The point is, many people feel very bad at the thought that the distribution you mention exists. Some feel it's not something inherent and can be changed.

> Some feel it's not something inherent and can be changed.

That's a fair position. But it's not an indisputable position, clearly. The biggest issue here isn't about whether there are fair points against the google manifesto. It's about whether thoughts, hypotheses, and opinions like this are harmful and punishable.

> ...many people feel very bad...

And many people feel bad that someone expressed himself earnestly in good faith and has been treated this way. Do we decide where to go from here from how people feel? How do we decide which feelings are important to us?

I think he was fired because he offended people in the company (with his opinions). If this is the case they should fire everybody because someone is going to be offended by the opinions of others. I found very stupid what google did without taking some time to analyse what happened and the consequences. The research community is turning against google with this type of articles now.

Nobody asked for his opinion, though. You arent required to voice your opinions. He shared his thoughts and now he deals with the reactions. Just like he is entitled to his opinions, those of others should be respected. Thats life. He was treat horribly? Who initiated the treatment? He did with his 10 page write-up.

> Who initiated the treatment? He did with his 10 page write-up.

No, the person or persons that leaked it to the press did that.

Will google go on a witch hunt to fire all those people too? Likely not...

> Nobody asked for his opinion, though.

I though google was an open company when anyone can raise a concern when they feel like. It is what the CEO said after firing him probing that the company is not that open.

He send the manifest to a select closed group of people, not all the company. But it got leaked. You can blame him and you can also blame all the people who get angry with his opinions, because his intention was to improve the company not hurting people.

The more important point is, that when people feel strongly about something, facts presented that counter their opinion trigger cognitive dissonance. That's why nearly everyone I follow on Twitter was complaining about a memo (usually calling it a manifesto) that had little to nothing to do with the one I read.

I want to take your example one step further to see if I understand what you are implying.

If you select all persons from groups A and B that pass a certain threshold, then you will have a smaller number of A than B. Let's say the split is 40% A and 60% B.

We then analyze the population at our company and find we have 7% A and 93% B. Does this mean the company has a bias towards B, and needs to take special action to search for more A candidates to bring the ratio closer to 40/60?

It's not a question of "diversity", just an optimal hiring algorithm - the company is not utilizing a pool of hireable people in a time of scarcity, and its in their best interest to source more from that pool.

Of course the math gets more complicated when the supply of A is drastically different than the supply of B.

> Does this mean the company has a bias towards B, and needs to take special action to search for more A candidates to bring the ratio closer to 40/60?

Without more information maths says you probably have a bias. I am assuming your company is big enough and the pool of candidates represents the 40/60.

I not sure I understood your point, can you explain it more?

Bringing it back to the manifesto: he used the gender difference as an argument against special programs to hire more women, but this should only apply if Google has already achieved the optimal ratio.

His argument is moot if Google still does need further optimization in its gender ratios. I don't know what the real-world ratio is for this problem, but it appears the author of the manifesto doesn't either?

His argument was that given A and B they were choosing B because is a woman, regardless of the skills for the position. Some people here also say the gender diversity programs in google are only for sourcing people, that the hiring process is the same (in which case the author of the doc is wrong in his assumptions).

Also another argument from him was that 50/50 is impossible to achieve and if you do you are being unfair and lowering the bar for one of the classes.

The real ratio in unknown, but some people here commented that you can get some approximation taking into account the graduates, the statistics about the applications etc. But for sure the ratio is not going to be 50/50 and positive discrimination is still discrimination.

So, as you said, if you don't know the real ratio why do you have positive discrimination policies? You might be doing it wrong. I think this is the discussion he wanted to bring, review the diversity programs because they can harm the company creating an artificial proportion far from the reality. Given that some other actions could be made like adding more "female skills" to the positions for example. Instead of starting a discussion of this issues based on his biological theory most people pointed at him as a sexits and other stuff. And Google shut him up firing him. So now noone will raise any concern because you can be fired.

To sum up: the big issue is that they are not having the conversation we are having here now, regardless of who is right or wrong.

The on-site Google interview process has 2 steps. The first is the usual, get grilled by 4/5 engineers on technical issue, that is broken up by a lunch with hiring manager in the middle. The feedback from interviews are submitted with candidate application to a hiring committee, whom makes a hire/no-hire decision.

Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female/minority candidates and compensate accordingly? In essence, giving the said candidate more benefit of the doubt than male/Asian candidates? All candidate passed the technical bar, but may be treated differently based on their ethnicity/gender at the hiring committee, with preference for minority/female candidates.

I know how is the process from the external point of view, but, what is the feedback they submit? Here is where the bias of the hiring process could be (like only considering skills more likely to be in men).

> Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female/minority candidates and compensate accordingly?

I don't know, and I would want to know how the really work. One girl here commented she was hired by one of this programs, so at least I know the candidate know he/she is in on of this programs when they apply. Other girl commented that she heard in one of her interviews (I don't know the company): "+1 point because you are a girl and diversity make us pay less taxes". I wouldn't be surprised if something like this also happens internally at Google. A googler also said the hiring process is the same for everybody, but giving the evidence of the document I don't think is exactly the same.

I cannot say more. I do not have more information. If you find it, let me know.

I would like to sit in one of those hiring committee meetings too, or read a transcription. Anyway, I believe Google gets so many qualified candidate that, just like Ivy League colleges, it has lots of leeway on who to hire/reject without affecting quality of their engineers in any measurable way.

You are missing the trees for the forest. Your argument is on individual skills in a distribution within a gender. Have you considered how gender distribution within a team may affect productivity? This is the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Even if we hire more of group B and we end up with a lower average of a particular skill in the team, if productivity goes up as a result, then it is still a good hiring practice.

The memo, and your argument, is all about summing the parts instead of measuring the whole.

First your comment of missing the trees for the forest didn't add anything to the discussion.

1) If you hire more from group B other company cannot hire them. So you will have imbalance in another place. You don't solve the problem but move it to another company.

2) Skills usually are related. If you need some set of skills for a position I don't see how not having them is going to increase the productivity.

3) I never said we are assigning the right skills to the positions. I strongly believe that we should have more "female" skills in more tech positions because they add value and we are not doing it now.

4) When you are not good at one skill you don't want to have a position where that skill is valuated. You are happy working in positions that fit the skills you have. This fact decrease the number of women that want go into tech because they don't like it. We can solve this if we add more "female" skills to tech positions and learn to assess everybody by their skills even when they are different.

1) Are you saying there aren't enough qualified women to hire? I agree. Hiring more women then creates competition which would increase their pay and make their jobs more attractive to more women. What's the problem?

2-4) I get the feeling we're probably on the same side but maybe arguing for it differently. I think tech positions already need "female" skills (however sexist that may sound) but we just ignore it in favor of programming abilities as if we all work in silos. That's just my opinion.

> Hiring more women then creates competition which would increase their pay and make their jobs more attractive to more women.

Women are one of the groups you can hire. Salaries would only increase if you force the companies to have a higher number of women that they are really are (supply/demand).

> I think tech positions already need "female" skills (however sexist that may sound) but we just ignore it in favor of programming abilities as if we all work in silos.

Exactly this. What I am saying is that the solution might be to put those skills in written for those job positions and taking them into account in the hiring process. I think we are not doing it now. Also creating programs to teach everybody that other skills are also valuable for the job, and not because we don't have them we should under valuate who have them. I think something like this was the goal of the person who wrote the doc, but unlikely us, they fired him before open a discussion like we are doing now. In the first comments it seemed that we were having different opinions and look now, it wasn't really the case.

Sorry for the "female skills" sentence. I only wanted to explain it in an easy way. Those skills I refer like empathizing or social skills are more frequent in women but they are in men too.

EDIT: to make clear my position about the salaries: same position = same salary (no discussion here, if you want different salaries justify that person should be in a different position with more/less salary)