Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 1001 posts

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#571

Post by flukus »

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

Appeasement also doesn't work on the type of people that were calling for his head. Soon they'll be demanding that anyone that shared the document internally be fired, then they be calling for everyone that agrees with it to be fired.

This is just the start of the witch hunt that will follow.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#572

Post by Houshalter »

puranjay wrote: post #567
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

They did screw up. But this guy had to be fired. Not because they had to make an example out of him, but because by publicly sharing his biases, he's ensured that a large part of Google wouldn't want to work with him. It's a team sport after all.

There's an internal survey at Google that shows about 40% of employees agree with him. They are just rightfully scared of speaking out.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#573

Post by Kluny »

jorgemf wrote: post #235
tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire wom…

As a woman with a disability who got hired by a diversity program, I don't give a fuck. I just need a job. Working at McDonald's sucks balls. If I really couldn't do the job, they could have fired me at the end of my probation period. I'm quite happy to earn my position after I've got it.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#574

Post by puranjay »

jorgemf wrote: post #235
tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire wom…

So in my country, we have our own version of affirmative action called caste-based reservations. Basically, if you belong to a certain caste, there are seats reserved for you in every government institution (schools, universities) and public sector jobs.

One of the smartest people I know belongs to one of these castes. She is brilliant at her job but constantly worries whether she got in because of her brains or because of the reservations.

There is STILL a serious need for reservations and affirmative action in my country, but man does it screw with people.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#576

Post by eagsalazar2 »

DannyBee wrote: post #566
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

This viewpoint completely ignores the internal consequences of doing what you suggest. It's in fact, very strange to me to simply assert "they got it wrong" without even knowing the internal state of affairs well enough, which, from what i can tell, you wouldn't (I googled and linkedin searched pretty hard, so if you do work there, my apologies!). There was also clearly no winning externally no matter what they did.…

People who are admitted to jobs or universities via affirmative action but don't think this raises questions in the minds of people they work with are living in a fantasy land.

Having said that yeah people mostly live in fantasy lands and this guy disrupted that suspension of disbelief at least in his one case which makes him a tough commodity to deal with internally. But firing him wasn't required and was grossly unethical. They should have just let him sleep in the bed he shit in and he probably would have been gone within a few weeks anyway.

Now the guy is a goddamn martyr to the butthurt-white-male party.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#577

Post by floatingatoll »

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #570
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

I can't imagine the rage this has unleashed within google. Google will be fundamentally fractured internally because of this one decision.

Google was fundamentally fractured and didn’t know it. Now they know it. At least that’s a start.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#578

Post by peak_body_yo »

drawkbox wrote: post #248

It was a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment even if you agree with some of it. At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company/product better, but the people around you better. It is mostly not healthy to get political or ideological at work unless you want to divide people. A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base.…

> A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base.

The company and its employees have very publicly political. This is the trend for most of the big tech companies. I wish they were much less political and the companies chose more moderate viewpoints.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#579

Post by boyce »

nyxtom wrote: post #478
Waterluvian wrote: post #101

I believe that equal opportunity among all persons is manifest. But I think the manner in which we encourage/enforce/promote it, especially in the workplace, demands debate. We must be able to disagree with the methods without any question of our belief of its purpose. The most disgusted I've ever felt at a workplace was when my boss, prior to me interviewing someone, said, "and she gets an extra point because she's…

Furthermore, what happens when your boss doesn't say that; you make some objective remarks that she wasn't the best candidate, but she is hired anyways. I suppose this is why you have randomized groups interviewing without knowledge of who is doing the interviewing. By abstracting this away, your bias against the candidate will only be your bias alone in review. Collectively, the majority of interviewers would have t…

Women are also generally more critical of women in these situations
Post reply on HN