True, but what's troubling isn't that he was fired, it's that the memo got leaked, caused a bunch of controversy and basically forced Google to take a position on whether they want to discuss this stuff. Yes, one guy getting fired for sending out something inflammatory and critical isn't a huge deal (although I would have expected Google to be more tolerant), it's the fact that it went public and then when Google had to make a public statement deciding whether to fire him or not they chose "we don't think these ideas should be discussed".