I recently re-read Noah Smith's essay "Leaders Who Act Like Outsiders Invite Trouble" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-03/leader.... It's not directly on point, but one concept is: "This extraordinary trend of rank-and-file members challenging the leaders of their organizations goes beyond simple populism. There may be no word for this trend in the English language. But there is one in Japanese: gekokujo." And later, "The real danger of gekokujo, however, comes from the establishment’s response to the threat. Eventually, party bosses, executives and other powerful figures may get tired of being pushed around."

Institutions are being pushed by the Twitter mob, and by the Twitter mob mentality, even when the person is formally within the institution. And I think we're learning, or going to have to re-learn, things like "Why did companies traditionally encourage people to leave politics and religion at the door?" and "What's the acceptable level of discourse within the institution, before you're not a part of it any more?"

Colleges are inculcating an environment and culture that may not be good for working in large groups. One recent example of these challenges: https://quillette.com/2020/12/01/race-and-social-panic-at-ha....

I've seen gekokujo in many places as a manager. There's often a desire among employees to require the world to adjust to how they think it should work instead of following process. This isn't always bad, of course, because process isn't always perfect. However, their success or failure tend to correlate to their perceived value. Simply put, you have to be a diva in order to act like a diva. I think the last puppeteer for Kermit is a great example[1].

No idea if that's happened here, but as a manager I know what I'd do if an employee -- any employee -- told me to to meet their demands or they would quit.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/muppets-studio-says-k...

The last thing I would ever want is to model corporate culture after Japan, one of the worst corporate cultures on the planet.

Gekokujō doesn't refer to Japanese corporate culture at all, but rather the attempted coups and going rogue by junior officers in the Japanese military of the 1920s and 1930s (for example, conquering Manchuria against orders of the senior officers).

> There may be no word for this trend in the English language. But there is one in Japanese: gekokujo.

Isn't the word "mutiny"?

More like coup d'état, or an underdog victory. Author doesn't seem to be using it right, since this would be an actual shift in power, rather than a failed insurgency (as in OP).

Or insubordination.

> And I think we're learning, or going to have to re-learn, things like "Why did companies traditionally encourage people to leave politics and religion at the door?" and "What's the acceptable level of discourse within the institution, before you're not a part of it any more?"

And yet, decades ago, when labour had real power and unions were a force in the economy, we had no problems with labour driving change within organizations.

I think what we're seeing now is what happens when individuals are disenfranchised from the political process and labour has no way to organize to drive broader change: individuals, frustrated with their lack of power, speak out and there is retaliation. And where there is a lack of organization, this anger has no focus and what you see is a chaotic lashing out.

I think the same is true of populism in general: when you render individuals powerless you prime them to be welcoming to the populist who promises to fight for them.

Is that an excuse for either Gebru or Google's behaviour, here, specifically? I have no idea. None of us have enough of the details to really understand what happened.

But the idea that labour shouldn't challenge leadership, or that the public in general shouldn't challenge the establishment, is a product of decades of union busting and concentration of power in the political class that we shouldn't accept just because it's become the status quo.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't individuality a good thing, in general?

I'm not applying this to Gebru vs Google, as in this specific case, we don't have enough evidence to know what exactly happened.

While I don't like the Twitter mob per se, the idea that a person within an institution cannot publicly criticize the institution is ridiculous. Rank-and-file members should be able to challenge the leaders. The employers can already fire employees for almost any arbitrary reason. Don't like the way a subordinate talks about you? Fire the person.

Colleges promote (or should promote) independent thinking. Independent thinking makes it necessary that employees might disagree with the employer. Is that good for the efficiency of the company? Hard to say. But to say the society must cultivate a culture of obeisance such that people can work for companies better is upside-down. Companies should be built to favor independent thinkers.

I agree with your point that companies should provide more room for individualism, but there have to be some kind of boundaries and recognition that you are part of a team.

It seems like more and more that emboldened employees don't think there is any limit to what they should be able to say/do in a company context, which is a huge problem. If you want individualism to that degree, you need to be in business for yourself. If you take a job at a company, you're implicitly conceding some of that individualism.

The next two tweets contain more:

> However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.

> As a result, we are accepting your resignation immediately, effective today. We will send your final paycheck to your address in Workday. When you return from your vacation, PeopleOps will reach out to you to coordinate the return of Google devices and assets.

This third part they make "the resignation" the same as firing the person in practice. No way to plan a coordinated rampdown, transition and handover of projects and responsibilities. Just an unconditional goodbye, don't come to work again.

No, this is more like giving two weeks' notice and then being asked to leave the building immediately. It's not pleasant but it also isn't the same as being fired. Google called her bluff here.

But she didn't ask for two weeks' notice. She signaled she was considering giving notice but had not done so yet.

She said, "If you can't meet these conditions, I will resign effective <XY date>." Google said, "We can't meet these conditions, we accept your resignation and move it to <much earlier date>."

No, she didn't say that.

She said she may set a date in the future for her resignation.

That is non-committal and non-specific. Your characterization is inaccurate.

People will have to find the source document, which to the best of my knowledge is not public (note, not the message to Women and Allies), read it, and then reach their own conclusions.

I stand by my characterization. She characterizes it herself thusly:

"I said here are the conditions. If you can meet them great I’ll take my name off this paper, if not then I can work on a last date."

https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334341991795142667

I think this is a major source of confusion in this whole conversation. There is clearly a follow up conversation between Timnit and some manager(s) (the name Megan is mentioned) in which this ultimatum was proffered.

That's not clear to me, nor apparently to most people who are interpreting this situation.

> I can work on a last date

...is both non-committal and non-specific. What are you seeing that everyone else is not?

> No, she didn't say that.

Citation needed. Gebru could publish it — she's not exactly silent — but chooses not to.

It's perfectly reasonable to think that someone hiding something has something to hide.

There is obviously a legal minefield here already. I think it is disingenuous to put that burden of proof on her at this stage.

The Bloomberg model! You put in your two weeks notice and you have two hours to leave the building and never come back.

Without the specific wording of the original email, I don't think that you can draw this conclusion.

I'll note also that this is rather unusual practice for Google. There are a number of people, far more critical of Google, who have resigned, and who have been able to rampdown for 2+ weeks.

The posted email specifically says something about behavior not expected of her position. So it seems possible if you are critical, but fulfill your obligations, they would accept your 2 weeks resignation.

Is there an example you have, even self-reported, of a person who was merely critical of Google and was not given a rampdown? Or someone who was critical and did not fulfill their job obligations, and was given a rampdown?

Being critical is fine. Brad Fitzpatrick wasn't fired for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY and Google still hosts that piece of (legitimate!) criticism.

> The posted email specifically says something about behavior not expected of her position.

Yes, and its unclear what this behavior was.

> Is there an example you have, even self-reported, of a person who was merely critical of Google and was not given a rampdown?

No, which is my point. This is unusual behavior on the part of Google, because it's not explained (and certainly not obvious) what the failure was.

> Yes, and its unclear what this behavior was.

The email clearly states: "certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager"

> No, which is my point.

No, that is the opposite of your point. You said that people critical of Google have been given a rampdown, so it is unusual for her to not be given a rampdown. My point was that there may be other reasons for her not being given a rampdown - that being exactly what was in the email shared about her not behaving as a manager. If you think that she was fired solely for being critical and not given a rampdown, then there should be other examples of people being fired without a rampdown for merely being critical.

Yes, and having read the email, I will reiterate my assertion that it is "certainly not obvious" what behavior is being characterized as "inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager". Repeating the vague justification message is not a response to criticism of the vague justification message. The email she was fired for (it's quoted in this thread) does not contain any content that I find to be fireable.

> No, that is the opposite of your point.

No, it's exactly my point. The vague justification is not borne out by any evidence.

I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the email from google management. Presumably it wasn't to lay out a case so that the email could be leaked and twitter could understand their rationale. It was just telling her the reason they are not letting her take her last 2 weeks. She still gets paid, she just can't come into the office. I don't understand why you think that email should be convincing evidence to you, an outsider who has absolutely zero to do with the employment contract between Timnit and Google. Surely, Timnit and relevant parties at Google have more context than you or I do.

> The vague justification is not borne out by any evidence.

...that's been leaked onto twitter.

I think this isn't nearly so bad as forcing an early termination of two weeks notice.

I had a job pretty recently, was senior tech and was eager to please, which ended up meaning having to take the hard/after hours calls no one else wanted to handle. It also meant I eventually became the only on-call tech for over 4 months straight. This in turn meant I knew the most about all of our accounts, knew the most about their systems, scheduling for jobs as well as subcontractors, I handled it all, right down to installing the CCTV systems at our new location, single handedly.

When I decided I'd had enough of being taken advantage of and being lied to, I gave my two weeks notice.

They assumed I was going to work for a competitor (I wasn't I was taking some much needed personal time), and they fired me on the spot. While walking me out they also informed me that since they had my resignation letter if I tried to claim unemployment they would use it to claim I had resigned. I didn't care as I wasn't in need of unemployment I was just even happier now about leaving. They were rude, talked down to me and belittled me all the way out.

2 hours after I left the calls began 'how do we' 'how does this' 'this job's permits' 'how do we log into'. I politely told them to fuck off. They even went so far as to have other workers call/text me asking the same questions ver batim.

I will never again give 2 weeks notice unless I have in writing they must give me 2 weeks notice upon release for any reason other than something illegal.

This person offered an ultimatum and their employer made a choice. I just don't think its as bad as early termination of 2 weeks notice.

The usual practice is to give 2 weeks notice, you get escorted out immediately, and you get paid for those 2 weeks. It's technically not early termination as you're still getting paid.

There's no reason to be rude, talk down, belittle, however.

I've read this a lot, but in the four jobs I left i was never escorted out the door when I gave my notice. Maybe it depends on the role, but I've always stayed out my 2-4 week notice period and spent the time wrapping up my tasks, writing documentation, doing exit interviews, etc.

Did you get paid for those 2 weeks? If not then I would say you got fired.

After those 2 weeks, if the employer still wants help/answers then they should expect to pay a very very expensive hourly rate. :D

As an employer, it makes a lot of sense to accelerate someone out the door that has given notice. That said, you still want them on the hook to answer questions so you should send them home but pay them for those 2 weeks (or however long).

I really think you missed an opportunity to come back as a paid consultant.

I just want to say I love this comment. It would have taken a negative situation and turned it into a possible win-win scenario.

I tend to agree, but the following paragraphs suggest that had she not resigned she might have found herself on the wrong end of some sort of disciplinary process:

> However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.

> As a result, we are accepting your resignation immediately, effective today. We will send your final paycheck to your address in Workday. When you return from your vacation, PeopleOps will reach out to you to coordinate the return of Google devices and assets.

Her resignation certainly gave Google an easy out of all that hassle, but would I call this a firing? Perhaps not.

If you're the employer you have to figure that if somebody's pissed off enough to (i) sue you whilst employed by you, (ii) write that kind of message to others working in their function or group, and (iii) now they've delivered an ultimatum you're unable or unwilling to meet, they're only going to cause more trouble if you make them work their notice period.

If it were me in her boss's position I'd have got her out the door as fast as possible.

Have “#1 and #2” been published? I don’t see them at the link above or anywhere else.

One of them is in the updated article with Jeff Dean's response:

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback.

> Is accepting a resignation the same as firing someone?

No. No COBRA benefits and usually no severance. Also the employee is not eligible for unemployment benefits.

I'm pretty sure if you resign you're still entitled to access the employers' health plan via COBRA? (Distinct issue from whether, as part of a severance package, the company agrees to pay for some/all of it)

Accepting a resignation means Google doesn't have to pay unemployment benefits. But ultimately, it was their choice to let her go. And the immediateness of the decision and revocation of all access smells like how you treat an employee you're firing.

Having conditions is often part of a negotiation. Maybe they offered to resign in that email, but Timnit Gebru does not say she did in the linked twitter as far as I can tell.

Unless she formally offer to resign it seems like her management jumped the gun.

From this tweet: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334343577044979712

> I said here are the conditions. If you can meet them great I’ll take my name off this paper, if not then I can work on a last date.

To employers, that qualifies as a conditional resignation.

I read that, not clear without reading the email whether it was a formal offer to resign.

If an employee tells their boss they have a plan to offer a resignation on x day or do not get y or are considering it they can fire the employee before then, but I assume they can not push around the day they offer a resignation.

An employer not wanting to keep an employee who might soon resign is understandable of course.

I am sure it can get fiddly on what counts as a formal offer to resign and that courts make calls one way or another based on ambiguous language.

Without the email though it's not clear to me. For better or worse it comes across as Timnit Gebru bosses were eager to shoo her out the door though.

This isn’t having a beer with your buddies and spitballing plans. If you email your employer saying give me this or I resign, the employer can accept your resignation simply by saying no to your conditions. It’s grade school logic. They called her bluff and that’s why she’s salty about it. She signaled her intention to resign and due to her behavior with her reports, Google doesn’t want more of that on her way out so she got cut loose immediately.

> If you email your employer saying give me this or I resign

If it's that clear cut it's that clear cut. Without the email I can not tell.

Timnit Gebru said she "hadn't resigned" and "had asked for simple conditions". So according to her the intent to resign was not in her email.

https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334341991795142667

It's possible to not have the intent and still word something as a clear cut formal offer to resign however. With out the email it is not possible to tell where this falls.

Email from Google here[0] and corroboration from Jeff Dean here[1]:

"Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google."

[0] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364732480958467?s... [1] https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

What is missing and would make it clearer where things fall is the email from Timnit to Jeff.

Then the language used by Timnit could analyzed and reasoned through to determine if it counts as a formal offer to resign or not.

I not jumping on any bandwagons without at least that or equivalent.

>I not jumping on any bandwagons without at least that or equivalent.

Which is exactly why she has refrained from releasing it throughout this whole drama: plausible deniability.

> Which is exactly why she has refrained from releasing it throughout this whole drama: plausible deniability.

I do not think there is evidence for that. It is normal to remove employee access to email if they are leaving so it is unlikely Timnit would have access to the email to share.

Timnit says says she has been cut off from her corp account as well: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364734418726912

The employer can't modify the specifics of the resignation by "moving it up", since that's not what the conditional resignation offered. They can fire her, sure, but they can't call it "resignation". You can't "resign" someone, but you can ask for their immediate resignation. If it's not voluntary, it's firing.

> The employer can't modify the specifics of the resignation

You say this, yet I have seen it done many times.

Of course not being a lawyer of any sort, I don't know. Is there a reference for your claim?

Jeff's email is in line with what I have seen done elsewhere, and given the high profile of the incident, I'd be shocked if legal hadn't been consulted on the wording.

Wife says to her programmer husband, "Go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, buy a dozen."

Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread.

Most software engineers can read the above joke, and laugh at themselves, then go ahead and upvote your comment not realizing that it is EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Employee: "This is extremely important to me. If you can't address what is important to me, then I can't work here anymore"

Google: "OK, thanks for your resignation".

This is not okay. Google is "technically correct" - but it is appalling behavior that should make every Googler shake with discomfort.

Employees are people. People can get dissatisfied. Frustrated. Angry. Sure, you can say companies don't owe anything to anyone because there is at-will employment.

But the reality is unless we want to live in a dystopia, people should be allowed to voice concerns and anger and frustrations, and not be fired for making things uncomfortable or inconvenient.

The joke is a pretty good one, but what's the supposed parallel with the scenario at hand? There is a meaningful interpretation of "buy a dozen" that the wife intended to convey but the programmer fails to notice (because he lacks common-sense knowledge about typical purchase volumes of different items and/or is blinded by the parallelism of "buy a... if <condition>, buy a..."). What is the meaningful common-sense interpretation of "I can't work here anymore" (was that even the literal wording?) that Timnit intended and Google failed to recognise?

If you are instead just saying that Google should have let it slide because it was just an emotional outburst ("anger and frustrations") and not meant to be taken seriously, well, in what context can we hold adults to their word at all? Email is written communication, not an offhand verbal remark uttered in a tense meeting in anger. You should be able to see what you are about to send while typing it, and have ample opportunity to look over it again before you press that "Send" button. If your ability to review your words has atrophied, perhaps under the influence of social media which encourages "unfiltered" stream-of-consciousness venting, then this ought to be on you, simply because it is doubtful that society can function without some possibility of making binding statements and we do not have anything more commitmental than email widely deployed (and operable at the pace of the modern workplace) in work-from-home times.

> What is the meaningful common-sense interpretation of "I can't work here anymore" (was that even the literal wording?) that Timnit intended and Google failed to recognise?

That something completely UNACCEPTABLE is happening, and needs to be addressed.

Unacceptable to her. Fine, she is entitled to that opinion. She is not entitled to everybody sharing that opinion. If there is no common ground, the involved parties should part ways. Which she expressed. And the other side followed through. Which she now is upset about.

If she really wanted to achieve change within the system she'd have needed to not express it this way. There are people on both sides of the table. One can talk to people and find common ground. But that is rare to work if you start with a threat.

Sure, but you can't give an ultimatum like "... then I can't work here anymore" and not follow through with it.

Sorry, one can't go make a black-or-white threat and then expect people to not take it at face value. She literally wrote "if you don't do this-and-that then I can't work here anymore". If people then act on that then she can't go complain that they did. It's not a meaningful defense to claim well employees are just people. She should not say such a thing if she does not mean it. Words and actions have consequences.

Even pull the victim card, blast it all over social media. Sorry, that's a major disservice to everybody _actually_ being dehumanized. She's just dissatisfied with her employer and wants to make the biggest possible splash now.

You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how someone else is or you feel they are. Personal attacks are particularly not allowed and you've posted more than one of them. Beyond that, your comments have been almost all flamebait and/or unsubstantive and/or nasty, so I'm going to ban this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. Here they are: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Note that we want thoughtful, curious conversation here, and when the topic happens to be a divisive one, comments need to become more thoughtful, not less.