Claire Stapleton

Claire Stapleton (born 1985 or 1986) She is the author of the newsletter Tech Support.

Education Stapleton earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Career and activism

Google (2007-2019)

Stapleton began working for Google in 2007, after briefly considering a role with Teach For America,

During her communications work, Stapleton helped produce the company's weekly all-hands meeting, known as TGIF, hosted by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. who allegedly coerced a junior employee into sexual contact. Rubin referred to the report as a "wild exaggeration", and denies any misconduct. The employees, led by Stapleton, Meredith Whittaker, a former Google Artificial Intelligence researcher, and five others also put together a list of demands for change, including addressing what they alleged was rampant sexism and racism, getting rid of mandatory arbitration, and better pay for contractors. According to Stapleton, the events themselves were not the catalyst of their strike, but rather the TGIF that followed the news of Rubin's resignation, which she said was dismissive and ignored the report about payouts to male executives accused of sexual misconduct, though CEO Sundar Pichai and Page both reportedly apologized. Pichai also said that 48 employees had been terminated after investigations into harassment over the previous two years, none of whom received an exit package. Stapleton said the meeting sparked her to start an email list for women at the company, which she said quickly grew to more than 1,500 members. Stapleton and the other leaders acknowledged the progress in a note posted on the Google Walkout Medium account, but criticized leadership saying they, "troublingly erased [the demands] focused on racism, discrimination, and ... structural inequity", and for ignoring the request to elevate the diversity officer to the board. When asked who should be leading addressing the remaining demands, Stapleton said, "Larry and Sergey, where are they?" To Stapleton's allegations specifically, Google claimed that her allegations of retaliation was unsubstantiated because they had found that they gave her their team's Culture Award for her role in the walkout. and shared their experiences of alleged retaliation on Medium. While the campaign gained fast momentum, Google announced they had created a new website for employees to report misconduct. Some employees took a sick day while staying at the office in honor of Stapleton's claim that she was urged to take medical leave when she said she was not sick.

On May 31, 2019, while pregnant with her second child, in exchange for severance. A note she shared internally was published by the Google Walkout Medium account the following week, which gained media attention. In the note, Stapleton described how her perspective of the company shifted over her tenure from pride and inspiration until 2017, when she returned from maternity leave with her first child and felt the company had "lost its moral compass." She described her decision to quit saying, “If I stayed, I didn’t just worry that there’d be more public flogging, shunning, and stress, I expected it.” Stapleton said she was physically escorted off of the premises by security, who also confiscated her company devices, she also said this was unconventional for departing workers.

2020 In May 2020, Stapleton started a newsletter for her agitated peers in tech called Tech Support, meant to offer guidance for other tech workers from her experiences over her 12 years at Google.

2026 In 2026, Stapleton published a book about her experiences working at Google titled, Don't Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech. The New Yorker published a Weekend Essay (July 18, 2026) written by Stapleton concerning her Google experience entitled, "The Voice of Google."

Personal life Stapleton was born in Berkeley, California. She has two children.