And despite what any employer will tell you about their workplace being an open forum, they are full of shit. What they mean is, it's an open forum to agree with management.
Minority viewpoints in tech become silenced and their author(s) ostracized by the biases of a mob mentality. It doesn't even matter what you write because most people won't even read the original source, instead floating by on derivative tweets and extremely biased summaries (in whatever direction agrees with their existing views).
Irrespective of the original memo, and this is something I've felt more strongly in the past couple years, it's just not safe to share dissenting viewpoints in tech anymore.
We used to be the industry where anything could be discussed critically and the most objectively correct answer could win (logic! science!). Nowadays it's so political and heated, I've found it best to just stay out of the discussion and not share dissenting views anymore. I think the real problem we need to fix is being able to have rational critical discussion around topics we disagree with.
It is not safe to share your viewpoints anywhere where it is not considered germane: and the workplace is high on that list. A firm will fire someone who becomes annoyingly political or who makes a public ass out of themselves on social media. I work for a medium sized tech firm in the American South and we had one engineer that was very open and sometimes combative about her progressive viewpoints and people stopped wanting to talk to her, even those who agreed with her. She didn't last a quarter.
Expecting firms to give their employees a forum to speak openly about anything not work related is a recent phenomenon across the board, and many still hold onto the view that if you want to engage in political discussions then do so outside of the workplace.
But Google does this (Memegen and eng-misc), the problem is that you're only able to speak about certain things and entertain certain opinions...so naturally, conservatives will feel muzzled and want to not go against the dominant culture/power structures
This is not true if only for the fact that organizations have always engaged in politics. In one of the worst cases, the United Fruit Company lobbied the US President to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala. In one of the most benign cases, Subaru sponsored gay pride events and publicly supported LGBT groups in the 1990s.
Besides that, everything else you've said is useless hyperbole. Get your history together before you go spouting nonsense.
> Besides that, everything else you've said is useless hyperbole. Get your history together before you go spouting nonsense.
Why be so hostile? If you want to be a dick to strangers on the internet then piss off back to reddit.
Feel free to point out which of these two statements is useless hyperbole:
> Google is known to be a very left-leaning company
> [Google] talks a big talk about being logic and reason-driven
Everything else I said was conjecture.
I have to wonder if the artificial urgency that social media has created doesn't have something to do with this. Everyone these days wants to be the first to respond, which results in a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. You end up with a giant, unstoppable snowball of knee jerk reactions to other knee jerk reactions rolling down a bottomless hill.
"All hail diversity! But if don't think like we do, GTFO."
I agree that there is a lot of mob mentality going on, it’s just difficult to get upset about this case because the original author was spouting debunked “biotruth” arguments. Twitter replies are mostly full of men who didn’t read the original memo or who are willfully pretending it didn’t claim women are less biologically suited to being engineers.
I like Pichai’s memo and I think it sets the right tone: the offending employee could have raised these same arguments without falling back to debunked stereotypes. He could have done an hour of Googling on the topic and educated himself. Instead he trusted his own feelings in an area he had no experience or knowledge in.
This seems to be a trait relatively common among really smart people: doctors who think they’re good at politics, mechanical engineers who think they’ve discovered a theory that overturns all of physics, or in this case a software engineer that thinks he knows better than thousands of scientists doing experiments and crunching the actual data.
As far as I can tell we can have rational critical discussions in tech - we just can’t get away with spouting nonsense. If that nonsense reinforces old sexist or racist stereotypes then we can expect a backlash.
C.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14956592, where an actual scientist is quoted to say "The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right."
See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... for plenty of good references on the topic.
But generally, I mean, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I don't expect to see peace over this topic any time soon.
He also makes a bunch of unfounded claims that aren't really related to the science. And people argue that because he said a bunch of sciency things that scientists agree are correct, that everything he said was true.
The owners of any business are free to create whatever business environment they want to create. The market is supposed to punish or reward them accordingly.
Really cause that's a boilerplate libertarian argument.
The job market, too, is a market.
The market won't give you the solution you seek; the issue does not impact profitability enough.
Plus, most other companies will refuse to supply goods and services to it lest they feel the backlash of catering to racists.
Not exactly a feasible venture.
See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Coca-Cola#Investm...
Actual experience has proven beyond doubt that boycotts don't work, and even if a company has blood on its hand, their deeds are quickly forgotten.
But you can't bring up the Apartheid and not dig through a huge history of companies, countries and people explicity or implicitly supporting it.
Doesn't justify anything of course but Coca-Cola wasn't the only company doing it
Didn't change much.
> Doesn't justify anything of course but Coca-Cola wasn't the only company doing it
That's my point, though. Plenty of companies have engaged in abhorrent acts, with little meaningful consequences to them. The market is not good at solving these types of problems.
Google is being sued by the Department of Labor for violating a gender discrimination regulation: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pa...
These companies behavior has nothing to do with the free market. It is a response to government regulation.
That said, don't expect the market to give you a solution that's fair to people - the only one you'll get is the one of maximum profitability under implicit rules of the current culture. Those are very much not the same things.
People get easily outraged - which can and does end up with individuals getting hurt - but they also quickly forget and move to next issue. See also the arguments why boycotts generally don't work.
> However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.
He made his continued employment both a social and legal liability. This is a fireable offense even if he was "right".
Also consider this. As part of Google's mandatory diversity training, one is presented with Google's internal research claiming that unconscious bias is real and measurable, and that diversity hiring yields both better individual and group performance. In short, Google feels these programs are scientifically valid. The author claims they aren't, but casually dismisses Google's position without really addressing it. Instead we get an evo-psych Chewbacca defense, phrased in a way that's sure to offend a large number of people. Even if he did that in good faith, it's a colossal mistake at best.
From glancing over the memo I perceive that: women/man are different and men prefer working in engineering. No need to artificially increase percentage of women engineers with incentives. I did not notice any inferior/superior claims.
Being fired for this polite memo? And being characterized as a kind of toxic outcast? - I'm sorry, what have our society and companies become?
Googlers seem to be allowed to do his/her utmost only within a narrow cage of accepted/mainstream borders.
The first, from my perspective, is that it crossed a line that you really have to tread with care when it started talking about "biological IQ". Anyone familiar with the sordid history of eugenics knows that you tread that line really carefully, both because of the sordid history of policy on that sort of thing, the extreme difficulty of separating biological vs. environmental constructs for IQ, and the difficulty of creating a single "IQ test" that measures every single aspect of human intelligence. The quote about "IQ and sex differences" (being something the left ignored) was only supported by a link to conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (which said some things about bias in science grants, but didn't really have anything to say about IQ and sex differences).
This is the point where, to me, the memo went downhill. I am not sure it is the intention (possibly the emphasis was intended to be more the politic), but it is very easy to infer inferior / superior claims at this point, because the whole "IQ and sex differences" thing sort of came out of nowhere.
The other reason it went downhill fast, and unnecessarily so, was because the paper brought in "liberal" vs "conservative" American political dynamics elements. BIG mistake. Any discussion along this line needs to be as apolitical as possible, lest it descend rapidly into toxic left-wing vs. right-wing tribalism territory (as, well, happened). Instead of attempting to skirt around politics, loaded phrases were used, particularly at the end of the memo, like "PC authoritarian", and sourced links typically were op-ed, often with strong bias.
I agree that a lot of the memo is more some of the tribal / "role" paradigms and elements that have been discussed in many sources over time, and there's actually some interesting food for thought in it. I'm not terribly comfortable that what I see as poor communication skills led to the firing. I would not characterize this memo as "polite" though, for the above reasons.
He mentioned this only briefly (a bracketed clause 5 words long) as an example of science that the left ignores, because there does appear to be a difference in IQ between biological sexes [0], with current research suggesting the averages are similar, however there is a higher variation among males, leading to a higher proportion of men at the very high and very low ends of the spectrum.
His comments on this were in no way used to infer one group was superior or more intelligent than the other. He was just pointing out that the left will ignore or deny science when it conflicts with ideology.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...
When Google's AlphaGo beat some famous champions, people were wondering whether Google's program was merely a Go-specific program, or a more general program that learned to play Go.
I would also argue that if you went out and created another test for IQ, it would likely have high iter-rater reliability with IQ, but maybe have rough edges and have less empirical attention than mainstream tests like Ravens Matrices. That has been the history of people trying to make a name for themselves by making another intelligence construct, only to find it has insufficient distinction from IQ.
Afraid of angry, vocal and hysterical internet lynch mobs on social media.
Whoever is most easily offended and cries loudest gets to decide.
Being actually right, or god forbid principled, is clearly a thing of the past.
Please, remind me of a time in the past in which people could actually say whatever they wanted without repercussions.
Oh right, there's no actual time in the history of humanity, with the exception of a select few people whose odious opinions everyone had to tolerate or else.
Strawman.
No, there has probably never been such a time, at least for sufficiently creative uses of 'whatever'.
But that doesn't mean everything is fine, and it doesn't mean freedom of expression and public discourse haven't visibly degraded since, for example, ten or twenty years ago.
But "polite memo" is not how anyone I know would describe this.
Conclusions, particularly conclusions on sensitive subjects, baldly stated without a bunch of qualifiers don't tend to be considered polite.
Sucks, but there it is.
It was a badly structured and badly argued document, and I disagree with most of its factual claims and its policy recommendations. But it in no way was impolite or in violation of Google's code of conduct, unless you think that having that viewpoint inherently makes you in violation and deserving of excommunication.
The reality is impolite is in the eye of the beholder (or culture). And in the Bay Area, that would be considered an impolite way of communicating considering the topic.
I'm not applying a value judgement here.
The one Pichai cited,
>> It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects "each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
> I did not notice any inferior/superior claims.
He said women have a harder time leading. That's a pretty big claim. None of his sources back it up, so it's just his opinion. At best, that makes him a legal risk for Google if he were involved in any hiring or promotional processes.
He said, in the context of Big-5 personality traits [0], that women on average skew higher for 'agreeableness' (a scientifically sound finding that has been replicated in cross-cultural studies), and that high agreeableness leads to having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.
He's not saying women have a harder time at these things, he's saying people with a high agreeableness personality trait have a hard time at these things.
His very next sentence states that while women have higher agreeableness at population-level averages, it would be wrong to just look at averages between genders because there is significant overlap in these traits across genders. However because it is seen by senior management as a problem for women, men with high agreeableness are excluded from training programs designed to help people with things such as negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.
So, he's not saying that women have a harder time leading, he's saying population-level averages in certain personality traits result in women initially being less well equipped to handle certain situations (not that they lack aptitude or ability for it), and that senior management have recognised this and implemented training programs specifically to correct for it, but because these training programs are only for women, they are excluding a large portion of men with the same traits, who are then denied access to similar corrective training.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Yes he does, he says it word for word. He says women, on average, have more of those traits. Then he draws the conclusion that because of these personality differences, that women have a harder time leading. That's not supported by any research he cites.
> So, he's not saying that women have a harder time leading
Yes, he does say that here: "This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."
> he's saying population-level averages in certain personality traits result in women initially being less well equipped to handle certain situations
He specifically cites "leading". And, that claim is not backed by any research.
> senior management have recognised this and implemented training programs specifically to correct for it
That is not in the memo.
* harassment and intimidation
* calling for harasser to be fired
* firing harasser
All three behaviors fall under the broad umbrella of harassment and intimidation. Clearly the first is a fireable behavior, and the last is not a fireable behavior.
The middle one certainly stands somewhere between. I suppose it's possible that if the author was exonerated, the middle group may be deemed as having participated in a firing offense?
That would be interesting research to review publicly. But it also reframes the picture, changing it from "some groups are discriminated against and therefore we need diversity focus" to "we need to start discriminating in order to increase diversity, because this leads to better-performing teams".
> ...we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree—while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct
As if admitting that currently there are no avenues for open discussion on highly controversial topics such as this one or at least none that do not clash with the Code of Conduct.
It's pretty damn simple.
Have you actually read the memo you are criticizing?
It's also not a thing that the author of the memo stated. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14958594
I thought some of his arguments were very weak and, even where he had decent points, he did not make his case in a compelling way. However, I don't think he should have been disciplined and certainly not fired. Those who disagree should refute his arguments.
Sorry, but unless you are some leading researcher in a related field, your "thoughts" doesn't count for much and you should provide cited counter claims to be taken seriously. Without this, it's all just an emotional reaction and doesn't contribute anything of value to a meaningful discussion.
For example, the author of the memo presents some citations to back up the idea that there are biological differences between men and women that might explain why more men than women choose to work in tech. I don't find that idea controversial.
However, none of the citations provide any evidence that the degree of biological difference between the male and female population is sufficient to explain the relative gender balance we see in tech.
I don't need to be an expert to notice the lack of evidence for that part of the argument and conclude that the argument is poorly made.
It is possible that such evidence does exist and I would be interested to see it but that would not change that fact that this memo, with its cited evidence, failed to make that case.
Are these numbers available to public somewhere?
I'm asking because I would dearly want to find comprehensive data. When I've done some of my own research, I have run into sets of studies, which all agree on one thing: more diverse groups get better results. The snag is that these studies disagree - wildly - with the magnitude of the effect. Some claim maybe 2% improvement. Some others claim up to ~30%. Yet others somewhere inbetween.
The figures also fluctuate quite a bit over time. Study from 2008/2009 shows numbers that are almost entirely unrelated to a study from 2014/2015. Some studies claim that gender diversity alone bears very little benefit[ß], and other studies from the same time come out with results that sort of imply you will need cultural diversity for notable results.
But by far the worst piece of news is that the measured and/or recorded numbers appear to be geographically distinct. Results from US studies are different from those in UK, which in turn differ from mainland Europe studies. That only raises more questions. Such as...
- are the numbers consistently different across regions?
- ... across continents?
- ... across cultures?
- what is the measured effect between "just" gender diverse and culturally diverse groups?
- do age groups matter?
... and so on. I genuinely would like to know. (For the record, and you can check this from my earlier posts as well: I am firmly in the camp who believe that diversity is beneficial.)
N.B. The most recent study I know of is the McKinsey report from 2015.[0]
---
ß: I can dig out the research articles if there's interest. I have some of them sort of easily accessible.
0: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-...
But as a developer, my requirements are set by project managers (50% women in my experience), the design and marketing is done by a diverse team, testing is done by other people (or end-users, sigh); so developers are "only" concerned with the actual implementation. Consequently, I don't find it intuitive that more diversity (of gender/ethnicity) would help my team.
Do developers in other companies or countries (Germany here) have wider responsibilities, and thus, diversity is more important? Can engineers at Facebook or Google write user-facing features on a whim? (The terrible mic drop Gmail gimmick comes to mind...) Could that explain the difference in how much teams benefit from diversity?
Sadly no :( - I'm fully aware that the studies in this field mostly focus on financial outcomes, and because they are commissioned by consulting/recruiting agencies, they are of course targeting the management group. That's one of the reasons I would love to see the numbers from Google's internal research.
As for this:
> Most anecdotes I've read about the benefits of diversity boil down to "if only we'd had a <minority> on the team [...]
I am not sure whether I should be offended or merely aghast. From the tone you used, it feels like you have witnessed something more akin box-ticking than strategy, cargo-culting over rationality. I know my reasons are different but I suspect they could be equally selfish.
1. In my experience, women who stay in tech tend to be pretty damn good. Even if we ignored all other factors, it would be rational from purely talent-acquisition point of view to target female engineers in hiring. In addition, women often have greater capacity for empathy and thus can become a force multiplier in practically any team.
2. Constructive arguments from different viewpoints can only make us stronger. Things I am blind to can be spotted by someone else. Things my usual peer group is blind to can be spotted by persons from different peer group(s). But most importantly - things that are obvious to people who share my background can be pointed out and questioned by people whose backgrounds are different.
The thing I, as an engineer, worry about is myopia.
> as a developer, my requirements are set by project managers (50% women in my experience)
That is an interesting observation. Do you think that is due to self-selection or external factors? Also: if PM roles can have a 50/50 gender split, does that mean that women are more likely to seek promotions that lead to PM type positions?
> Do developers in other companies or countries (Germany here) have wider responsibilities, and thus, diversity is more important?
I think it depends less on the country and more on the company [or national?] culture. In engineering driven organisations, definitely. In a rigid hierarchy with nothing-but-top-down approach, probably less so. But then again, in the light of what I know, the latter category should benefit from diversity in their upper management. Where else would the alternate viewpoints come from?
And finally, I'm going to pick this one up separately:
> Consequently, I don't find it intuitive that more diversity (of gender/ethnicity) would help my team.
I'm sorry for you. But also, I am glad that you brought this up. You have just highlighted that MY experience and view of diversity can be irrational or plain odd to someone from a different cultural environment. For that - thank you.
I guess my summary sounded a little harsh. Here's a typical example[1]:
>> When the employees of an organization better represent their users and desired users, they will build more effectively for those groups. When YouTube’s almost entirely right-handed developer team built the iOS app without considering how left-handed people would use it, for example, 5% to 10% of videos were uploaded upside down as a result. This factor may be especially relevant for leaders of consumer tech companies.
I have heard of/read similar anecdotes about various groups of people that certainly have different perspectives, but it always seems extremely anecdotal to me.
This study sounds more promising in my opinion[2]:
>> When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us.
> That is an interesting observation.
I've tried to verify that my experience wasn't a complete outlier; it seems that PMs really have a more balanced gender ratio than engineers: https://www.knowledgetrain.co.uk/resources/careers/women-in-...
> Also: if PM roles can have a 50/50 gender split, does that mean that women are more likely to seek promotions that lead to PM type positions?
...but now I realise that we must work for very different companies/clients. I don't see project management as a promotion from engineering - in my experience, it's a completely separate career path, just like design. Also, since I am a freelancer, my clients' offices are often full of other freelancers, and promotions aren't really a thing.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/07/21/why... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-mak...
Consider this, if diversity hiring yields better individual and group performance then this implies that different races and genders perform better at certain skills, and that taken in aggregate, this leads to measurable performance increases overall at the individual and group level.
After all, if there was no difference across gender or race, then it would make no difference whether you had 100% white male or 100% asian female, or any other combination of different demographics.
I'm sure you have sources that disprove his sources. How about you post them.
It doesn't mean it doesn't exist though, just that we won't get access to it.
It may as well be an argument from authority - because that is what it is. One cannot hide behind "but the data show" and then refuse to show the data. That is not how science works and we shouldn't accept it for a second from anyone.
This is a well-known, well-researched fact of organizational psychology. Are you guys really this stupid? Think about it from a problem-solving perspective, in terms of the solutions individuals and groups will come up with.
Sexism, racism, and discrimination in general doesn't benefit anyone but the wealthiest few, and only if they're really, really stupid.
In order to promote tolerance you have to shut down and remove the people who support intolerance. Firing this guy is clearly in line with that mission and improving productivity.
We learn this in grade school, are you all foreigners or something? Or has American education really been gutted...
Edit: thinking about that, he couldn't have gone far in the company though without some serious apologies or something, because I can't see a manager assigning him to work in or lead a team with women on it, and that's 1/3rd the company. Maybe it's also a practical decision to fire him and be done with it even if it didn't leak.
The difference between having the freedom to speak one's mind, and breaching a code of conduct that you sign when you agree to work for Google is clear cut in his note.
For all intents and purposes the content of the memo was balanced, polite, and restricted to the Google audience. The adult reaction should have been to punish the leaker (which I believe should be an actual breach of the code of conduct) and organize internal debates to allow multiple viewpoints to confront.
Rallying with the hysterical mass and shutting down the minority voice is certainly not about supporting debates and free speech. It's about throwing red meat to the wolves so the company can quietly solve its all too real gender pay gap issues without making too much PR waves.
>being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? And he assumed he wouldn’t suffer any consequences for claiming 1/3 of his coworkers were meek easily spooked neurotics?
Go and actually read the original memo at https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso.... Which, for this particular point, links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism (see in particular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences). From which you can access about a metric fuck ton of actual research.
We can't expect to have any reasonable discussion on the topic if the standard of criticism is not reading the piece one is criticizing, and then stating obvious falsehoods (like "didn’t bother to do any research") as facts - probably hoping other readers also won't bother checking.
EDIT:
Also:
> Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint...
Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion.
Stop it - you are being extraordinarily deceptive with statements like this. Did you actually read this memo? And I mean read it critically? Are these quotes falsifiable statements?
"These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics."
Didn't see a citation for that. Care to cite the evidence? Can we prove that this assertion is true or false?
"This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."
Would love to read your citation for anxiety leading to lower number of women in high stress jobs.
"Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them."
Again, I'd love to see some evidence showing that the desire for work life balance is the reason that men disproportionately in leadership positions in tech.
Stop pretending that just because the author has sources that his conclusions are supported. His argument was poor. Anyone with reasonable reading comprehension could see that, politics be damned.
Neuroticism is an actual measurable thing and the research seems to indicate that women typically measure about half a standard deviation above men on it.
I honestly didn't know this before but it seems like when he's making these claims he's using objective research that finds these things across cultures.
>> being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
> Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance.
Pichai seems to think that "neurotic" is an insult. Turns out it's just part of an established model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
He used internal messaging services. Someone leaked the document. That "someone" is sitting in his/her office today getting no punishment whatsoever.
Is it enough for some people to consider it that?
Consider gay marriage. Each side thinks the other is being bigoted towards some group. Do we just take people's words for it?
This only leads to people getting increasingly sensitive over increasingly minor things and it's a vicious circle.
So how do we break it? How do we re-establish open discourse?
The message here seems abundantly clear and I have trouble understanding how it can miscontrued to be anything other than reacting to a clear violation. I can't even think of how to restate what is so clearly laid out in the note.
I wouldn't rule out the potential that there is uneven enforcement of such violations, and that would make this action look questionable. But I don't know enough about Google's internal operations to get to that conclusion.
When a murderer is sentenced for murder... there are 2 levels of understanding the sentencing. One is that he broke the "code of conduct"/law, the deeper is why we consider that to be unlawful (societal harm).
Saying he clearly broke the code of conduct just shifts the question to how useful the code of conduct is.. its not some fucking holy unbreakable scripture from the sky, its man made, just as the firing is.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I'll even stick with your example in asking - is murdering someone a good way to start debating the "why" of the law against murder?
There are certainly examples where breaking the law proves to be a powerful and effective way to start the conversation. But how often does this hold true when breaking the law causes real harm to others? I doubt the answer is "never", but I can't come up with any argument for how this applies to the current situation.
Anyways my main point was the breach of code of conduct is just the technical reason he was fired. If you read the line item he was fired for, its clear its vague enough to be used many many different ways. I don't think its productive to focus on whether he broke some rule somewhere when the whole situation that led to the firing is known to us.
I think it is certainly a very fine line to walk and people (including Google employees) will definitely see it in a lot of different ways. But, reading this as an outsider, the note appears to me to address the situation very directly and conveys a real sense of urgency (more so than I have ever seen from any of my employers, at least).
"many points raised in the memo ... are important topics."
So what? Other points were a violation of the CoC. Goodbye, good luck, see you around the campus!
At every company in the world. You aren't seriously expecting a company code of conduct to be applied fairly in some sort of scientifically measurable way? The code of conduct is there to protect against the worst types of behavior, and plenty of bad behavior will slip under the radar. So what? It's not meant to create some sort of utopian workplace. It's meant to create a better workplace for those who have historically been discriminated against. So far, it looks like it has come in handy at least once in a very public way.
It should be. If violating the CoC has no consequences then there should be no CoC in the first place.
The CoC makes it clear that some actions and some types of speech are entirely unwelcome at the company.
The memo also makes it clear that if you have a minority viewpoint that does not violate the CoC, then you should be encouraged to express those viewpoints. It even gave specific examples of the parts of the original memo that do not violate the CoC.
This is problematic since the toxic effect of uncertainty and ideological supression at the work place is not mitigated by it being produced through arbitrary executives or an executives arbitrary interpretation of some given code of conduct.
edit: If the purpose of the code of conduct is to create this uncertainty, than that alone should be reason enough for the code to be improved.
edit2: And of course, this specific code of conduct did not generate the legitimicy it should have created, which is why we are talking about this incidence.
What's confusing or unclear about that? It's crystal clear to me that Google prioritizes a workplace free of harassment over your individual ideology. If your ideology makes other employees feel harassed or intimidated, you'll have to leave your ideology at home.
And if you're not clever enough to understand that a statement in a widespread memo like "women, on average, have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)" could cause one gender to feel intimidated or harassed, then perhaps you're not clever enough to work at Google.
Science is not an ideology or opinion; in a diverse environment, reasonable positions are disputed by arguments, not power play.
Exercising an executive bias to intimidate the employees into subscribing to a specific ideology is nothing this code of conduct were able to prevent. The coc could not perform worse measured by it's own goal.
It's no service to any code of conduct intention if a code of conduct is treated as some chilling orthodoxy that is used to prevent a communities open dialogue and self awareness.
"Women, on average, have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)." isn't a reasonable position at Google, or any other big company. If for no other reason, to protect the company from being sued for gender discrimination.
Neither are any of the following statements reasonable:
"Blacks on average are... [insert some negative]".
"Jews on average are... [insert some negative]".
If an employee can't figure that out, you should fire them with zero hesitation. Open dialogue at a place of employment has many limits, and it will never be the top priority. If you say something that offends enough other employees, you're going to get fired, and that's not going to change no matter who you work for.
Intimidating is a strong word for this, I think. I would call it intimidating if the original memo was a challenge to the code of conduct, as opposed to a violation of it.
Either way, I agree that other employees could see this as intimidation and that makes the whole situation much more complex. I suppose that ultimately I would not stand 100% in defense of the course of action, but I am also not grabbing my pitchfork over it.
If it's so clear, then could you specify exactly which parts of the memo were "fair to debate" (as Pichai says) and which part were "clear violation?"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
Which part did he break exactly? Bias? Seems like something that can be construed to mean basically any ideology or opinion, conservative or liberal.
Saying diversity training sucks, or that Google should re-evaluate how they encourage diversity, or that men are getting a raw deal, would have been tolerable.
What about that they are inherently less interested in football?
Culture plays an effect, but we really need to realize that biology probably pays a role too, and potentially affects gender parities in many careers.
Oh wait, maybe I don't agree with you...
However, that does not give licence to Google to place unreasonable limits on employees constitutional rights.
To do so would give privately entered contracts the power to overturn the constitution which society has enacted.
The debate here is over whether his comments were reasonable in this context.
They compared a Trump hat at Google is the equivalent of walking in to (a presumably hardcore) biker bar in Iowa. That's a pretty damning response, even if they meant the opposite.
It's all fake altruistic bullshit marketing/PR/corporate speak. It's just modern advertising and branding.
And they try to one-up each other so you just get bombarded with this happy-language about all of these beautiful non-monetary things that they somehow seem to care so much about.
These poses are just "corporate white lies". They are not meant to be tested.
It's similar to companies saying things "we are like a family".
And that is the adult version of "your dog has gone to the farm for a while".
It's crap fed to you to distract you from the brutal reality so your resources can be extracted more smoothly for longer.
Hear it, but don't believe it.
On another note, I watched the 100m men's final this Saturday and noticed white men are worse at running than black men. Would that be racist towards whites if the stats were confirming my opinion?
The Google code of conduct is pretty clear. It is a primary duty of every employee to actively create an environment where others don't feel harassed or intimidated. If your science fact harasses or intimidates others, then science loses in that case and the code of conduct, and a harmonious workplace, wins. Google has a set of values, and priorities, and those might not be your priorities but you have the choice of working elsewhere if you feel those values don't line up with your own.
Science and facts aren't the end all. I know plenty of folks who are super smart, know a tons of facts, and are miserable people to work with. I would never hire them, or join a company where they work.
But at least own up to what you are.
I do not believe that the author of the memo ever wrote anything like that. I'm not sure that you should equate all research scientists who published on gender/sex differences with nazis.
Well, that escalated quickly[0].
Maybe men are slightly better at something and maybe women are slightly better at other things - why is this an issue? Clearly the difference is not remotelly big enough to be impactful since we see men and women work in every profession. Average worker skill is pretty low so this "genetic advantage" would only really matter at top 0.1% of professionals.
e.g. women are worse at some sports like Tennis, but to most people it will never matter since only few people play at that level where genetics can give you an edge.
That's like me not acknowledging that a black athlete has a genetic advantage over me that would make a difference if we were competing at the 0.1% top level.
I think Google's action is not a right or wrong approach, it's a measure of maintaining order and keeping everybody 'happy'.
> All of these traits which the manifesto described as “female” are the core traits which make someone successful at engineering
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
How is it ok to push a gender stereotype that is pro-female but not ok if the stereotype is pro-male?
Your appeal to authority is pretty transparent... While the original memo author's work with various strains of yeast is indeed interesting, I'm not sure how it's relevant to the topic at hand...
An argument should stand on its own merits, not on a piece of paper on the author's wall.
> making people feel bad at their job is inappropriate (even though the memo did no such thing)
Say you've got red hair and someone sent a memo around saying that they'd heard that everyone with red hair was more of a fuzzy people person than a real coder. Would you agree that people with red hair may well feel targeted?
Doesn't sound like a claim that women naturally possess these skills to me.
> At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.
Good luck with that. You can't take a guy out back and shoot him for speaking his mind, and subsequently expect others do so.
I'm certain Google management knows this as well. They know exactly what they're doing and they're fine with it.