Maybe my remark is down to earth but, she literally told her group to stop working. I do not know of any company where this is an acceptable behavior for a manager. Besides the disagreements, it sounds to me that was the action that caused Google to pull the trigger.
Also from Dean's email it is pretty clear there are a number of new products down the pipe based on AI. At one point top management decided the company should stop denigrating its own products.
Yes she was. Even the letter communicating to her the termination of employment made it fairly explicit that she was being terminated on terms different than what Google interpreted her resignation to be, due to the internal mail.
It's clear that for external PR purposes Google wants to maintain the story that it was merely accepting her resignation, but while clearly worded with the intent that an incomplete reading would support the narrative, the letter to her fairly directly (and unusually for a case where they viewed themselves as accepting a resignation) mad explicit that employment was being terminated, immediately, based on separate grounds from the supposed resignation.
On the other hand, I guess making it explicit that she was being fired for public internal complaints about a culture of discrimination is one way (like, the worst way possible, but one way) of making the case that what happened to Damore wasn't discrimination against white men, but just what they do to any internal criticism of Google culture.
Where did you read that?
in the email shown,she told a listserv called "Women and Allies" to stop writing docs that are an attempt to better the situation in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion as writing those docs are like pissing in the wind in her opinion
We don't know the full list of demands, but Jeff Dean shared one demand that people may find unreasonable. Other demands may have been much more reasonable, but those weren't shared.
Timnit is far from silent. She could share them if she wanted to. She appears to think that that would hurt rather than help her.
The financial implications of her resigning vs her being fired are probably significant.
In Google's place I'd probably negotiate an agreement with a non-disparagement clause. She'd be compensated and everyone would save face.
And we'd never be discussing this. She could take other research roles and advance the state of AI in peace.
Maybe someone could post it here when it's published?
Gonna have to wait and see I guess.
As such, I find it really quite baffling that someone would be unwilling to share that scientific feedback with her, or who raised it.
I remembered your comment here, so I came back to post this, for what it's worth.
I'm still not entirely sure what to think.
The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this:
> A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it has been decided” that you need to retract this paper by next week, Nov. 27, the week when almost everyone would be out (and a date which has nothing to do with the conference process). You are not worth having any conversations about this, since you are not someone whose humanity (let alone expertise recognized by journalists, governments, scientists, civic organizations such as the electronic frontiers foundation etc) is acknowledged or valued in this company.
> Then, you ask for more information. What specific feedback exists? Who is it coming from? Why now? Why not before? Can you go back and forth with anyone? Can you understand what exactly is problematic and what can be changed?
> And you are told after a while, that your manager can read you a privileged and confidential document and you’re not supposed to even know who contributed to this document, who wrote this feedback, what process was followed or anything. You write a detailed document discussing whatever pieces of feedback you can find, asking for questions and clarifications, and it is completely ignored. And you’re met with, once again, an order to retract the paper with no engagement whatsoever.