Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by arnioxux on Monday August 07, 2017 @11:39PM (#14953930)

> you can't tell your teammates that they were hired because their employer lowered the bar

It only hurts because it is plausible and causes self-doubt.

But Google can prove this conclusively just by plotting the distribution of performance reviews between "diversity hires" and the regular pool of employees. You either show that there are negligible differences (the diversity program works) or the guy is right (the average bar did get lowered).

Google will never publish this data because they are cowards.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by bobdole1234 on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:13AM (#14954188)

One of the biggest problems that Google has with it's employee retention is imposter syndrome.

You take a lot of really smart people and get them to work together, and most of them are going to feel like they're not as smart as their peers.

Anything that creates self-doubt is going to really fuck up their retention.

Anyone who writes a manifesto to do just that should expect they'll be promptly walked out of the building.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by tomp on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @02:29AM (#14955010)

> One of the biggest problems that Google has with it's employee retention is imposter syndrome.

Can you elaborate on that one? I'm really curious, as my naive assumption would be that impostor syndrome should improve retention (something like "I'm not as good as my current employer and coworkers think I am, so I better not change jobs because this is the best I could get").

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by bobdole1234 on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:15AM (#14976940)

Yeah, but there's a never ending stream of recruiters trying to land you as a Xoogler hire.

That makes it pretty easy to take a new gig and make that nagging imposter voice in your head quiet down.

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by Domenic_S on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:54AM (#14954832)

If you have some insider information I'd love to hear it, because this sounds totally implausible:

"I work at the world's most powerful tech company, get paid embarrassing sums of money to do it, and get good reviews from my manager. But I don't feel super smart, so I quit."

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Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo by bobdole1234 on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:12AM (#14976928)

So, two things: Google is weirdly self organizing, which can take some serious getting used to. Your manager isn't there to tell you what to do, YOU are supposed to figure out what you should be doing for the most part, aside from some broad strokes from your tech lead (who isn't your manager). This really messes with a lot of peoples internal hierarchy compass, which leads to feelings of being lost and directionless.

When you come in as a newbie, and you see all these people seemingly directing themselves effortlessly, and creating cool shit day in and day out, it can be seriously soul crushing. You're still on your tricycle trying to figure out how to do anything at Google, and aside from your laptop, virtually everything is a technology that is Google specific and shares almost nothing with anything you've touched before.

Between those two things, a lot of people feel like they'll never make it. They hold on for their 1 year anniversary if they can and then shop their new Google experience around to find a good exit.

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