
complaining up the ladder, but ultimately decided against either. He
thought complaining could lead not only to the loss of his job, but the
destruction of our whole department. The loss of all our jobs. GDS, in
his mind, wasn’t on steady ground. A revelation like this would be its
end.
He
instructed me to keep quiet. He told me not to tell anyone and to tell
anyone I had already informed to do the same. He reminded me again that
if I complained about this, I could lose my job. Strangely, he threw in
that “Peter is a powerful guy.” It was unsettling to say the least.
My
anxiety reached new levels. I’d thought there was a path forward, but
now I felt trapped. I started looking for other work. As Dan had said,
there weren’t a lot of options, good or otherwise, for people working in
video productions in the Bay Area. I had work, but it now involved
keeping quiet about a destructive cult, a doomsday cult, growing in
influence in our department. I heard of new members regularly being
added and I saw how existing members excelled, further boosting the
status of the Fellowship of Friends within our department. Conversely,
it seemed the Fellowship members who were on the outs with the group
were made to leave. Seemingly, where you stood with the Fellowship of
Friends very much related to where you stood with GDS.
Still,
I did as Dan said for longer than I’d like to admit. I cautioned my
peers not to talk about the cult, at lunch, in the studio at work. I
tried to put distance between myself and the problem. I engaged less
with Fellowship of Friends members. I avoided work social functions
wherever I wouldn’t be noticed.
One
night, it got the better of me. I went to the emergency room thinking I
was having a heart attack. I was 31. They said it was nerves, a panic
attack, the first of my life. The consulting physician asked me if there
was any stress in my life. All I could say was “work.” I knew I had to
do something.
I
went back to Dan, but his line was clearer now, more rehearsed. At his
home, over a drink, he cut me off the moment I raised the cult as a
concern. He told me to drop it and, for that day, I did. I felt
defeated. Weeks later, I steeled myself and tried again, more
forcefully. I wouldn’t back down this time. It was an explosive
argument, the first and only I had had with my friend Dan and the last
time I’d be alone in a room with him. I begged him to go to HR. I
pleaded with him to help me do something. He had access. I did not. I
was a TVC — which stands for “temps, vendors, and contractors,” a
designation within Google for workers who aren’t full-time employees and
are hired by third parties companies, not by Google itself. We do the
same work as full-time Google employees — I worked right alongside them —
but we don’t have the same corporate benefits.
If
I went to my HR department, they’d have no power over Google. In fact,
they were entirely beholden to Google. They had disregarded colleagues
who had complained about more clear-cut issues like a drunk and unruly
manager. “Why are you telling me this?” they’d ask. “Don’t tell me
this.”
I
left Dan’s that night knowing I’d need to figure this out on my own.
Then, COVID happened. Suddenly a dangerous cult seemed like less of a
priority. I was allowed to work from home, I even moved to a different
state. The problem grew distant and I was finding a semblance of peace. I
didn’t have to see my old manager, the director of our department, or
even Dan. My work went well. I received only positive reviews, zero
complaints, and my client was looking to bring me on as a genuine,
full-time employee of Google. Besides that, I was up for a promotion.
Things felt better.
Then,
without warning or reason, I was fired. The person who actually gave me
the decision didn’t know why they were doing it. They said they had no
involvement in the decision. They asked me if I knew why I was being
fired. I said “I assume you would know, right?” They didn’t. (A funny
detail: The raise for that promotion I was given was processed after I was fired, so I received two last checks at the higher rate. Fired and promoted at the same time.)
Even
though Dan was not in my chain of supervisors, I’m convinced he helped
to orchestrate my termination. I believe he saw me as an existential
threat, to him, his colleagues and their jobs. The purported reasoning
for my termination was an email I had sent requesting the retention of
an editor, which was a completely normal business issue. In retrospect,
it looks like Dan was looking for pretext to shuffle me off for some
time before that.
In
the middle of a pandemic, in a new state, I was unemployed — fired, for
the first time in my professional career. I had recently joined the
Alphabet Workers Union, the union of now almost 1,000 workers across all
Alphabet companies, including Google. I told them my story and they
advised that I get a lawyer. Fifteen months later and this is where I
am: the lawsuit is pending, I’m still unemployed, and I see no change in
the cult that essentially runs an entire department within Google.
Still,
I’m optimistic. I was not the first or the last person to complain. I
know of at least four former colleagues who’ve also spoken out about
this. None of those complaints have thus far been taken seriously,
likely because they are coming from TVCs like me. I have heard that
agitation against the cult is increasing.
Google
knows about this problem. Managers know full well that a destructive
cult, a group credibly alleged to be involved in the sexual abuse of
possibly hundreds of followers, including children, has significant
influence over an important team within the company. Yet they turn a
blind eye, ignoring their own workers who’ve spoken out. I’m doing my
best to hold them accountable.
If you want to get in touch, email me at kwilliamlloyd@protonmail.com
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